Sheeple and the Hoax

One of the greatest things about Social Networking, (Facebook) is the ability to spread a message quickly through the network. Even TV has to struggle to keep up with the speed of this amazing conglomeration of friends, fans, family and assorted hangers-on. Raising awareness, raising money, and simply raising spirits are all easily accomplished with the amazing thing that is Facebook. It is a powerful tool, made even more powerful by the very people who use it.



Power comes with a certain amount of responsibility. The people behind Facebook do their part trying to keep the users safe from the Loonies out there in the cybersphere trying to cause problems. Mischief Makers, and hackers, those that would create malicious viruses, and those who would steal our data and identities. Yet there is another responsibility that we can't depend on anyone but ourselves to exercise, and we must get better at wielding this responsibility.



The reason that we can spread a message so quickly is because we have easily grasped the "copy & paste" method of status updates. In many cases this has been a boon, spreading Amber Alerts across the world in a matter of hours. Getting out the message that Dragons are dangerous, (or that they like you with ketchup!) thanking our mothers and step-mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters and every other family member that we want to butter up. We can raise awareness of anything and everything that we think needs the awareness of raised. Sometimes we get carried away and forget that not everything we read is the truth, and before we know it we have become part of a problem rather than a cure.



There are far too many people who get their kicks by starting and spreading misinformation and trying to scare society in general, and far too often they do it so sneakily that nobody bothers to check the facts. The facts are the biggest thing that most people forget. They can read a post that includes the words "on the news" or "from a reliable source" and never bother to check for themselves whether something is true or just some knucklehead trying to start a panic. When we are sitting at our computers we literally have the WORLD at our fingertips.



Snopes.com, Facebook security, and at least a dozen other websites specialize in finding the facts of any crazy "news" story that crops up online and spreads like wildfire because people copy & paste without ever looking for backing facts. No matter how outlandish something seems, if people read the words that their friends post and "saw on the news", they will copy & paste into their own status with all urgency and never look back. They feel that they have done a great service to society and never bother to see if any of it is true. Sometimes it's harmless, but other times, it throws a giant monkey wrench into something that was going so well, and doing some good.



The best example of this happened in the first weeks of December. According to a story on ABC News a group of friends in Greece ( the Mediterranean country not the town or city) decided that it would be fun to try and subvert their Facebook profiles and replace their usual pics with cartoon characters. This morphed into something with people trying to raise awareness of child abuse. So by putting a cartoon character in your profile picture, and copying and pasting the status one would be "joining" the cause. Even for those who did no more than read the status updates and see why suddenly, all of their friends had cartoon profiles, there was a little good being done. In the follow-up stories there was a notable spike in donations to child welfare causes over the second week of December, over and above the normal rise associated with the holiday season. Cut to the second Monday of December and suddenly there appears in the statuses the message that The cartoon characters are "a ploy by pedophiles" to snare children with their friend requests. It was "on the news" and "seen on TV". But it was nothing of the sort.



In fact what DID make the news was that the campaign had actually had the effect it had intended, raised awareness of child abuse and neglect. As cited above there was a spike in charitable donations world wide towards child welfare charities, yet all it took to dry this thing up, was the mere mention that it was a ploy by pedophiles. Within hours, in fact probably 5 times faster than the original "Change to a cartoon" Status, there came the wave after wave of the warning, all caps and screaming that it was "ploy by pedophiles". The hoaxsters know the buttons to push. In a matter of a day, all the good that was done in two weekends of cartoon characters was washed away.



18 hours after I first saw the "pedophile" update, I finally found the debunking of the hoax on Snopes. But it was too late, too many people had already seen the hoax and jumped on the band wagon, without ever doing their own research to verify the source of this "TV News Show" where this story supposedly broke. The Sheeple had fallen for the Hoax, again.



I can't blame people for being cautious, but what I do blame them for is being cautious in the wrong way. These days of 24 hour news channels have made people live in fear. What once upon a time would have been a regional story at best, lost hikers, parental kidnap, high speed pursuit, or anything that might make the local TV news is now blasted nationwide in a matter of minutes, especially on a slow national news day. Every story gets it's own graphic and trumpeting lead in. Teasers into the commercials, and shots from every angle, inside and out, up and down. Society has become the lookouts for "the next big story." Cellphone video makes the 6 o'clock news and gets picked up by CNN and MSNBC and FOX News. The stories are picked apart and analyzed by any expert who wants to make a few bucks and a little screen time. We are NOT the better for it. We panic at the slightest provocation, looking for a bogeyman behind every bush, and if we can do our part we feel that we have done right.



