Hijackers and Body Scanners

Whenever some goober gets the itch to blow up an airplane there is a small flare of public interest in keeping the public safe without much thought to the consequences.

After the attempted blowing up of a plane by a moron over Christmas via an explosive banana hammock, the news stations were all abuzz over ways to thwart terrorists in our planes. Nevermind that most of our security enhancements added to airport security amounted to little more than feel-good measures that added a ton of hassle for innocent people and very little actual effectiveness (ask Bruce Schneier) in preventing attacks.

The latest push I've seen in the news is for the deployment of full-body scanners. A quick Google turns up a number of articles on them, but this was the first time I heard our "local news" covering the idea in one of their typical short-attention-span-friendly broadcasts.

They seem like a wonderful solution. Basically using backscatter X-ray technology you can see through someone's clothes, highlighting hidden objects. They also let the TSA agents see breast and penis implants, your genitalia, and essentially remove anything that before resembled modesty or personal privacy.

More effective than pat-downs? Yes, probably they are.

Preferred over pat-downs? That's probably a personal question. Would you rather have a "freedom grope" or a minimum wage barely trained McGoober staring at your nubbins?

The TSA swears that the images aren't kept; they're erased in a short amount of time. Oddly enough, nipple slips and upskirt glances aren't visible after a short amount of time as well, but there's nonetheless a thrill from those who get to see these passing slips of modesty and for most of those who were on the slip-per side of the equation the embarrassment doesn't get conveniently erased so quickly.

Does the TSA promise that leering glances and/or smirks are going to be suppressed?  Does the TSA mind a nice fat lawsuit when some monkey behind the controls snaps a quick picture with a camera phone and circulates the picture online of the MILF that just went through the line? Or if another passenger gets the image on their camera? And what protection is there for the passenger's privacy? My doctor has seen my gross nudity (lose a lot of weight, you'll know what I mean). My wife's had doctors see her give birth, and she has doctors that explore her nether regions on a scheduled basis with a duck-billed device that I won't pretend to understand. But the doctors and nurses we rely on for care are trusted not to abuse their positions. I don't get that feeling from TSA agents that are hardly considered elite law enforcement personnel. I often worry they're one step above mall security guards in terms of training and professionalism or are recruited from Craigs List.

My parting thought to the news story...my daughter is underage and nearly legal. My son is DEFINITELY underage. What's to keep some pervert from leering at her nether regions as one of my kids go through security? It's that tantamount to child porn? Sounds to me like they're saying child pornography is okay for the government to produce but for everyone else it's wrong. I'd like to know how they're keeping perverts from going through their McTraining program just to get their jollies staring at young T&A in the airport, seeing as they have such fulfilling and upwardly mobile professional options working in those positions.

Hearing these arguments the government entities swore that they would be putting some software graphic-scrambling magic in so that you don't have your junk or nethers necessarily clear in the images. So...doesn't that defeat the purpose of the scan? Shove some of your magic exploding powder up the canal or tape it to your love stick and it'll just be part of a blurred algorithm on the screen (assuming this is actually done, or is actually effective).

I'm not entirely comfortable with this crap anymore. Air travel is becoming a bigger and bigger hassle, and now I have some half-trained halfwits staring at my wiener just to prove that I am allowed to get on a plane. I'm not innocent until proven guilty. I'm a cog at the mercy of a group of ineffectual thugs who get their jollies showing they have power over people who really are trying to get from point A to point B. The vast majority of people are innocent, but thanks to a few goobers that committed a heinous act, the innocent must suffer at the hands of knee-jerk reactions on behalf of the government trying to pretend they're actually making a difference with feel-good measures. The real question is how much more of this are we, the traveling public, going to accept before we give up on the idea that we are a country that values freedoms and privacy?

Reason for the Season

My wife and I, in a measure to help appease one (both?) of the traditions of the parents, make a trip to my parent's church one week near Christmas. Usually it's the week before the Christmas Eve service, but this year we went the year after.

I am not religious. This may shock you. As such, I don't normally dress up very fancy (clean clothes are fine, thank you...if a church has standards about who they let in, then they're not very Christian, are they?) and I usually keep to myself so as to not be driven nuts by the habits of other people around me and by listening to what I have concluded tend to be propaganda more than an educational sermon.

Yes, other people's habits. Chomping gum like a valley girl drives me nuts too. It's a wiring thing in my head.

The thing that really compelled me to write this was that the minister went over "what is the real reason for the season." Churches really lucked out on having "reason" and "season" rhyme. It helps make ignorance sound clever.

I refrained from saying anything, but Christ is not the "reason for the season". It's the reason for Christmas, but Christmas itself has other origins.

I have run into this time and time again, and every time the people spouting this stuff listen only to what they want to hear. Christmas is not the day Christ was born. Christmas, miraculously, happened to be placed in a pagan holiday to usurp the non-Christians.

