Land of Oz

Evolution

Hmm, it's been a while what with turkey and traveling and stuff like that there. So here we go again...back to my bitching...

It has become very obvious to me that evolution is a crock. There's just no way mankind could have lasted and still have people as stupid as there are running around today. One would think that after a few million years the really stupid folks would have been weeded out.

Today I was waiting in the post office to return an unsolicited package (which is a whole 'nother story). Something that would have taken me seconds to drop off at the counter - it didn't fit the mailbox you see. There was a lady a couple places in front of me wondering what to do with a bunch of one cent stamps - 15 to be exact. First she wanted the post office to buy them back, but they wouldn't do that. Then she asked what she could possibly do with one cent stamps - she said there was no way she could put 39 of them on one letter. The clerk had to explain to her that instead of using 39 one cent stamps, she could use her 15 one cent stamps together with a 24 cent stamp. And believe it or not, it took a couple of tries to explain this.

Once out of the post office and on my way back to work, I was driving down a four lane road. I was in the left lane since I was going to turn left in about a block or two. The car in front of me in the same lane put their right turn signal on, briefly moved right, then turned the signal off and returned to the left lane. About a block further, they then put their right turn signal back on and quickly swerved across the right lane to make a right turn off the road.

Can you picture these people's ancestors about 100,000 years ago trying to figure out that the lion in front of them with slobbering teeth and sharp claws was a threat and then what to do about it? Let's see, should I wait, no, maybe run left, no, maybe run right, no, maybe climb the tree, or... never mind, slash, gulp and swallow.

More Crap

AP News: TULSA, Okla. -- The parents of a teenager who died in the crash of a 1995 Ford Explorer Sport have won a $15 million verdict in their federal lawsuit against the automaker.

If you read the story you'll find the driver was doing 67 mph through a 30 mph curve while passing in a no passing zone when he crashed. (and this doesn't seem to be opposed by the defense)

I'm sorry, but this is crap. Yes, I have some sympathy for the parents, but your kid was just plain and simply stupid. I'm assuming he got the keys from you guys. Didn't you guys teach him that speeding and ignoring road signs wasn't the proper way to drive? Doesn't this make you as more responsible for the crash than Ford? I'm guessing if you got drunk and ran into a school bus, you'd sue the whiskey distiller? You have to take responsibility for your own actions.

On the other hand, if your teenage was driving down the highway at 70 mph and the front wheels fell of his truck or the engine blew up and you had your vehicle properly maintained, then I would be glad to see Ford pay. If he was driving on a bridge and it collapsed, or an overpass fell on his truck, yes, by all means sue the bridge owners. But just because your kid was reckless is no reason to make someone else responsible.

Not Only Me

Yahoo News: "Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they believe that most TV programming and advertising is targeted toward people under 40, the survey said. More than 80 percent of adults over 40 say they have a hard time finding TV shows that reflect their lives. ... A significant number of baby boomers — 37 percent — say they aren't happy with what's on television, according to the study."

It's nice to see I'm not the only geezer who hates so much of today's marketing. The music is bad enough, but I can understand music's appeal to buyers. I figure if I hate the music, I'm not going to like the product. This is especially true in some clothing stores, Abercrombie and American Eagle come to mind. It's not just that I don't like the music, but the volume is actually painful to me. My wife has learned to let me wait outside while shops inside places like that. I've made a comment before that stores like that should have a quiet night, so old-times like me could go shopping in there.

What is more irritating to me are the attitudes in a lot of commercials. Right now there's a Haggar commercial where some middle-aged guys rip a radio out of a passing car. While I'd often like to do that, to actually condone vandalism like that is just wrong. There was another commercial awhile back (a couple years or more actually) that showed a pickup truck (Chevy? - but not sure) running rampant through a placid picnic scene. Pickup truck ads really seem to be bad - are assholes the only people who buy them? Why promote more crime than is already out there? And why, when gas is going over $3 a gallon (not right, but soon again), do we really need a 400 horse pickup truck to go to 7-11 in? And the latest Target commericial is all about "I want" and "I need" and "I'm buying it." As if all greedy consumers out there really need yet some more cheapass trinkets.

