There’s such a heated political environment this season.  Everyone is concerned about the Democrats losing Congress.  There is pressure on both sides of the debate in an extremely crucial non presidential election year.  All of the candidates are hard at work pushing advertisements about how great they’ll be  in office and all of the good things they plan to do when they get there.

Wait no they aren’t.  Everyone seems to have cut out the bull shit and instead are busy slamming the opposition relentlessly.  I complained to my wife about these ads and told her I’m going to make a list of and simply not vote for anyone running the ads.  She pointed out that the candidates don’t run the ads, it’s other groups running them on behalf.  While this is true, why do you think these ads run in the first place?  The group says “hey, we’ll donate some money to your campaign,” meanwhile the politician says “no wait, instead run these ads”.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter if they are directly supporting these ads or not.  They are still offensive.  Offensive to the people supporting them and offensive to the people watching them.  Is this how we really want to elect our politicians?  Based on who can piss all over the opposition the most?  Maybe these people need to wake up and actually listen to the public.  I constantly hear complaints about how everyone is sick of the government and sick of these idiot politicians.  Part of the reason is they are sick of this bull shit political bickering.

Fortunately there’s a third factor that’s cropping up more and more.  The third part.  The two primary parties are so preoccupied with telling us out lame the other side is that everyone seems to be completely ignoring the third party.  While I don’t particularly support the Tea Party, They seem to be the stronger contender for taking a few spots from the Democrats and Republicans, and i hope they succeed.  If only so people will maybe wake up to the fact that we don’t have to have two parties and we don’t have to stick with what obviously isn’t working worth shit.

There are some other issues to consider here.  It’s my belief that ultimately these ads are terrible for television.  They are offensive to watch, which turns off viewers.  They also tend to preempt regular advertising, which irritates the normal non-election season advertisers.  Sure, you end up with a great month but it would be interesting to see how it affects the long term advertisers as well as how the viewing habits of people are during October.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704334604575338921377737914.html

When they completed their health bill last year, Senate Democrats searched high and low for new taxes to pay for the legislation. One idea, a tax on cosmetic surgery dubbed the Botax, was scotched by lobbying by the American Medical Association. Instead, lawmakers turned to the indoor tanning industry.

Tanning salons, caught flat-footed, got burned. They’re now on tap to feed $2.7 billion to the federal government over the next decade, kicking off Thursday with what will be the first tax in the health-care law to take effect.

Here’s a little history lesson in governmental control methodology.  Back in the year 1920, there was an amendment to the constitution banning alcohol in the United states.  After much hassle, the error of this was seen and the amendment was repealed in 1933.

The problem with outright banning something is that it breaks down the illusion of non control.  It says “We don’t want you to do this, and we’re telling you that you can’t.”  The population doesn’t like this one bit.  Thankfully, the system has gotten good at convincing us to voluntarily “give up” these things that are undesirable.

Take smoking for example.  We’ve learned from prohibition that you can’t outright ban it.  So we have to work with other methods.  First step is to make it undesirable.  Campaigns to push the diseases that it could cause.  Campaigns to make the visual of smoking unattractive.  This will  work on the vain and the health conscious.  but you still have to get the rest of the normal folks.  The easiest way is through the pocket book.  Tax the companies.  Tax the sales.  Force the companies to pay for ad campaigns and awareness literature.  This means they foot the bill for the previously mentioned campaigns, which is a bonus.

Now you’ve made it both unattractive and unaffordable.  Not enough?  Now that you have the support of most people, you start pushing partial bans.  Not in restaurants, not in bars, not at the workplace.  Now you can only smoke in your own home.  Now you can only do it at certain times of the day.

In the end, you’ve crushed enough of the opposition that your outright ban will easily pass through.

So what about other issues?  Maybe you’ve got an idea of what it means to be healthy.  Tanning can cause Skin Cancer.  We’ve done the education part, now we move on to taxing it.  All in the name of the new Healthcare reform.

But what’s next?  Too much salt isn’t good for you.  Greasy fast food?  That makes people obese (Appeal to Unattractive Stigma) and it can cause heart problems (Appeal to Health). 