Excerpted from Wikipedia: 
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti

Main article: Sol Invictus

Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means "the birthday of the unconquered Sun." The use of the title Sol Invictus allowed several solar deities to be worshipped collectively, including Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god; Sol, the god of Emperor Aurelian; and Mithras, a soldiers' god of Persian origin.^[53] Emperor Elagabalus (218–222^[ambiguous]) introduced the festival, and it reached the height of its popularity under Aurelian, who promoted it as an empire-wide holiday.^[54] This day had previously been dedicated to Bacchus, in the Brumalia festival. Bruma being Latin for "shortest day."^[55]
The festival was placed on the date of the solstice because this was on this day that the Sun reversed its southward retreat and proved itself to be "unconquered." Several early Christian writers connected the rebirth of the sun to the birth of Jesus.^[6] "O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born...Christ should be born", Cyprian wrote.^[6] John Chrysostom also commented on the connection: "They call it the 'Birthday of the Unconquered'. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord . . .?"^[6] 
Winter festivals

Main article: List of winter festivals

A winter festival was the most popular festival of the year in many cultures. Reasons included the fact that less agricultural work needs to be done during the winter, as well as an expectation of better weather as spring approached.^[56] Modern Christmas customs include: gift-giving and merrymaking from Roman Saturnalia; greenery, lights, and charity from the Roman New Year; and Yule logs and various foods from Germanic feasts.^[57] Pagan Scandinavia celebrated a winter festival called Yule, held in the late December to early January period. As Northern Europe was the last part to Christianize, its pagan traditions had a major influence on Christmas. Scandinavians still call Christmas Jul. In English, the word Yule is synonymous with Christmas,^[58] a usage first recorded in 900.

In other words, Christmas was placed in a time when people had a winter celebration of Winter Solstice.

The "reason for the season" was to usurp popular pagan holidays into a Christian holiday.

And it'll happen again, now, too. Regardless of what people will spout about to (and in) the pews and on family specials on television, the custom of giving gifts is as strong as ever. Our US economy is based on you spending money, whether you need to or not. We get things that are sometimes useful, whimsical, wasteful, and/or sentimental for people otherwise may not even think to spend more than ten dollars on for their birthday. You get a gift from Aunt Janice and feel compelled to return the favor. Coworkers spend time and money baking and purchasing trinkets for other coworkers that otherwise they spend their time griping and bitching about (at least in our case it's true). Our retailers depend on the "season" to turn about a nice profit as kids get their shot at receiving usually undeserved uber-expensive toys that they'll play with for month or two before breaking it or losing the pieces.

Once you have stores involved, you get advertisers involved. You get advertisers involved, you get media involved. You get media involved, you get generations of kids slowly growing into teens and adults that will nod their heads at the whole religious side of the holiday and begrudgingly go to services and whatever else it takes...as long as they get the presents under the tree the next morning.

Which is highly ironic. I hear the same people giving holiday plays in churches about the shopping and greedy attitudes being the problem, needing to celebrate Jesus', the warm feeling of helping others...but then these people go home and indulge in an orgy of consumerism. Somewhere the doublethink eludes them.

Now, I'm not against this. I don't have a lot of loose money to throw around, and I'd love to have the spare coin to do these wonderfully generous things like tossing money off the balcony at the mall to watch people claw each other fist into foreheads to grab the money and I will have the fuzzy feeling of knowing I brightened someone's day. I certainly won't turn down free gift cards to bookstores. I enjoy the consumer habits. What I wish is that people knew and acknowledged that today's "season" is NOT a Christian holiday.

It's a celebration of consumerism for stores.

It's a celebration of greed and selfishness for kids, often. We see acts of kindness and selflessness, but when it comes right down to it, I still see the majority of kids looking out for numero uno.

It's a holiday meant to ingrain Christianity into the culture by removing the pagan holiday and inserting a Christian holiday.

It's a conglomeration of secular and non-secular myths and traditions (do you really think Frosty is religious? Rudolph? Yule logs? Even Santa has a mixed origin; the current image of the "jolly elf" is very much an American invention, and apparently America as America is very post-Christian in origin. There are strands of the origin story that go back further, but please, I'm talking about what your average celebrant of Christmas knows and thinks they know about the holiday they're celebrating. If you're going to get worked up about "atheists stilling Christ from Christmas, at least know what you're arguing about.)

Another thing that bothers me is the continued refrain of the Christian being under attack during the holidays. The minister went on to say that it's considered wrong for you to say Merry Christmas and instead have to say Happy Holidays. Personally I don't care. Christmas gets me gift cards. I'm happy as a clam. But there are some people who think it's rather silly to tell someone who is Jewish that they should have a merry Christmas. And now we have Kwanzaa, another made up holiday that will in another few years probably get a decent number of Hallmark cards on the shelf for it.