On the other hand, a recent Vonage commercial was great. There was a Christine like orange van chasing down some would-be car strippers. However, two things I didn't like about it was driving through a store and the fact the van didn't squash the hoods like a summertime highway cricket against a windshield.

You've Been Screwed

Today was the second time in three days that I've had to go back out into the store to find either a regular or sale tag because the checkout clerk couldn't figure out the price and wouldn't believe me. The first was Lowes, where I had to go back and find some hardware with a price tag. The clerk called someone in that department but didn't believe me when I told her what I had and completely miss-identified the item to the person in the department. So I had to go back there and find another part with a bar code. And while I was there, the guy showed me another part I'd wanted that a previous guy back there said they were out of.

Today it was at Krogers. On the cheese aisle, there was a sign that said Kraft String Cheese, 7-12 oz, all varieties, $2.95. This was a pretty good deal since the regular price was $4.39. I usually use the self-scan checkout and the price scanned at 4.39. I told the clerk about it and she looked at a flier and told me I was wrong - it wasn't on sale. So I left everything sitting on the scanner counter and walked back to the dairy aisle and took the sign down and brought it back to the clerk. She took the sign and then closely looked at the string cheese I bought. I had to point out that it was Kraft and it was string cheese and it was 12 ounces. She finally put in a refund on the price. What a hassle. I felt like I was trying to embezzle from the company payroll instead of get my fair price on some stupid string cheese.

The big reason I catch this stuff is that I usually shop for small quantities so I can remember what the prices are supposed to be for the 10 - 15 items I usually purchase. And almost without exception, it's overpriced at checkout, not under-priced. And yes, there have been times in the past when I pointed the underpricing out. But not always. I shouldn't have to be the one to point out the price mistakes in the store.

I have to wonder what those folks who roll through with one or two heaped up shopping carts. Can they possibly keep track of the prices and notice that a pack of cheese is rung up at $4.39 instead of the $2.95 it's supposed to be? Somehow I doubt it. That also makes me wonder just how much the stores make on the incorrect prices they charge.

Terrorist Football?

In yet another clear example of collegiate sports gone nuts, there was a news report the other day about people from Michigan attending a football game against Ohio, in Ohio. Fans were told not to drive there in cars with Michigan plates and make sure they didn't display any Michigan clothes, colors or other trappings until they actually entered the stadium! This is just plain nuts. We used to get those types of instructions in the military during the 80s when terrorists like the Red Brigade were kidnapping and killing American GIs in Europe. In our case, it wasn't just Michigan, but the USofA. We weren't supposed to wear anything that might identify us as America military and we were supposed to get civilian passports instead of the military version.

I find it hard to believe that college sports have gotten to point where fans are being told not to visit except in disguise. Do college sports fans really have so little self control that they will attack someone just because they can be identified as an outsider? I guess you have to expect things like this when the players have riots and fights on the field, like the Florida fiasco not too long ago, or too many bench emptying baseball games. The coaches are just as bad (not too long ago, there was game called because of racial taunts by one team against another) And then there's the idiot parents teaching their kids like the recent yokel who jumped a teenage ref for tossing him (or his kid) out of the game. Makes you want to swear off watching college sports and watch something peaceful like hockey.

A Waste

I was going to put stupid as the title, but I've been using that a little too much lately. Yet another local soldier, 29-year-old Sergeant William "Jack" Jackson, was killed in Iraq on Veteran's Day. As I drove in this morning to work, I heard WNEM-AM (1250) do a report on it. A very short story (I think these deaths are becoming too common to be big news anymore) about this is also on their website.

First, let me just say that the reporter who did this report just plain annoys me regardless of content. I just really hate his voice and the way his puts his words in his stories together. So I tend to be a little more critical when I have to listen to him. The phrase that set me off this time was "...fitting day to die..." This guy has four young kids and a wife. Does anyone really think this was a fitting day to die for him? There is no such thing.