But our part is to be responsible with the power that we have, taking a few minutes to look for a few facts to be sure that we are sharing the truth with our friends and family. THAT is doing Right.

Peevish

One thing that drives me nuts is when people screw up their own language, especially when they do it thinking they are correct! I don't mind it when someone knows better and simply makes a point of mistakes, in a joking manner. Like when someone pronounces "scissors" as "skissors", or when they pronounce the "k" in knife, knee or knob, that is funny and obviously a purposeful mispronunciation . What drives my nutty however, is the misstatement of a normal everyday expression, and there is one in particular that has been bugging me lately and it seems to be getting worse.

For all of my life there has been an expression using an adjective, to express surprise, and the expression is, "All of a sudden..." Somewhere in the last few years I have noticed various people using the misstated expression, "All the sudden..." Apparently it began as the slight misstatement, "All of the sudden..." but somewhere along the line people began dropping the "of" from the expression and they have managed to bastardize an already bastardized expression! What the hell is wrong with saying it correctly? Drives me nuts!!

Now the other thing that I have been thinking about lately has to do with relationships. Specifically, how people treat each other in them. I have been noticing recently that many people in long term relationships treat each other quite poorly. It is odd to me how the behavior that we wouldn't tolerate in strangers, or even our friends, we let our "lovers" get away with regularly. We often let them walk over our feelings and treat us with near disdain, and disrespect. Yet, if the people that we called friend treated us with half of the same disrespect we would drop them from our lives and probably never talk to them again. However, when the person that we share our life with treats us this way, we give them chance after chance, and yet they do it over and over again. If you caught a friend lying to you on multiple occasions, you would walk away from them and find new friends. If you found your friends stealing from you, you would not remain friends for very long, still, time and again those that we "love" are allowed another chance. Stupid people. If you can't be friends with someone, how can you fall in love with them? I just don't get it!

Don't bitch if you don't participate!

Once again I have seen a letter to the editor in the local newspaper crying about how the person and her husband refused to vote in the recent election because there was no candidate that they felt they could vote FOR. Why, oh why, do these piss poor citizens continue to express their poor logic? Simply abstaining from voting is not going to do ANYTHING except allow your opinion to go unheard at the local polls. And then you have the gall to write a proud letter to the paper and say that you didn't vote! The very reasons that you have chosen not to vote are the same reasons why you SHOULD vote!! You didn't like the candidates.... Then WRITE IN the candidate that you think should be on the ballot. If you can't think of anyone, do what I do, write in " None Of The Above" signaling that you are not happy with any of the choices or possibilities.

One of the things that REALLY annoys me about the election process is when a candidate is shown on more than one line of the ballot. Why is the same person listed as a Republican, a Conservative and an Independent? If you're a Republican you SURE aren't an Independent. This is one of those things where you just can't be both. So people cast their ballot on the Independent line... so what? The Republican still wins, and nothing changes! Half the time these candidates are the incumbents to boot! WTF!!! I have participated and by the sacred Internet I'm gonna bitch.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that the None Of The Above line is becoming a necessity in the American Electoral process. The system has become so stacked and slanted that a true grass roots change is nearly impossible, and it seems that there has to be some new method of change instituted . The founding fathers gave us the mechanism within the constitution to adjust our process and to adapt to the climates of the unforeseen future. They knew what history had proven, that change was inevitable and there needed to be a way for the laws of the land to adapt with the times or the law would not last and hold. 200 years ago our constitution was quite unique in it's formulation, and today it stands as a model for fledgling democracies around the world. But we need to once again prove that we are a leader for a reason and we need to show the world once again that we can change and find a way to make the system work again as it was meant to work.