As consumerism and other holidays and hopefully recognition that our melting pot of a country has people that don't care one way or the other about Christmas (or celebrate it as a means to an end consisting of toys, money, and an excuse to gossip about family at buffet dinners), advertisers are growing wise to the idea of just saying Happy Holidays so they don't tick off their customers. Apparently if you make customers happy, they buy more crap. In the end a lot of people just aren't pissed off at the change from Merry Christmas to Happy Holidays, as long as they're getting a bargain in the electronics department.

You're not under attack. You're simply getting a number of apathetic people who don't care, and a small but growing number of people who prefer not hearing about Christmas every ten minutes while not in their home. Probably it's a side effect of being exposed to Christmas lights and Christmas ornaments and Christmas movies and Christmas specials and Christmas displays starting a week before Thanksgiving! We're tired of it before it gets here! And we have more important things to worry about than whether some dillhole tells us Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas while assaulting us with ringing bells, like what in the !@#$ we're going to find to give Grandma Bessie and whether the cards were mailed on time and whether we remembered everyone on the list and oh crap Aunt Mimi just got us a gift (why? Don't know! Haven't heard from her in ages but now we need to find a cocoa set for her at the ConsumoMart...)

Next time you want to push the "reason for the season", just don't ask me about it. The reason is that it was meant to push a religion on to the masses by stealing their food orgy to the Solstice gods.

I'll leave you with this note, also from the same Wikipedia article:
There is no evidence scripturally or secularly that early Christians in the first century commemorated the birth of Jesus Christ. In fact, in keeping with early Jewish law and tradition, it is likely that birthdays were not commemorated at all. According to The World Book Encyclopedia: "early Christians considered the celebration of anyone's birth to be a pagan custom." (Vol. 3, page 416) Rather than commemorating his birth, the only command Jesus gave concerning any sort of commemoration of his life actually had only to do with his death (Luke 22:19). It was not until several hundred years after the death of Jesus Christ that the first instances of the celebration of Christmas begin to appear in the historical record. According to the new Encyclopedia Britannica, some who later claimed to be Christian likely "wished the date to coincide with the pagan Roman festival marking the 'birthday of the unconquered sun'." The festival was celebrated with similar customs (gift giving, feasting) that are done to celebrate Christmas today.

Are there any holiday irks that get to you? Feel free to share...

Teen Marriage

I had written about my daughter's friend, Sara. She is the pregnant teen that is going to get married ("sometime")...I wrote more about it here. Read that to get a better idea of the person I'm referring to.

My household of course has people on Facebook. If you're unfamiliar with Facebook then you must not have been using the Internet for more than a month...I'm not saying you need an account on Facebook or actively use it, since I've found it to be useful only in that I've found people I lost track of years ago thanks to Facebook, only to lose them again in a deluge of worthless invites to play some farming game or joining a mafia group and spammed with happy messages that filled time I'll never get back. But I digress.

The point is that Sara has a Facebook account and apparently has her status updates posted online that members of this household see. She recently postponed (cancelled?) her wedding plans. Her mother, also apparently online with Facebook, said that the wedding was being postponed indefinitely (I got this all second-hand, so I'm paraphrasing). They got into some argument and called it off.

That was a few days ago. I asked yesterday whatever became of their canceled wedding plans, wondering what could possibly have caused Mr. and Mrs. All-You-Need-Is-Love to call off their plans.

"Oh, they're getting married now. They think near Valentine's day."
"Huh?"
"Yeah. They made up and they're going to get married again."

Quick time for slow thinkers...if your idea of resolving an argument with your fiance' is to threaten to call off your wedding for a reason short of finding him or her hammering another person in a clear act of infidelity or discovering that he or she will be out of the country or in jail for a stretch of time, and perhaps a few other extenuating circumstances that lead you to a revelation that this person is not the person you thought they were at a deep and fundamental level, you're probably about as emotionally mature as a ten year old and should not be getting married in the first place.

Threatening to call off the marriage because of a spat is pretty much the equivalent to the playground "I won't be your friend anymore!" ploy.

I shudder to think how common this type of idiocy is in our society. It makes me more depressed than I already am having to face the holiday stress.

Teen Pregnancy and Idiots: A Plea for Understanding

I need some help.

I probably don't have enough readers who follow this to give some advice, but hey, doesn't hurt to ask. If you have friends or followers that might be able to offer (constructive) thoughts, please do direct them here to leave a comment.

I need some guidance on a social issue that probably doesn't have a direct "right" answer but I have definite opinions about and I need to find a way to reconcile these ideas. Since you probably read the title, you should have no problem figuring that out.

My daughter has a friend who is a complete moron. I'll call her Sara. And when I say she's a moron, I mean she really is an idiot...ignorant, lacking common sense, and worst of all proud of her ignorance.