Our guys and gals are over there getting killed because of lies. After four years of war and peace-keeping the current result still allows around 150 (nobody knows the number for sure 40-150?) people were kidnapped right out of a school last week and about 120 more Iraqis were killed in other violence on the same day. And there's still no WMDs, Osama is still running around and you'd better not be flying United with a four ounce bottle of perfume in your purse. Oh, by the way, 2,853 American soldiers killed over there.

Speaking of waste, here's a semi-related bit about Pakistan's Muslims. Basically, Pakistan's national assembly has voted to amend the country's strict Sharia laws on rape and adultery (with the religious nuts loudly complaining). Until now rape cases were dealt with in Sharia courts. Victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime - if not they faced prosecution for adultery. So if you're a woman getting raped under the eyes of Mohammed, you'd better hope you have a lot of spectators who while not bothering to help, will testify at your trial.

Stupid

No - not someone else this time; this time it's me. I was working on some plumbing stuff in the basement (I can't begin to tell how much I dislike plumbing stuff) and had to paint a wood support I made. I'm bracing up some wobbly piping that was put in back in the olden days.

Anyway, after painting it, I hung it up near the heater vent. Then, naturally, I walked into it with my head, and it doesn't really sink in what I did. And yes, of course the paint is still wet. So, I walk past it and, yep, walk into it again. This time I figure out what I did and feeling the wet (bold green) paint on my head, I walk over to the sink and scrub my hair. Drying my hair off, I go to walk out of the basement and guess what - yep, for the third time.

So back to the sink and more hot water and soap and dry my hair off again. I turn off the lights and get ready to leave the basement - and NO, I didn't walk into the wet paint again. What the heck, it only took me three times to figure out that wet paint isn't good for your hair - sigh…

Bullies

Every so often, you read or hear a story about bullies in school in the USofA. It's far from a USofA problem. Here's an article on the BBC about some Japanese who committed suicide after being bullied. Did you notice it's not just kids? Bullies aren't only a school thing and they're nothing new. Bullies have been around forever and are everywhere. I've been pretty lucky in that my last couple of jobs haven't exposed to any bullies.

That's a far cry from when I went to high school. (And to give you an idea of how long ago that was, our phone had a dial and stayed in one place, there were just five channels of television available, and you still had to find a place to put your beer can pop-top.) One of my hopes (after all this time) is that someday I'll see one of those guys broke down on the side of the road, locked out of their car, with a pack wild voracious wolves bearing down on them. I'll wave, smile and drive to the next phone booth where I'd eventually find a quarter to call for help -- and then sleep quite soundly that night.

As far as I'm concerned bullies are not much different than rapists muggers who attack the weaker. The biggest problem is that bullies are usually not prosecuted the same way. How many times have you heard that they are "part of growing up." Why? Is someone who makes your life miserable five days a week, for nine months of the year really any less despicable than someone who hits you in the head once and steals your wallet?

Cigarettes

I've been watching DVDs of some older television shows and one that stands out in many of them is the amount of smoke and smoking that happens. A lot of scenes in Peter Gunn take place in nightclubs and the clouds of smoke seem almost unreal now.

This all brings to mind my smoking days - which I stopped doing about 20 years ago. At the time I quit I was up to about 3 - 4 packs a day. Back when I started, cigarettes were about 30 cents a pack (and gas was around 25 cents a gallon). Now I see cigarettes around $4-5 a pack. Cigarettes were everywhere. My desk in the USAF had a big round, amber colored glass ashtray on it. The seat rests in airplanes and buses had ashtrays in their armrests. Zippo lighters were ubiquitous and boxes containing books of matches could be found on many checkout counters in restaurants and drugstores. (And what would a gumshoe film be without the matchbook clue found at the scene?)

For me a big reason for smoking was just another useless part of trying to be cool. I can remember rolling my pack into the sleeve of my t-shirt (how cool was that?) and the occasional chemical burns on my thigh when my trusty Zippo leaked. The disastrous fling with Silva Thins and a cigarette case ala 007. Was the Marlboro man cooler than the urban hip of Silva Thins? (eventually to me, yes). And of course, who could get drunk without a pack of smokes on the bar?