The system was meant to be, of the people, By the people and FOR the people, and today it seems that it no longer is of, by or for the people. We need to bring the system back to it's roots, when the politician wasn't a lifetime career, but a part of a man's life. The farmer or shopkeeper did his turn in the government, and then went back to his real job. A lifetime politician was a king or a queen. Royalty and aristocracy were the only lifetime politicos. They served at the will of the people, because a good revolution could always change the balance of power. There was a time when the governing were rightfully fearful of the governed, but today it is quite the opposite. The money is the power in America today. The rich businesses, the banks and insurance companies hold the true sway in government, and the average person , the voter, has only the power to pick one of the money's choices and one is as bad as the other.

None Of The Above could truly bring about the needed changes, but what Politician has the courage to do what is right, instead of what is politically expedient?

Random thoughts put is no order

So it has occurred to me that our President could get more accomplished if he actually DID something rather than get on TV and talk about what he WANTS to do. I can't remember any President who has been on TV more than Mr. Obama. He is on in the middle of the day, he disrupts the afternoon soaps, or he gets some prime-time spots to screw up the TV viewing schedule. It has gotten to the point where the networks are actually deciding NOT to air his addresses live, because there have been so many of them! When the network news is no longer taking you seriously, it's time to rethink your approach.

If government run healthcare is good enough for our veterans and our elderly (well maybe not elderly, but them what's old enough for Medicare) why is it "socialism" to offer it to the general population? I don't understand how "Socialized Medicine" is good enough for our military personal, but not all of us.

Why is it ok to try to change the constitution to elect Arnold Schwarzeneggar president? President Obama was born in Hawaii which is a State and was a State when he was born there. It has been proven time and again, too bad there wasn't a video of the birth, but then in this day and age it is likely that even that would be called into question. Just because his dad was Kenyan, his mother was still American. He was born in Hawaii in 1961, Hawaii became a State in 1959, soooo.... He is a natural born American Citizen. Just like so many of the children born to the Cuban Exiles, or the Italian, Polish, Russian or whatever, immigrants, by being born inside the borders of the United States of America, he is a citizen. So bite it "birthers!"

How do you believe in a talking snake, but not evolution? How do you swallow that an omnipotent/omnicient being created all the universe in 6 days, but not that some lightening in the primordial ooze sparked life? Why does "God" support your team and not the opposing team? What is the difference between God, Odin, Zeus, Allah, and Whoever you choose to worship? Do not all religions essentially teach the same things? why is one better than another? They all have their problems and their good points. Take all the good stuff and discard all the bad and you don't need a church, temple, or mosque. It's time for religious institutions to pay taxes or to put ALL of their money into the charities that they profess to support.

Vote against the incumbent, even if it means writing in "None of the above". The Democrats control the White House, The Senate and Congress, yet they can't pass legislation. The Republicans will get something done, even if it is wrong. Why is that? Too bad that the people who are supposed to be smart, haven't got the brains to get something accomplished!

Crazy shit rolling around in my head. Tired of the crap, I just want to see people agree for a few days, and get something done that actually benefits the people of America rather than the people who are elected to represent us. In other "free" countries the Government is afraid of the people, but in our country the people are afraid of the Government. Why is that?

Once again, it's about responsibility...

So here we are with more dumb-asses in the news. How did it come to a dumb-ass, celebrity, gossip-blogger becoming NEWS? So he writes something that is not appreciated by his targets, and eventually one of those targets decided to confront him. Sooner or later one of those targets is not gonna care about a police record and take a poke at him. Seems to me that if I was a celebrity target of these idiots I would have a goon on retainer to go break some fingers now and then.

Of course you know that I'm pissed off about this Perez Hilton Bullshit. These Gossip bloggers hide behind the first amendment like it's armor. I can barely think of them as journalists. As much as I like and respect Harvey Levin, I can't consider TMZ to be real news, and I can't consider him or his associates to be journalists. They are snoops and busybodies. That's it. Perez Hilton is a dopey little twerp who realized that by writing about celebrities, eventually they would take notice of him, and he would get to actually hang out with them. Now that he is himself a "celebrity", (I consider that to be dubious at best ) he has become a target of his own kind. He is the subject of the bloggers.

If you talk shit about people long enough one of them is going to not want to talk. The 1st Amendment protects the freedom of speech and the freedom of expression. By the current standards that means that anyone can say anything about anyone, as long as they can either :A) prove or verify the statements, or B) qualify the statement as rumor or opinion.