She is a senior in high school. I'm not sure she didn't fail a year and have to repeat; she's 18 now. Her boyfriend is in his early 20's. Sara is a sweet girl, kind, and comes off as being a total bubblehead if you met her. She's one of the kinds of people that hangs around and leaves you scratching your head wondering where her head is half the time, but otherwise seems innocent and harmless enough.

Her boyfriend was supposedly going into the military. Her mother works a job that doesn't bring in a lot of cash, and I guess her father is more or less not in the picture (I never hear anything about her father, I think they may be divorced).

The problem is that before her senior year started, she decided to get pregnant. So she did.

Her mother is overjoyed. Sara gave her a granddaughter! Yay! She also was letting her daughter "live" with the boyfriend all summer. She reported that the daughter lived with her so she'd be in the "correct" school district while she was...is?...living with her boyfriend in a neighboring school district.

Did I mention that she's a senior in high school still?

I have a few problems with this. First, it encouraged my daughter to be an idiot. They're friends, and I can't very well just ban her from hanging out with people because they're idiots or she'd have no friends. My daughter saw no problem with her being pregnant because "they're in love". I suppose this partially fits with the theory I have that part of the Twilight appeal to tweens and teens is that it gives some idealized teenager ideal of romantic love, the idea that a true relationship means finding someone that you physically and emotionally cannot live without to the point where you pine away and die because they decide that they, like, want to, like, hang out with someone else, like, ya'know? Be typical teenagers with so much melodrama in your life that every minor blip in your life is a, like, major life-altering catalyst for altering your entire, like, world?

Where was I? Oh, yes, idiot. They're in love. That makes it okay to intentionally get pregnant at 17/18. That is so not the message I want my teenage daughter to get, which I thought she'd know better since she had to live with the consequences of being the daughter of someone who was a teenage mom. It made life hard for them. It seems she forgot about the first 10 years of her life.

Okay. That brought me to the second reason I really dislike this. Their lives.

Sara has no job. No job skills. No prospects. Not even married yet.

I'm not a big believer in marriage for the sake of children or for any religious reasons (imagine that). I'm look at it practically. Supposedly the father is in the military...my daughter thought he was, but for some reason he came home on leave over the summer and simply never went back, and my daughter is too focused on herself to ever wonder why. She thought that he might kind of sorta work at a factory now. In his twenties with a factory job. Okay. It's something.

The teenage mother? Sara apparently got pregnant, got all the back slaps and smiles from her mother, then decided she was afraid of the stigma of being on of "those" statistics at school and decided to take home schooling or online schooling through her school district so she didn't have to face her classmates with the baby bump.

They're not married yet. "They're planning on getting married," my daughter says. "They love each other." Sorry...statistically speaking, this is sooo common a refrain, yet it means jack until it's really done. And until then you lost the primary practical reasons to get married...namely legal benefits. Something happens to mommy or daddy, there's no money or support available to the kid and remaining parent. I know it's common to believe you won't be "one of those people", that "our situation is different." Of course there's a chance things will work out. In families with more wealth, financial issues never figure into the equation.

But this isn't a family of means. Grandma-Mommy makes minimal income. I guess Grandpa-Daddy is barely in the picture. Daddy works at a factory. Mommy is a student with no marketable skills and hasn't even held a summer job. Which brings me to my next problem...

My taxes will be supporting them. It's one thing when someone is raped. Or hits bad times. Has a rough patch in life, etc. etc...I'm all for the government helping. When someone does something that at the time is reasonable, then the situation changes, that's forgivable. But for the life of me I cannot find any situation where you're making minimal amount of money, have no real skills, and it's justifiable to have a child at an age that stigmatizes you and the child. She intentionally did this. She set out to have a baby, and now that child will be most likely raised at or very close to the poverty line, thus statistically speaking creating the same problem when this kid hits reproductive years all over again. What happens when you have someone in that situation? Typically they're on financial support.

I work a job that is literally stressing my health at times. My wife works hard at her job. We forced our daughter to get a job and she's done a halfway decent job of sticking with that McJob. And it pisses me off to have a third of my income docked to go towards people who are in financial straits and decide it's wise to turn around and have another child in that situation on purpose. Not an accident. Have a child that will in turn be put into a disadvantaged situation with the expectation that they're entitled to a wonderful life at the expense of taxpayers because Mommy and Daddy think it's cool to have a kid.

I've been struggling with my feelings on this because before, I didn't mind her being around. She was sweet. A nice kid. Just...stupid as a rock at times. Ignorant of just about anything going on around her. She was bubbleheaded but harmless for the most part...maybe a slight danger to herself, since she had once stuck a lollipop in her eye thinking she was holding her contact lens (which was actually on the finger on the other hand). Yes, that actually happened, and isn't unexpected from her.

Now I don't want her in our house. Ever.