And there were other mysteries and odd stories about smoking. Smoking a Lucky (LSMFT) and getting tobacco in your mouth (filterless remember). Were the cigarettes in Marlboro hard pack really different from the cigarettes in the soft pack? How cold did it have to be before the cigarette started to taste really strange. Drinking a beer or Coke that had had a butt put out in it. Putting out your cigarette in the mashed potatoes at the end of a meal. Dropping a cigarette between your legs while driving. Why did English Marlboros taste so bad compared to the US version. The "friend" who was always bumming smokes. Playing pinball with the cigarette balanced on the chrome strip at the bottom of the table. Long cigarette burns on the upholstery, rugs and clothes. Knocking a full ashtray to the floor. The mess of water socked butts in an outdoor ashtray.

And you know? Twenty years later without a smoke and I still the get the urge now and then.

11/11/11

The war to end all wars - that's sounds pretty stupid now doesn't it? Did you notice anything special yesterday? Probably not. Maybe you missed your mail or wondered who all those old guys in funny hats selling ugly paper flowers outside of Wal-Mart were, but that's probably about it for most people.

November 11, at 11 a.m. World War 1 ended. It was so horrible that everyone figured it would never happen again - yet, not twenty years later we did it all over again. And at various levels, we've been doing it pretty much non-stop ever since. What is it that makes us as a species so stupid. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Beirut, Kosovo, Israel, Egypt, are all just places where the only winners are the funeral directors.

The other day, some kid, Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham, received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his sacrifice in Iraq - posthumously of course. Would you be willing to bet that Jason would gladly swap that medal and all the ceremonies that went with it for a cold beer in his backyard?

I spent my 22 years in the USAF, but managed to duck pretty much every hostile action during that time. My biggest dangers were probably environmental; 100 mph winds in the Aleutians and Greenland, -60 degree weather in Fairbanks and hurricanes in Mississippi. I did manage to miss the terrorist bombs of Europe in the 80s (the terrorist bombs of today are nothing new). Instead of Al Quida, it was the IRA in England and the Red Brigade in Italy, the Red Army Faction in Germany. We used to have to go to work in Italy wearing civilian clothes and once spent a week in England confined to our office buildings -- too many protesters in the area. But never a "war."

But you know what? That tornado in Kansas or IRA bomber in London kills just as efficiently as a sniper's rifle in Vietnam or Kosovo. Do you think some kid's parents who see her body in a casket really care if she was put there by "enemy action" or because she was run over by a drunk driver outside the gates of Spangdahlem Air Base?

Until people finally figure it out, there's always going to be body bags coming back home. Someone's parents or spouse or kids will have to go through the paperwork of yet another body. Whether the body is full of shrapnel from some Medal of Honor recognized "enemy action" or was squashed under a dump truck while changing a tire, the kid is just as dead. Let's not try to polish the loss under the trappings of so-called military glory and its pomp and circumstance. It's still a dead kid because people are just too stupid to work things out - no amount of spit and polish will change that.

Voting Comments

I finished voting this morning - with a much lower number of people in line than I expected - and noticed the same two things that always strike me when voting.

I'm always surprised how many people have so much trouble filling out a ballot.

If a person isn't bright enough to fill out the ballot, how on earth can they make a responsible choice?
Yes, I know this ballot in Michigan is long - two sides of a pretty big chunk of cardboard. I also know it's not that complicated to fill out. It's broken into sections with names or yes and no for issues. Each section with candidates tells you how many you can vote for. To vote for or against an item, you fill in a broken arrow pointed towards your choice. Explaining it takes more time than just figuring it out.

I had two issues this year where advertising for the issue turned me against the issue. The only bothersome part of this is I'm never sure if that is bad (as in stupid) advertising for the issue or good advertising against the issue. The first was for a democrat, Carl Williams. Normally, I lean towards democrats, but in this case during the last "warmup" election some campaigner charged me down right up to legal 100 feet outside the voting venue and started pushing for Carl which turned me right off. I emailed Carl about this and never heard a thing. The remembrance of that "harassment" has overwhelmed any other message he may have sent since.