Maybe we should try that Alcohol thing again?  Liver damage?  Drunk Drivers?

How about going the other way, shouldn’t we all get our 4-5 servings of vegetables every day? 

This is of course good for people.  Not to mention that if the government is footing the bill for some of the healthcare costs associated with these “problems” it’s in the best interest of the people to help stop these problems at the root!

So hey, this tanning bed issue may not be something you care about if you’re not a person who tans, I certainly am not, but you should care.  Something you enjoy could be next on the hit list.

But hey, it’s not like Tanning has been banned right?  I mean you can still go out and tan all you’d like, it just may cost you a bit more.  Sort of like Smoking.  Or maybe in the future those Big Macs and Ho-Hos.

http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-07/film-studios-said-to-be-allowed-to-use-anti-piracy-technology-on-tv-sets.html

The film industry can block outputs on home television equipment so studios can offer first-run movies while preventing viewers from making illicit copies, U.S. regulators said.

Temporarily disabling the outputs will “enable a new business model” that wouldn’t develop in the absence of such anti-piracy protection, the Federal Communications Commission said today in an order.

So…. They want to block outputs on set top boxes and TVs so they can distribute first run level content directly to the home while preventing piracy.

I’m sure there’s something more to this but the details here are a bit sketchy as to how exactly this is going to work.  On one hand, they could send a movie to your television directly via cable, presumably on a television with the cable box built into it, so you could watch it but not play it out and record it with an external DVR.  This makes sense, and it fairly easy to follow.  It’ll piss off anyone who likes to pipe the sound from their TV out to their surround system off enough that no one will want to rent/buy/whatever these movies in the first place but hey, it could be done.

What I don’t understand is where they think this will work on a set top box.  Firstly, the box NEEDS outputs of some kind in order to view the movie.  You have to hook it to your TV via coax or RGB or HDMI or whatever.  Limiting it only to say, HDMI which would be slightly more difficult to casually record on a VCR than coax wouldn’t work since not everyone uses HDMI and you can buy an HDMI converter pretty cheaply online.

So somehow, this block will disable the outputs, while still outputting to your television.

Or perhaps there is some sort of encryption involved, which would put anyone with an older television out of luck since the Television wouldn’t have these controls built in to handle the encryption.  Also, the encryption would have to be standard to work with any combination of television and box, so presumably once it’s broken, which it will be, anyone who cares could buy a descrambler box online easily.  Sort of like how you can use a line blocker to disable the copy protection on VHS tapes.

Then there is the fact that anyone who really cares is going to go out to limewire or emule or bittorrent or whatever is convenient and simply download the movie anyway.  Unlike pirated programs, pirated television generally doesn’t contain spyware, though occasionally you’ll end up with some porn clip instead of the latest Toy Story flick so it’s a good idea to pre screen your downloads before firing them up with the family floating around.

eBay user’s negative comment may cost him $15K

Steadman made the purchase in November 2008. But when he saw the shipped goods didn’t match the advertisement, he expressed an opinion about the South Florida lawyer who offered the item on the Internet: “Bad seller; he has the ethics of a used car salesman.”

That comment about the clock, which Steadman returned to Elliot Miller of Miami Beach, prompted a $15,000 defamation lawsuit. He said the lawsuit has cost him $7,000 in legal bills and his attorney quit because he could no longer afford to pay him.

This is just such a shinning example of why our whole “sue first ask questions later” society is screwing us all.  Or in better words, why those with money can rule those without in a slightly broken legal system.

On one side, we have a lawyer, who can more or less represent himself for free.  On the other, we have Joe Schmoe who wants a new time for cheap.  In the middle, we have a more or less pointless lawsuit that really shouldn’t have even gone to any sort of expensive trial level.  The point of eBay’s feedback system is to give feedback on a seller.  In the past, sellers could return feedback to a buyer.  The problem was that some sellers would hold the feedback as a bargaining chip to get positive feedback.

Basically, flat out extortion.  buyers would be threatened with negative feedback, despite not doing anything wrong, if they left negative feedback on a seller.  There seems to be this mindset on eBay that any negative feedback, or for that matter, anything that’s not positive, is bad.  Even if you’ve for 500 responses and say, 2 are negative, there are many who consider those 2 just as bad as having 500 negatives.