I can't help but see her as a bad example, and I'm overwhelmed with disappointment at the road she's setting down. I know there are exceptions. My wife was someone who led a life where quite frankly she should be probably dead. From her stories she was far more promiscuous than average in her teenage years. She did things she now regrets. What first drew me to her was that she was determined to make up for those things after she got pregnant and finally realized that she was bringing an innocent life into the world that relied on her to be responsible enough to take are of her. She isn't the nurturing type...she'll admit that...but when she got pregnant her senior year in high school, she stuck with school to graduate. Then she moved out of her parents home, got married to the father (another mistake, she concedes, as he was too lazy to hold a job and she was working whenever she could to make the bills), and then went to college over the next 10 years to get a degree with career potential. Ten years of working nights and part time. She beat the odds, and while she'll always be the statistic of being a teen mom, she's also a statistic in that she beat the overwhelming majority that ends up without an education and living in the poverty level as a single parent. She worked to have her kid have a better life, and that struck me as being someone to really admire.

Sara shows no sign of this. There is absolutely no way, in her shoes, I could see what she's done as being a good idea from anyone with a lick of common sense. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't her being a victim. It was her being selfish and self centered and now I have to pay for it. I'm having a lot of trouble seeing through this obstacle.

I was thinking of this because apparently she asked my daughter to go to Twilight tomorrow with her and her boyfriend and some other friend. Ironic. Twilight is supposed to be all about the romance-without-screwing and chastity, but Sara is going to see it. My wife and I just said that as long as she had money to pay her bills (yes, my daughter incurs bills for her driving and cell phone) as well as paying for her trip to the movie then fine. I don't like her hanging out with Sara as I see her as a bad example and influence now, but like I said...don't wan to block her from being friends with people who are idiots or she'd really have no one to hang around with.

I just need...strike that. I want to find a way to justify liking Sara again as that good kid that didn't cross the line from harmless to a tax burden. As it stands I see her as a financial burden, bad example to society and quite frankly I feel a need to punish her for her idiocy. I feel a need to tell her that she's not welcome in our home, around us or our kids. I want her to understand the immense stupidity in her decisions and understand that her actions are bringing an innocent into the world that doesn't have a choice in dealing with her idiot life decisions, and there will be a point where statistically she will repeat those mistakes for others to have to deal with.

The most difficult keyword there is feel. I could find logical fallacies and justifications to appease the rational side of either end of the arguments. But something about this...maybe it was her being judged a harmless but ditzy person previously...makes me feel anger at her disappointing my wife and I. It's not my place to punish her. I've not even spoken to her since she was dancing around with her joyful news, and I don't think my wife has spoken to her either.

Maybe that's it. I'm utterly disappointed and angry that we misjudged her so much. I have an irrational need to make her understand her foolishness and I want her to get her ass on track to becoming a productive member of society, but she's not my kid. And I'm realistic. She has enjoyed her ignorance and stupidity, and she has no aspirations to do anything in life to be productive. I guess that lifestyle works when the Daddy pulls in cash by the fistful, but when Daddy is a military dropout landing a minimum wage job, I'm thinking that is an indication that Daddy couldn't hack the responsibility and discipline of the military's basic training, Mommy already shows she lacks this, and Sara's own family lacks the means to support the children as well.

I've simply seen this pattern play out too often. My wife's sister has kids out of wedlock and lives with her parents, partially supported by them. Technically I guess it is in wedlock since she never divorced her husband, but the children weren't his. Oh boy. That life would take three posts to explain in itself.

The area in which we live is rife with poverty-level income, with a huge population of underprivileged kids according to the government. Now Sara has added another one. Each of these kids is an opportunity to change and live better and do better in life. Sara has effectively flushed her chance down the toilet.

I hope desperately that she will turn this around and beat the odds. I don't see her as being someone for whom it will happen. My wife happened to be too stubborn to not beat those odds once she actually came to her senses and decided that maybe her lifestyle choices were really stupid. Sara is too stupid to come to her senses.

Can someone give ideas on how to "come to grips" with this? How to forgive when I can't get past the idea of punishing her for her utter stupidity? I can't do that, of course, so right now I simply don't want her around at all. My wife can't offer insight on how to do this because she, too, is apparently too angry and disappointed in Sara to endorse her coming to the home as well. I guess that despite my Aspergian need for rational discourse and her irrational emotion-based decision process we both agree that we don't want Sara around.

Consequences of Using Facebook

It's funny how teenagers, and adults, have so many "duh" moments with technology. Working in technology, I tend to be aware of the issues that crop up with lack of privacy and forethought when using said technology as a medium to advertise yourself (on purpose or inadvertently).

That's not to say that I'm not going to be guilty of skirting the line once in awhile. I've posted my religious views on this blog and know that no matter what, most communities in the US will frown upon you being an atheist and it could potentially affect your job. I've posted stories that draw parallels to my work life in my tech blog and if I didn't change certain details I could risk pissing off the wrong person over something silly. These are reasons that I don't use my full name and precisely why I chance details to mask such things and in using services like Twitter and Facebook I have to ask myself whether or not my mother seeing what I'm posting would get me in trouble.