The second issue this time was dove hunting. Normally I probably would have voted against hunting the stupid little birds, but they have a most annoying commercial in support of banning hunting. You can tell the caricatures are supposed to be "normal" hunter-types. However, I'm guessing these "hunters" came right out of some model agency in downtown Ann Arbor or Troy. To me this shooting doves issue, seems like a complete waste of money and effort.

The bottom line is whatever your party, get out there and vote. You can even ask for help if the ballot is too difficult for you.

// posted by Jim-of-oz @ 11/07/2006 11:19:00 AM

More Stupid Stuff

There's been so much stupid stuff going on lately, that I wonder about the human race...

Gas prices - wow, they went down in the USofA a couple of months ago - from over $3 down to near $2. SUVs and truck sales went through the roof last month after going down for the last few months. Do these people really think gas is going to stay cheap?

WalMart - I'm not a big fan of them for many reasons and I rarely shop there. However, the latest yell against them was about the store cracking down on workers making them come to work on time or let their supervisors know they will be late!! OK - and that's wrong how? I dislike WalMart for a lot of reasons but expecting their employees to come work isn't one of them.

Kerry - this would have all blown over if you just said, "Oops, I fucked up." Even I was pissed when I heard what he said and then wouldn't own up to it.

Devil's Night in Michigan - I just wish there was a way to make sure those who started all the fires stayed inside the house they burned down.

Crime - yes it sucks that the police don't manage to stop crime... and it sucks even more that your complaining about it, instead of helping them catch the very criminals you're bitching about.

Education - and totally tied into the above is that in Saginaw the two high schools have a 49 and 76 percent truancy rate and parts of Detroit have a 25 percentage high school graduation (not drop out) rate.

Tasered - yes, there's probably been some small percentage of folks who died after being Tasered. How many dead do you think they'd be if they were Smith & Wessoned instead.

Political ads - they just suck. I really don't care if your opponent was a crossdressing alcoholic who ate crackers in bed - what are you going to do to fix our current mess?

Religion - a preacher would rather admit to buying amphetamines and a "massage" than own up to gay sex.

// posted by Jim-of-oz @ 11/03/2006 06:51:00 PM

Not Me

Fredrick News-Post:

"I was set up in the worst way," Biggs said of one witness who came forward, a co-defendant in another case.

Key pieces of evidence recovered by the Thurmont Police Department during a search of Biggs' residence more than two months after the crime included the two ski masks worn by the robbers, surveillance equipment including footage of the holdup and a cell phone taken from one of the Blockbuster employees.

Biggs is an admitted cocaine and heroin addict convicted of 10 felonies and 13 misdemeanors in the past. On Monday, he acknowledged his lengthy criminal history, but denied any involvement in the 10:45 p.m. robbery Dec. 18, 2005, at the business at 224 N. Church St.

There were two people who robbed the BlockBuster store at gunpoint tying the employees up with duct tape after the theft. The judge, by the way, sentenced Biggs to 25 years saying, "The evidence was very strong, ... You have a terrible record." Can anyone think of a better justification for the "three strikes and your life" sentencing program. This guy is working on multiple innings, let alone strikes. Why on earth is the hood still running around after 10 felony convictions (I'm sure there were some he wasn't convicted off). How long before he kills someone? Wasn't 23 arrests enough to put this guy away for good? Think of the poor kids in BlockBuster - it's just lucky they weren't shot.

On a whole different topic - well, not wholly different, we really need to get our crimes in order here. Why on earth does smoking some dope or charging for sex get you slammed into the slammer when there's people out there using guns and duct tape to get what they want? No doubt Biggs was stealing to pay for his habit. You can't tell me it would be worse if he could go down to the local government's Human Services office or whatever and buy some "safe" coke for a government controlled price. The twenties prohibition led to organized crime taking control of whole cities over booze, and now the new prohibition is letting it happen all over again.