Ebay changed this system however and removed the ability for a seller to feedback a buyer.  This lawyer had decided to take things to the next level and simply sue for defamation of character.  I imagine, on some technical level, the comment about “Ethics of a used car salesman” is not really related to the item so it could be construed as some form of libel, but somehow the idea of possible expected feedback on a seller’s conduct could cover that comment.

The problem is more in the fact that Mr Joe Schmoe Clock can’t afford to keep himself in court indefinitely fighting this case while Mr Rich Guy Lawyer can cover his own ass in his free time or whole he’s sitting on his ass on the toilet, for free.

Which leads to another issue…

Steadman said he tried to represent himself in court, but he didn’t understand the jargon or what documents to file. Late last year, he hired a lawyer using money he borrowed from a second mortgage he had taken out on his home three years ago to start the business.

The Jargon.  For whatever reason, likely mostly to keep the law business, in business, courts speak in lots of random obscure jargon.  Phrases that do make some sense but can be confusing and difficult to follow for someone who hasn’t had any experience reading through them.

So not only do we have a system meant to let whomever can throw the most money at the wall win their case, There’s generally little option for trying to “Do it yourself” and actually get anywhere.

There is also the subject of free speech on the internet but that’s better covered by an article all unto itself.

In the Homeland Security Appropriations bill we will take up next week, we will appropriate $860 million for this needless, useless agency. This money is a total waste: $860 million for people to sit on airplanes and simply fly back and forth, back and forth. What a cushy, easy job.

And listen to this paragraph from a front-page story in the USA Today last November: “Since 9/11, more than three dozen Federal air marshals have been charged with crimes, and hundreds more have been accused of misconduct. Cases range from drunken driving and domestic violence to aiding a human-trafficking ring and trying to smuggle explosives from Afghanistan.”

Actually, there have been many more arrests of Federal air marshals than that story reported, quite a few for felony offenses. In fact, more air marshals have been arrested than the number of people arrested by air marshals.

Full Transcript

I do have one initial complaint about this report.  They mention problems with these guys involving alcohol and domestic violence, etc.  These are not actions that directly relate tot he job of being an Air Marshal.  It’s not like say, these guys are beating up their wives while on the planes or anything.  I’m not supporting it, It’s just a bit misleading.  One could probably make the same point for say, the military, or the police force in some cities.  The reality is, arguing that more cops in City X are arrested for domestic violence would make the point of questionable usefulness than this argument since part of the job of a cop is to prevent domestic violence.

An air marshal only has to prevent violence on or involving the plane.

Still, one could argue that despite the high cost “per arrest” these Marshals, the presence of them has prevented many other incidents.  Unfortunately this isn’t an easily calculated statistic.  How do you count “potential” terror attacks?   Especially when you have people who think everyone is a potential terrorist running around?

Still, to push for the idea of suspending this service, aren’t we already going through enough pain and suffering before boarding these planes?  If the naked body scanners and x-ray conveyor belts are truly effective, why do we need an armed guard sitting on the plane as well?

He does make a good point about the true success of the 9/11 terror attacks.  I’ve believe for a while that the point wasn’t to destroy buildings, it was obviously meant to cause TERROR.  Hence the word TERRORism.  Now we all live in a panic state of fear, not necessarily fear from random al Qaeda jihadists but fear of our own government.  Fear that we aren’t in control. Fear that we need to “look over our shoulder” constantly..

And this is why the terrorists won a long time ago….

So, I’m listening to the radio over the weekend.  I hear an Ad Council PSA for Water conservation.  We’ve got to save our water, it’ll run out, prices will go up due to shortages, all that sort of thing.

Then, a few minutes later there is a CNN news donut with the following report.

Water Bills Go Up As Usage Drops

Many water utilities are raising rates because water use is down, in part because manufacturers have closed or are cutting back, tourism has fallen and the real estate market is in the doldrums.

Ok, wait a minute, so people are using less water, now the rates are going up.  Meanwhile, there is someone pushing the idea that using more water will cause the rates to go up!

