TANcast

Ominous title for a Valentine’s Day post, eh?

Speaking of Mentos, I had the worst dream last night that I think I have had in a decade or more. Woke up uncontrollably upset, if that gives you any clue. I regularly have weird, vivid, often even upsetting dreams, but this is the first time in a long while that I have been unable to sleep afterward.

The short version is that I dreamed I was going to be murdered and there was nothing I could do about it. I had a few minutes to get my affairs in order and say goodbye to whomever I could get in contact with and then it was the end for me. No running, no hiding, no fighting back: I was just going to die.

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I have long argued that people need to pass a test on critical thinking before they be allowed to vote. As it stands, voters (especially here in California, even several I know and love) tend to vote from emotion or whim rather than based on facts or careful examination of ALL sides of an issue.

To all the people who decided that CA Prop 69 was a good idea (even those close to my heart), I’d just like to take a moment to reiterate what I said about trusting people with your personal information.

As a quick review, this was the proposition, now passed, which will change mandatory DNA collection in the state. California previously required that DNA be collected from convicted violent felons and cataloged for matching against other past and future crimes. Now the collections rules apply to all convicted felons, all convicted sex offenders and arsonists (including those convicted of attempting to commit of either crime) regardless of class of crime, and all adults arrested for or charged with either a sex offense, murder, or voluntary manslaughter or the attempt of one of those 3 crimes. Starting in 2009 the law will also require collection from any adult charged or arrested for any felony. The rules are retroactive, too, so anyone currenly in jail, on parole, or on probation for any felony, sex offense (attempted or committed), or arson (attempted or committed) will have to submit to DNA collection and cataloging. There is no provision requiring the government to remove your DNA if you are acquitted, charges are dropped, or you are released without being charged.

This will help cast a wider net to catch violent offenders, right? This will never be misused by the government, right? DNA evidence and collection and storage are all 100% error-proof, right?

Leaving all those issues aside, I actually came to argue about the safety of the data in the system so have a look at the following news blurb:

A sophisticated computer hacker had access to servers at wireless giant T-Mobile for at least a year, which he used to monitor US Secret Service email, obtain customers’ passwords and Social Security numbers, and download candid photos taken by Sidekick users, including Hollywood celebrities, SecurityFocus has learned.

Twenty-one year-old Nicolas Jacobsen was quietly charged with the intrusions last October, after a Secret Service informant helped investigators link him to sensitive agency documents that were circulating in underground IRC chat rooms. The informant also produced evidence that Jacobsen was behind an offer to provide T-Mobile customers’ personal information to identity thieves through an Internet bulletin board, according to court records.

This is just the latest in a long history of computer intrusions, public, private, and government. Yes, Virginia, government systems get hacked, too. Now we get to run the risk of being arrested without cause and having information about out DNA stuck in a database with felons and other poor suckers, and since there is no such thing as 100% perfect security all this exceedingly personal information could be compromised by nefarious characters not employed by the state.

In a worst-case situation I can get a new Social Security Number. Where can I get new DNA?

Last night I humped my new TiVo a little.

We just traded in Comcast Cable for the sexy smooveness that is DirecTV and TiVo. We are no longer slaves to that goddamn box.

I wanted to go out and check on my laundry, so my roommate paused 24 for me. Paused it. Once I was back in, we made up the lost time by fast-forwarding the next commercial break until we were back in real-time. I quietly wept for the joy of it.

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Ass will be our downfall
Driving all mankind to distraction

Ass will be our salvation
Uniting us against a common foe

That is it. It is broken and it will never be fixed.

I don’t want to hear shit about “Oh, it will get better.” from anyone.

I know it will heal with time, but it will NEVER be anything but broken. We are just going to accept this as part of our lives at some point and go from there. It will still be broken, somewhere underneath the healthy veneer. A scar that will be there until the day the last one of us dies.

Sorry this wasn’t cheerful or entertaining, but that is just not where find myself. Go look at porn or something…

It just occurred to me that God is like a well-made barbecue burger with bacon and onion rings.

You see, both the burger and God are delicious, spicy, reasonably priced, and available at a convenient nearby Carl’s Jr. or other fine fast-food establishment.

Some people (and by that I mean “morons”) have been buying in to a really nifty lie for several years: bottled water is pure and safer than tap water.

I call bullshit.

If you don’t believe me, go check out the episode of Penn & Teller’s show (Bullshit) on this exact subject.

Better yet, check out what happened with The Coca-Cola Company and their new “pure” brand of water, Dasani.

First, let me digress and ask: What the fuck is up with these water brand names. “Dasani” sounds like something an Italian dude would ride down narrow streets with his buddy on the back while checking out chicks. “Crystal Geyser” sounds like a porn movie where some girl pees into the air. “Evian”, as Dennis Miller has pointed out, is “naive” spelled backwards.

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Guess what, boys and girls (and neuters). The Bush administration seems to have lied to us all about the nuclear development work in Iraq!

Put bluntly, not only does it now look like Saddam (a.k.a. “The Fucker with the Shoe-Polish Mustache”) had dismantled his nuclear arm development, but the Bush administration knew their “proof” was a laughable lie.

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GI Joe makes me giggle.

Vote your conscience, but do so based on fact, not sound bites or rhetoric you picked up from TV ads and posturing speeches. I swear to God that if I hear ANY of my friends spouting some shit they heard on TV as fact I’ll reconsider that friendship. Being weak is one thing. Being weak-willed is quite another.

Just in case anyone wonders how I will be voting, consider that the Bush administration:

• enriches the wealthy at the expense of the working middle class.
• empowers corporations at the expense of consumers.
• destroys fair use and the public domain by granting essentially perpetual corporate copyrights.
• enables media consolidation of unprecedented scale.
• feeds the fear of the masses to justify the erosion of civil liberties and personal rights.
• uses the Secret Service to silence peaceful protest.
• used unconfirmed intelligence from a dubious source to push for the invasion of a sovereign nation (a belligerent dictatorship, to be sure) over the protests of every international body.

Now, to every “Ditto Head” out there ready to dismiss me as some bleeding-heart liberal I want to say I am a conservative (or more specifically, a libertarian). I am predominantly moderate (leaning right of center) but with some liberal, some anarchist, and some fascist tendencies depending on the specific subject.

Feel free to take issue with any of the bullet points above, but come equipped with counter-proofs or at least a convincing argument regarding the irrelevance of the subject since I can back every one of my assertions with hard facts. Conjecture and rhetoric will be mocked tirelessly.