Opinion, there is the sticking point, because as the old saying goes, "Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and they are sure that theirs doesn't stink." Well, when you voice your opinion long enough and loud enough, you eventually piss people off, especially those whom you are expressing your opinion about. While it is less likely to happen these days, because most people don't feel like making an idiot rich, there was a day when a person was expected to defend their honor, or that of their friends. That often meant calling the idiots and braggarts out to the street for a good old fashioned ass whuppin'. If the braggart won, he kept his honor and the right to talk his particular brand of shit, but if he lost, he was expected to (and usually would) retract all derogatory statements and issue apologies, or expect another ass whuppin' in the near future.

Not today! No way man, if someone decided to make your life miserable, by writing crap about you on their website, you're pretty much stuck with it. There is pretty much no recourse, other than writing your own line of crap on your own website. This is progress! Nope, I think it's time to look at certain laws and bring back the the field of honor. There is no need for killing, that's a little harsh in general. (but not always!) Perhaps it's time to make the bragadocious knuckleheads who spend their lives making other people miserable feel a little actual pain. Just because they say that they are only using words, it is only words that cause many teenager each year to take their own lives, because they can't deal with the repercussions of those words.

The great writers like to say, "the pen is mightier than the sword." Yet, when called on the pain their writing causes to people, they love to respond, "But it's only words." So which is it, your majesties? Does the power of the pen trump Stick and Stones, or is it possible that you must take responsiblity for the pain that your words cause? Someday you may well get more than a black eye for writing mean things about people. Even if you do it in jest, or with a grin, not everyone knows that you're doing it in such a way. And when you get self-righteous about your right to write what ever you wish, just remember that Karma is a bitch, and sooner or later you will have to pay a price for the meanness that you put into the world.

OH yeah, and one more thing, If you were truly hurt, you would not have tweeted about your assault, until you were in the ER sitting in a bed and getting stitches. If you can't take your medicine, don't play in the rain!

So Ironically, I have spent my freedom of speech talking shit about PEREZ HILTON. But you know what? It's only words!

Life continues... for some....

People continue to die, and the US government continues it's Genocide of the American Indian. There is far too much for the American Government to finish on the reservations of America, before they can even hope to be able to begin formulating a healthcare plan for the general public. Prove that they can care for the people that they tried to eradicate, and then maybe they can start working on the rest of the population. The government has the bad habit of making a law and then forgetting about it. This is this proof. The US Government needs to revisit the books from time to time and adjust for the current situation, this is definitely one of those time. 700 Billion dollars to bail out idiot financial "wizards", yet people continue to die. There is no need for it, and no good excuse either.

" A rose by any other name..."

As the Bard wrote in "Romeo & Juliet", "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." It is a truth of humanity and life in general, that no mater what you call something, it is what it is, and no changing of the name can make the debate more or less meaningful. What brings this up you ask, 2 things, assholes ( the people not the body part) and "Gay Marriage".

First the assholes, The internets seem to be stuffed full of them, crammed to the gills with jerks of every shade and texture who think they are being "truthful" or "honest" or "real". By writing in the comments of blogs and comics and news articles, they take the time to spill bile on the works of others. They feel that their opinion matter more than anyone else's and it makes no difference that they are tactless and generally ignorant of most social graces. I have pretty much given up on reading comments sections of many comics and blogs because of these argumentative and annoying know-it-alls and their need to argue every point of minutia, ad nauseum. Someone creats something that is funny or interesting, or beautiful to some people and that is great. Yet there are those who feel that it is their job to speak for those who don't like something. If you don't find it funny, or intersting or beautiful, go find something that you do like. You don;t have to ruin the enjoyment for those of us who do like it, for whatever reason we choose to find it enjoyable. I bet these are the same people who pinch babies just to hear them cry. Bullies are bullies, because no one can or has stood up to them. When the hide behind a computer keyboard and piss on everything the can find on the web and call it honesty, they are just jerks. Come tell me to my face that I suck, and I may respect you dumb ass! Until you have that much stones, leave your bile in your notebook and let the rest of the world enjoy the creativity of others as we see fit.