Apparently most teens fail to think about the Mommy Test when using social services. In the news today (CBC News, actually) is a woman that got into trouble with something that I would have thought would have passed the Mommy Test.

Nathalie Blanchard was diagnosed with depression and was on leave from her employer. While on leave she had apparently gone on a vacation and had a birthday party and even a bit of fun watching Chippendales dance around. Then her insurance company stopped paying benefits.

Calling them up the agent described photos of her fun that she posted on Facebook.

Apparently the insurance company decided she was no longer depressed because she was pictured having fun. She's confused because her facebook profile is locked to allow only approved people to see the pictures. In addition (this isn't in the story but rather my own take on it, hoping that Canadian common sense is at least on par with American) diagnosis for a disorder like this is usually left up to a psychiatrist or therapist to determine, not some dillhole spying on your online social web site activities, isn't it?

While on one hand this is an example of consequences to sharing your life online and the need to exercise caution in advertising your activities, I also see this as a rather creepy invasion of privacy by a corporation into your private life. I'm hoping that one of her "friends" ratted her out because if not then the alternative is rather chilling.

If she's careful with her choice of allowed friends and who is allowed to view her social media activities then I wouldn't think the things she posted were an issue. If I were diagnosed with depression (whoops...I was...) and the therapist tells me that I need to take a break, and my insurance company/employer are covering a leave of absence, why in the name of Purgatory would I need to sit around at home for a month to recover when I should be doing something to reinvigorate my life and find a reason to get out of bed in the morning? It's not like the woman was out of work for having a wounded back and then photographed carrying heavy boxes. She was on vacation and trying to have a good time. Oddly enough I would think that this is showing recovery in progress, not a tip off that the insurance company should just cancel her coverage.

I would like to think they would tell her they need updates from a mandatory visit to a therapist who in turn would share his or her evaluation of her status and whether she's fit to work again, not turn around and make an armchair analysis of her status from pictures online.

I have no idea why people would hate insurance companies...

Killing Albinos in Africa for Profit

On one hand, reading this story was shocking. On the other I suppose I shouldn't have been all too surprised given the fact that African nations tend to be rife with superstition, have no currency in science and lack basic education.

The story was about a woman whose daughter, an albino, was murdered in the middle of the night for her legs. Some men broke into the bedroom and held a large machete to her husband's throat telling them to keep quiet and not look at him while in the next room another man slit their 14 year old daughter's throat and hack off her legs while their other two daughters were told to stay quiet or be killed as well.

The husband was later taken into custody for selling their daughter out.

Why? Because witch doctors make potions from albinos for their "magical properties". And it's profitable for the people that get the body parts, whether from graves or people who happen to be unfortunate enough to, you know, not be able to defend themselves from these backwards superstitious animals.

I vaguely recalled that the Sun (a UK new source) wasn't necessarily very reliable. No problem. Quick Google for "africa albino murder" still yielded a bunch of hits, one of which was this one from the BBC.

The initial shock wore away, though, as I remembered that for these people having an epileptic attack was grounds for burning you alive for practicing witchcraft, raping lesbians cures homosexuality, and believe that HIV can be cured by raping kids.

These people are an extreme example of societies that lack science education (or education in general). It's disturbing that the mob mentality is capable of justifying such things but hey...what harm is it to let people hold superstitious beliefs? Just because your neighbor believes that is grounds for hating those people, or that vaccinations cause , or any other belief that flies in the face of facts doesn't mean that it does any harm, right?

But what happens when those beliefs become more and more popular?

I know this is a slippery slope argument. At the same time I can't help but see how easily it could move from, "today it's not believing in your sky wizard that keeps me from winning a school board election or makes me unpopular at the office Xmas party and tomorrow it's a breakout of a disease in some town that kills several kids because these jackarses are too superstitious to get vaccinated." Is it really all that hard to imagine when the nation that prides itself as being superior to any other on the planet is also proud to advocate willful ignorance?

More Drivel Published As Fact-Going Rogue with Sarah Palin

Apparently the AP checked out some of the claims in Sarah Palin's new book, "Going Rogue", only to find that much like her ability to think critically the book is full of crap.

Harsh, I know, but seems according to the AP to be true. It fits with all the other facts that had been discovered about the woman's behavior patterns before and after the elections that it's hard to write this off as confirmation bias.

The article is found here.

From the sounds of it, this is a pre-campaign rally cry and platform builder, laced with distortions and lies. For people who are already pro-neo-conservatives or don't care about little things like facts the book is preaching to the choir. For those who didn't trust her the first time around and prefer facts over rhetoric the book is yet another example of what is wrong with the current Republican party.