So which is it?  I should probably point out that the planet has more Water on it than anything else.  Yeah, a lot of it needs treatment since it’s ocean water, but in general, it never really goes anywhere.  Things (plants, animals) consume it, then they expel it.  Much of the treatment happens naturally though weather cycles and such.

Another angle here, PSAs are often not paid for by the industry in question but instead by Non Profits with agendas of their own.  Some do-gooders get the bright idea that we all need to reduce our water usage because they dislike the idea of using recycled piss water even though Nature takes care of this on it’s own anyway, so they run some PSAs and push a campaign to get everyone to conserve.  Next thing you know, the industry itself isn’t making any money anymore.

Water seems to be one area where Supply and Demand just doesn’t work.  There’s an essentially infinite supply and an equally infinite demand.

This is an interesting report on several repeated “Flash mobs” in Philadelphia.  They talk about how the mobs became violent though one has to wonder if they were in fact provoked into the violence to some extent.  Still, I recall in my college town of Carbondale, IL, there was basically a huge todo around Halloween every year where people were not allowed to gather in any sort of groups because for several years there had been riots.

Still, a Flash Mob is not a Riot.

The thing is, it could be.  And this is why these folks are becoming increasingly afraid of the idea.  They mention the pillow fight thing in the news story.  Another good example is the group Improv Everywhere, a website devoted to getting people together for large scale “pranks”.

So how long until the increasingly disgruntled people put things together that a flash mob can be used for more than just making people laugh.  Hell, it more or less happened before (see the 1960s), there isn’t any reason it couldn’t happen again,  The internet is a way for people to connect in ways never imagined.  Regardless of your stance on conspiracy theories about the government, this connection is revolutionizing the way the people receive information, and not just by making it faster.

Text Article…

What’s with these idiot people.

One, you program the name in.  Obviously this is basic text to speech software with Elmo’s voice stuck on.  So Anyone could have simply reprogrammed the doll to to think the kid’s name was “Kill James” instead of just “James”.

I’m reminded of these older videos.  The issue is, once you have the idea suggested, you’re always going to hear it.  The doll, assuming it’s not programmed, may simply be saying “Tell James” or something similar that is being taken out of context.

Alternately, we make all of this shit in China these days, It’s likely simply some hilarious joke by some poor downtrodden Chinese Hacker.

[In Mandarin Chinese]

Huang: “Hey Lee, check it out, I can program these voice chips to say whatever I want”

Lee: “Awesome man, let’s mess with some 3 year old American’s head”

Though if they had been smart they would have tried to go for something a bit more ambitious, but then that’s partly why China is full of poverty stricken sweatshop workers and isn’t Japan.

One of my main issues with the whole Heathcare Reform Bill is with the Mandate of Coverage.  That is, everyone is required to have Healthcare coverage.  While I have in the past suggested that I would end up being forced to pay for insurance even though i personally don’t believe I need it, this argument is likely false since currently I already qualify for government covered healthcare due to my family income.  I am not sure yet if those requirements are going to change under this new plan.  The point is, my issue with this part of the reform really isn’t something that likely even affects me in the first place.

I will add though that despite this coverage, I never go tot he doctor and i don’t have any prescription medication.  Basically, I don’t use it.  If i get sick, i spend a day or two sleeping until I feel better.  I very rarely get sick and it doesn’t ever last long.  it is my belief that my policy against over medicating has helped my immune system become naturally stronger.  Just as working out your muscles make them stronger, letting your immune system get a work out makes it better able to fight infection. The best I ever take is NyQuill, and mostly because it’ll put me to sleep and clear up my sinuses.  I also feel that the doctors of this worl have better things to do than have me whine about how my nose is congested or my throat hurts,

I still don’t believe everyone should be required to carry Health insurance.  There have been some arguments in the past about how “People without insurance drive up the cost for others”.  I really fail to see how this argument works.  I heard this argument accompanied with the idea that when an uninsured person goes to the emergency room, then others have to foot the bill.  No, the person foots the bill.  Sort of like getting car repairs.  The doctor will tally up the charges then sends the uninsured person a bill.  They can arrange payments or just pay it off.  Simple.