Now on the subject of "gay marriage", I couldn't care less whether two people of the same sex get married or not. Calling it a :"Civil Union' instead of a marriage makes no freakin sense at all, because all marriages equal a civil union if you have been "legally" married in the eyes of the state. If you have had a wedding at a church, it is called a "ceremony" and is nothing more than a ritual performed in front of friends and family, but it is not a legal union until the marriage certificate is filed with the local authorities. It gives you the right to file taxes as a couple, and to collect death benefits from insurance, and to cover a spouse with insurance. Now many of the opposition say that the insurance is the big problem it will increase premiums and make it harder to pay for insurance if all the gays can put their spouses on their insurance. As opposed to the straight people who make kids by the thousands each year and add them to their insurancd policies? It is less likely that a gay couple will add a child to their insurance. No unlikely, simply less likely. In many cases the gay couples who wish to marry, have already had and raised their kids, and they are independent persons with their own families. In the cases of the younger couples, perhaps they will have a child of their own, or maybe adopt, but the statistics say that it is likely that they will only have or adopt one child, and in rare instances 2. Breeders may have 3,4,5 or more kids. By design or by accident, they will have 2.5 kids ( that's what the statistics say!) where you get half a kid I have no idea! But still, adds to the insurance costs for everyone and it's not the gays we need to worry about! Marriage also allows for hospital visitation, and legal transfer of land, and to provide citizenship to those not born in America. There is no reason that makes sense for keeping these people from calling what they want a marriage. A rose called a turd blossom still smells like a rose, and if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you can call it a parrot all you want, but I bet it is still a duck.

So just keeping it real, Let them gays get married for cryin' out loud, who does it really hurt? No one!

Sick of Advertising!!!

I love TV and Radio, and I Hate Commercials!!! It's not that I dislike the fact that people need to advertise, I understand the needs of business and the want for more traffic. What gets on my nerves is the Idiotic commercials that so many people find cute or funny. Once or twice they are cute or funny, but when you listen to the radio for the entire workday you hear these commercials 10 or 15 times in a day (depending on how much the advertiser spends)and they begin to sound extremely annoying. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if changing the station would change the commercials, but it doesn't.

Especially the national campaigns, like McDonald's, BK, or ( gods Help me!) Geico. I long for the day that that dumbass gekko gets run over by a car or made into a grease smear on a windshield! I have come to the conclusion that Micky D's is geared towards the biggest idiots in the country, and BK commercials are made by Biggest idiots in the country! As much as I enjoy my DirecTV, I wish that idot would kick his "friends" out of his house when they won't let him watch his game on cable, whether it is in HD or NOT!!! IT"S HIS GOD DAMN HOUSE!!!! Kick those Idiots out, it's not an intervention when your are not being harmed, and if they want to change your programming so bad, they can pay for it!!! If they are so offended at the lack of HD they can go watch the Game at their own house!!! Take away the chips and salsa and give them no beer!

The kid who won't keep his rollover minutes is another idiot!!! His mother is such an idiot that she should just take his phone away and make him pay for his own plan. Simple people!!! What other ones are getting on my nerves lately? Hmm, let me think.... I'm sure that something will come to mind. OH yes!! I remember now...

The Whopper Jr. commercials..... I would like to see someone come around to the drive through with a shotgun when that punk starts screaming about the buck. And when he is at the therapists office with his dad, that boy need a swift kick right in the nuts (sesame seeds?) to remind him that he is jr. and not the boss. I wouldn't buy a whopper jr. if they were ¢10 each, just because I hate the ad campaigns so much.

I am sure that there are millions of people who are led to the products that are being advertised by these insane, inane and decidedly stupid campaigns, but because they have gotten on my nerves so much I am sure to avoid the products no matter how great they are. Think with your dipstick Jimmy! Not this boy, I'm never gonna buy the product, EVER! That little Scotsman ever came up and whipped me on the back of the legs with a dipstick, you can guarantee that he will fall to the floor with brains leaking out of his ears and a 9mm bullet hole in his forehead. Entirely too much money is spent trying to get us to buy crap. If the stuff was really worth it, we would be buying it. Not because we saw the ad, but because everyone who had it was happy and talking about it. If that money was put into making the stuff better? We might actually want to buy it without the blitz krieg advertising.

You know that Americans are Sheeple and will follow any fad. If the neighbor is in love with it, then soon you will have to have it too!!! You know it's true!