(Thought for the day: while skepticism isn't inherently liberal or conservative, I do think that there are certain things that attract like minded individuals, much like you don't find many Amish doing system administration...)

Giving Kids a Leg Up from Your Own Experiences

One of the "near universals" you gain when you become a parent...if you like your kids, anyway...is the desire to give your kid the things you didn't have growing up. If you grew up wishing that your parents had given you more books, you shower your kids with Barnes and Noble gift cards at the first sign that they're interested in flipping pages. If you grew up with parents you felt were oh so restrictive then you try to give your kids more freedoms.

We want to give our kids the benefits of our experiences. We feel we knew what sucked from our childhood and don't want our kids to have to endure the things we did, or make the same stupid decisions we made.

But there's a problem with that thinking.

I thought about this after arguing with someone about the latest fads in education making the rounds in the public schools in the area. I lamented that the politicians dictating and mandating rules for schools to follow had little to no experience dealing with kids (or parents) in the classroom. The mandates are impossible to follow.

I was thinking about this recently when I was pondering what I'd do if I won the lottery (who hasn't dreamed about that?). I thought that one thing I would do is sponsor a deserving student in paying for college. I'd have slight stipulations, small conditions that if they broke the rules they would be on their own in paying for the courses, but if they stayed within the rules they'd get a free education. It would be a marvelous opportunity in a time when four years of college cost as much as my house.

Then I thought about the kids that have everything given to them. Kids that had a free Mercedes or Corvette, and if they wrecked it, Daddy would pay for another. The kids that have cell phones and treat them as if they're disposable...drop it in the toilet? Mommy will pay for another one tomorrow. Hell, if they don't like their phone for some reason, some have intentionally destroyed it so they'd get a new one.

These are kids that treat other people as property because, hey, if they're not of any use to you, why bother talking to them?

These are kids that have all the benefits I lacked growing up (and then some). And because they didn't know what it was like to have to experience some of the suckitude of the world they didn't realize just how good they have it.

I didn't have a bad childhood by any measure. Humans are hardwired to find the shortcomings in their lives and make that the "thing" that would make them happy; my family wasn't poor, but we didn't own a boat. I'd really love a boat. We never ended up homeless, but I wanted a treehouse. Things like that.

So if I made sure my kids eventually had a boat and treehouse, I'm pretty sure my kids would be impressed for all of an hour before wishing we had a bigger boat and a treehouse with outlets.

I extended this thinking to the kids that I had in mind for giving the opportunity for a college education. If I won the lottery. That part is important.

Unless they were kids that truly came from families struggling to meet the middle-class level of life, and truly wanted to have that college education and knew, truly knew that they were on the brink of not getting it, they'd never realize the opportunity they had.

Moreover, part of who I am today came from making stupid mistakes and lacking some of the things I wanted. So by depriving kids of some deprivation, I might not be doing them a favor. They'll end up lacking life lessons from their failures because I handed a success to them, rather than letting them fail and having them pick themselves back up.

I can tell my daughter about the things I ended up regretting in life. I can tell her and warn her and she'll still be the "typical teen". She blinks and stares without comprehension. She ignores what I'm saying, focusing instead on excuses for why XYZ happened rather than listening to the point.

She doesn't even bother reading the blog as far as I can tell. And this is full of lessons and ideas I've pondered and observed. If she wanted to know more about me, I'm pretty open on this website about my ideas. Not everything, of course. Some things are best left to discretion. But there's still a pretty honest baring of who I am here in this blog. She could not care less.

So maybe it's best if you have the means to simply spend that inheritance on yourself. The kids will simply squander it, and if you truly care for your kids you'll dole out the benefit of your wisdom in moderation. Let them make mistakes rather than give them the means to bypass what you recalled as a pain. Give them enough that they can stay out of jail, but not so much that they treat computers and game consoles and cell phones as if they were as disposable as paper towels.

I Don't Need God to Be Amazed At Nature

I've been reading a book called Death From the Skies! by Phil Plait, also known as The Bad Astronomer.

I am only halfway through the book and already all I can say is...wow.

Phil uses his wit and knowledge of science to spread the truth about astronomy the way Bill Nye inspired...inspires...science enthusiasts of all ages. Or Mr. Wizard. And his descriptions of how stars go supernova or condense into black holes leaves me staring at the night sky and wondering just how insignificant we as humans really are.

Can you imagine pressure and heat and gravity so great that electrons are literally ripped away from atoms?

Or having a tidal force so great from a black hole that the difference in pull from your head to your toes will turn you into organic spaghetti? Not that you'd be alive long enough to feel it...

He describes in detail what would happen if a bit of mass the size of Earth were condensed into black hole and then started on a collision course with Earth (hint: it's not pleasant, but you'll be dead long before it briefly orbits the center of Earth for a little bit and continues on its' way).