Then there is the push to force the younger, healthier, generation of people less likely to have insurance into being forced to carry.  The idea is basically, to subsidize the elderly.  The young people pay in but they are much less likely to cash out.  So the insurance companies can use this extra income to better distribute the overall cost across all of the people lowering the insurance costs for older people who likely live on a smaller fixed income.  As noble as this seems, there are many much better ways to decrease the cost of medical care.  This subsidy isn’t even likely to work in the long run. Sure, we’ll initially get a token drop initially but what’s more likely to happen is that rates overall for everyone will simply go up.  Also the margin of difference will be as close as possible to the supposed limit of 4x the cost for the elderly vs. the young, i can pretty much guarantee that.  And that’s not saying the young will end up with cheaper rates, that’s saying the elderly will still be over-charged.

So what’s a better method to reduce costs?  How about better regulation of pharmaceutical companies and pointless lawsuits over everything.  Pharmaceutical companies often push doctors to prescribe their drugs through various forms of gifts and kickbacks.  This means many unnecessary sales of drugs that must be paid for by the insurance companies.  It also goes against the idea that sometimes you just need to let your body heal itself naturally.  Antibiotics are so overused that they are losing their potency as infectious diseases become resistant.  I’m not saying every drug is unnecessary, I’m saying that sometimes all we really need for our cold is a bowl of chicken soup and a good nap.  Also, as unpleasant as it is, vomiting when sick is actually good for you.  It’s part of your body’s way of expelling things that it doesn’t like.

Then there are drugs for the mind.  Drugs that help keep us “mentally right”.  Of all of the medical industries in the world, this one is the biggest scam ever.  Have you ever really listened to the commercials for depression drugs?  The “symptoms” of depression are 90% things that occur to everyone 90% of the time.  They often contradict each other in the same list in order to help cover everyone.  The whole point is to convince people that “hey, i might be depressed, I should get some Symbalta/whatever.”  Guess what, everyone feels down sometimes.  That doesn’t mean you need to keep yourself doped up one drugs constantly to fix some “problem”.  Chances are you just need an outlet for your irritations and anger to keep yourself balanced.  I recommend blogging personally.

I mentioned above the other issue with healthcare cost being needless lawsuits.  A recent (4-5 weeks ago) episode of NoAgenda had commentary from a doctor about how a girl had been brought in for an injury and the doctor did not feel that a CAT scan or x-ray were necessary to diagnose any issues after examining her.  The father said that if the doctor did not perform these tests that he would sue the doctor if any problems came in.  The doctor’s response was essentially “Why would I recommend against this, there’s no loss to me, I get paid more for the added procedure, and I eliminate the the threat of a potential lawsuit”.  Though he also pointed out that the radiation, though minor, could cause long term damage to the girl.  On the other hand, it would be far enough in the future he’d never end up being liable for the damages.

This is the sort of pressure faced by our healthcare system’s employees.  When a doctor can be held liable for birth defects of a baby, defects that likely couldn’t even be predicted and even more likely were caused by either genetics or something the mother had done (like unnecessary CAT scans), then we are working with a broken system.  When a doctor can be held liable for looking out for the long term interest of a patient vs the short term panic, then the system is broken.  I believe this is also part of why medication is over prescribed.  Better to give some treatment than none at all, you might get sued.  Even if the doctor wins the suit there is still an exorbitant cost involved with time and money to work through a legal system that’s designed to work in favor of those with money to burn.

One last note, back to the issue of required carry.  You could equate this to auto insurance, after all, you’re required to carry auto insurance if you drive right?  The thing is, you have the option to not drive if you so choose.  You don’t have the option to not live.  Ok, technically you DO have that option but what kind of a choice is that really?

I am not opposed to healthcare reform, or the idea of a government run healthcare system, I simply feel that this new law is going about things in a manner that, in the end, is going to do more harm than good.

President Obama signs the death note for the Constitutional process as he signs a Bill that was “Deemed to be Passed” as opposed to “Actually Passed” in the house.

There’s also that part where we all get enslaved to insurance companies who will continue to be free to sue every doctor and charge outrageous prices for prescriptions and procedures.

YAY DEMOCRACY!

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