Get out the Lube!!

It's Insurance Time!!! Yes indeed, it is time once again, to pay that mandatory extortion money to the wonderful auto insurance company! Can you tell I'm so freakin' thrilled!!? The lobbyists have made it so that not only do you HAVE to have insurance on your vehicle in order to drive on public roads and to register your vehicle. Failure to have coverage will result in fines, license revocation or suspension, and possibly even jail! You know that when I say "the Lobbyists" I mean that they have lobbied the state legislature successfully to enact these laws.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against the "security" that insurance gives us, to not have to pay out thousands of dollars more if we were to get into an accident or be involved in such by no fault of our own. However, what I am against is the constant increases in premiums even though I have not had a claim, let alone a violation, that should affect my rate in nearly 20 years. The only ticket that I have had since 1990 is a seat-belt violation 5 years ago. ( In the passenger seat of a van that was so beat up that I couldn't FIND the seat-belt!) The closest that I have come to a claim was denied in 1996 when my dad dropped a 5th wheel on the bedrails of my truck, and they denied me the $750 repairs. I drove the truck with those dents for 9 years! ( I did get a new set of tires out of it though since dad felt so guilty! LOL )

SO here is my proposal, Let's all get together and petition the Federal Government for a redress of this Grievance thus: make it so that after 5 years without a claim or a moving violation the insurance premium goes down by 20%. Each year for the next 5 that you remain free of violations and claims your premium will be cut by this same amount ( The amount of the original 20%, not 20% of the new premium), resulting in a $0 premium after an accident free 10 year period. Any violation or claim will reset the clock and you will once again be back to paying your full premium.

The current system sucks and barely benefits the public that it is meant to protect. Trying to get payed for a claim takes a team of lawyers, and sadly they end up with a part of your payout so your screwed at the start! You just can't win it seems that the system is set up so that the rich get richer and we little peons continue getting screwed in the ass by the corporations.

We need to Organize against the Tyranny!

Verbal ticks and other piss-me-offs!!

I have noticed lately that people are more and more writing their verbal ticks into their correspondence and blogs. While I understand a "character" writer using this technique to show the personality of the character, when you are writing as yourself and everyone already knows your character and you're trying to at least seem intelligent, why? Words like "gah" and "meh" and even "like" and "ya know" are becoming more prominent in the written language, and they are a pain in the eyes. They drive me nuts as much as other grammatical bad habits. I can understand certain regional things, but a verbal tick is just insane to accentuate in your writing.

Verbal ticks were recently brought into the mainstream consciousness by no less than the Daughter of Camelot, Caroline Kennedy. In her failed bid to be appointed to Hillary Clinton's vacant senate seat, she was interviewed for a broadcast news show and her verbal ticks became the fodder of the critics for weeks. So much so that it actually made her rethink her wishes to get into politics. She is smart and well written, but when she speaks she has her crutches. Nobody who has read the things that she writes would have expected that in a one-on-one unscripted interview she would come across sounding like an ill prepared teenager, " like... ya know?"

Another Piss-me-off lately that I have been noticing more and more is people saying, "All the sudden..." Where did they learn English? The phrase is, "All of a sudden..." , or "suddenly" I have no idea where or when people began saying, "the sudden", but I remember taking note of it sometime in the last year, because I thought it sounded odd. Then I heard it a few more times and I began to pay attention to it, and I find it more and more in common usage. It sounds like someone who never understood song lyrics, trying to repeat what they have heard. It's a "bad moon on the rise.", not a "bathroom on the right." and Jimmy says, "Excuse me while I kiss the sky!", not "Scuse me while I kiss this guy!"

A few weeks ago I brought up the use of the article "an" in front of the word "historic", and I have figured out the reason for this. Grammar gurus like to remind people that the correct usage is to use "a" in front of a consonant, and "an" in front of a vowel, but when the consonant is silent such as is the usual usage for words like "herbs" and "homage" the usage should be the same as the vowel lead. Historic is a HARD "h" sound!! written or spoken in should be "A historic..." , however the "a" sound should be the long sound as in "pain", rather than the short "a" sound as in "sofa".

Freaking Geniuses!! Good thing there is a freedom of speech.