The power of stars to create through fusion various elements; a sphere of iron thousands of miles in diameter at the heart of a star, the possibility that the iron in your blood came from a star millions or billions of years ago...that you're made up of the stuff of stars. How can that not spark your imagination or your sense of wonder?

Just...wow.

The language is easy to understand. The ideas simplified enough to instill wonder and not get you bogged down in the details of how Hawking Radiation works. It even explains the most likely candidate for the origin of Gamma Ray Bursts (and why they'll kill 1/2 the planet immediately if we're hit by one). Gamma Ray Bursts are being detected BILLIONS of light-years from our planet from all over the universe.

Wow. Grab the book. Read it. Learn about the night sky in a whole new light.

Internet as a Valid Source

I have a kid in school. This child is old enough to do research papers. Said child has had many teachers say that she cannot use Internet resources as sources for papers and projects; she must cite "paper" sources, like newspapers and magazine articles. Sometimes there are particular web sites that they're allowed to use that are "valid" due to being subscription based or have parent companies that are based in the paper world (Time magazine's website, or the New York Times).

Why? Because any moron can put information on the Internet. Supposedly.

I think that teachers that use this line of reasoning clearly don't understand the nature of the Internet. Or their own chosen "Valid Citation" sources, for that matter.

They still think Wikipedia is inaccurate. There was a study done that compared Wikipedia with Britannica; the results were startlingly close. More importantly, if you are researching anything having to do with fringe or pop culture, Britannica was about as useful as a knife at a gunfight. I searched for the name Optimus Prime on Britannica's website and got a nonsense result (with offers to buy one on eBay...huh?). Wikipedia? Full character history, voice actor information, incarnations in various series...the whole shebang.

Wikipedia has also been making changes to help ensure accuracy in their articles as well.

Most sites that have information seem to draw a particular crowd; as such, the users gain a form of currency in reputation. Sites like StackOverflow and Serverfault have created entire communities based on reputation; the more you participate, the more reputation other users will give you as a reward for correct answers, the higher your reputation, the more authority you have.

There's a tacit acknowledgement in this when these luddites allow for "certain" online articles to be cited in research but not others; authority is the currency that matters. Popular sites on the Internet are popular because large numbers of people continue to visit them and use their information. Incorrect information can be separated out by the community.

But these teachers insist that printed sources carry authority because of their oversight; they have editors, while the webbertubes are governed like the wild west!

Hmm...that doesn't take into account incidents like the sheepskin pulled over Oprah's eyes by Mr. James Frey? Or reporters that make their information up completely? Including for big name news media like USA Today? Where was their oversight then?

The Fake Steve Jobs had an interesting article reviewing why mainstream media is dying. He outlines a story on TechCrunch examining a company called Zynga that was selling scam ads online with those stupid games like "FarmVille". The blog basically heavily slammed the company with proof of their scum tactics including a video clip when Pincus, the CEO of Zynga, told an audience of developers all about the things he did to generate revenue through those games.

The New York Times had a story about Zynga that completely neglected to mention any word about the ad revenue and scam tactics being used by them. It was all sunshine and rainbows being blown up Zynga's arse, and it gave Zynga positive press at a point when people should have been alerted that they're being ripped off.

Here, the online resources were more accurate and arguably more relevant than the "authoritative" New York Times.

It can also be argued that our media outlets are too biased to be taken seriously without a heavy dose of skepticism. Even searching for "media bias" on Google comes up with a site near the top of the rankings that "exposes the liberal bias of the media." The entire site is geared towards not giving you facts to interpret, but rather convince you that the media is run by evil liberals out to poison the minds of conservatives.

None of this addresses the real weakness of my daughter's teacher's view in using online resources; in research papers, you're supposed to use reason and research to back up your claims. You can't just cite one source for any fact and expect it to be taken as a given; you need multiple sources that verify the fact, or a line of reasoning that can lead you to reasonably conclude what the researcher concludes. Any idiot can parrot one thing they heard.

Hell...many of the "published" authorities do. How often do you run across the same articles nearly word for word, then realize they're all from the Associated Press? Five sources all using the same Associated Press as their source isn't five sources for your paper.

Even then, there are times when a clearly satirical news story was re-reported by "valid sources" as being true. Where was their authoritative oversight then?

The fact is that when properly researched (i.e., by applying cross-checking and reason to the topic at hand) the source of information is less important than the brains analyzing it. All the news being reported is coming from people and as such is going to be filtered (read: biased) in some way. Straight information is of little use to an audience; it must be interpreted to make sense, and that is part of the job of the researcher doing the paper. By encouraging students to only refer to and lay their unquestioning belief in certain news authorities these teachers are doing a grave disservice. They teach that there are definite authorities who should not be questioned rather than encouraging students to think and analyze information for themselves, and this is in my opinion yet another reason our students in the US are lacking in critical thinking skills.