Epic Paddling Carnage

Like lambs to the slaughter, one by one, rafts get sucked into this hole and paddlers go for a swim. Check it out . . . Couldn't stop laughing.

Dean Del Mastro Didn't Do It

Escaping the Narcissistic Family IV

I've decided to remove this post.  Though I stand by the content of the observations I made, I am not comfortable with how I made them.

My thanks to everybody who took the time to comment, including comments that don't appear below.

Klondike Bar Misogyny Fail

I was watching TV last night and was shocked by this ad...
Like, WTF?!?!  Does this increase Klondike bar sales?  Really?  I'm done eating Klondike bars, which I used to like, and which I now think of as Rush Limbaugh bars, or Misogyny bars, or Shit bars.  And if you think I just didn't get the joke, I feel sorry for the women in your life.  To the people at Klondike, I hereby award you the Fanatically Misogynistic Bullshit Product of the Month Award.  Congratulations guys!

Tories Honour Charter, Fail to Mention Trudeau.

In a fanatically petty move today, the conservative government released this statement honouring the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms...

Today marks the 30th Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Constitution Act of 1982, which was formally signed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on April 17, 1982, in the presence of tens of thousands of Canadians on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

This anniversary marks an important step in the development of Canada’s human rights policy. Building on Diefenbaker’s Canadian Bill of Rights of 1960, the Constitution Act of 1982 enshrined certain rights and freedoms that had historically been at the heart of Canadian society into a constitutional document known as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Constitution Act of 1982 empowered our government to amend every part of Canada’s constitution, for the very first time.

As we look ahead to Canada’s 150th Anniversary in 2017, we encourage all Canadians to commemorate the milestones that have built our nation and made us the great country we are today.

... and utterly failed to use the word Trudeau anywhere, which is ridiculous.  I don't mind Tories per se, and even though I didn't vote for one, I didn't think they did a bad job in their various minority incarnations over the past few years.  Yeah, there were some issues, but in my view it's a form of extremism to salute this Charter and mention Diefenbaker and not Trudeau.  So today I honour Heritage Minister James Moore and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson with FanMod's first Fanatically Petty Jerk Of The Day Award.  Congratulations guys!

If what you're doing isn't working, keep doing it. - Harper

At the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, Stephen Harper conceded that the war on drugs isn't working, which strongly suggests a continued and vigorous prosecution of the war on drugs.  The failure of the war on drugs has been so obvious for so long, and drug policy has remained so obviously ineffective for so long, that there is no reason to expect anything to change.

What we're in denial about as a society is that using drugs appropriately is pleasurable, just like using sex appropriately is pleasurable.  And we don't prosecute people as criminals for adultery, so we shouldn't prosecute people as criminals for abusing drugs.  Making mistakes is easy.  Eating too much chocolate cake is easy.  When we criminalize the drug abusing behavior we perpetrate a secondary harm that is commonly more harmful than the behavior itself.

So getting arrested for possession of pot is more harmful to a human life than using pot.  And the fact that people are dying over pot, killing each other over the illegal profits, is as stupid as people killing each other over chocolate cake.  Let's stop it.  Let's stop criminalizing the behavior.  Let's stop criminalizing the supply chain.  Let's stop declaring war on people and things and start helping them instead. 

Where I live there is no market for illegal booze.  A kid walking down a street in my city has an easier time buying a joint than buying a beer.   Making something illegal makes a thing artificially scarce, which drives up the price, which drives up the profit, which is a gift to criminals, which is a gift to enforcement agencies, which is how our current system works; paradoxically promoting the thing it's intended to prevent.

Aren't the real criminals the people, like Harper, who know what's going on, who see the harm, who can do something about it and don't, even when the leaders of a variety of ostensibly friendly nations want to talk about change and want to talk about solutions?  We are the fat cats, and we are corrupt, and we are hurting ourselves by maintaining this silly status quo.

Canada Post in Postal Code Copyright Fail

A company in Ottawa has crowdsourced a database of postal codes and now it appears that Canada Post is suing them for violation of copyright.  If you can't believe it, read it for yourself at CBC.   

Postal code data is a set of facts, and facts are not protected by copyright.  Yes, the format of those facts, so the A9A 9A9 character/digit sequence or format might be protected, so if you set up your own postal code system and you used L0L 0L0 somewhere, then they might have a case, and you might be a pirate, rrr, but even then it's not clear to me how you'd have damaged Canada Post's interests in any way.  Like, what is the harm?

In the current case Canada Post is trying to protect it's right to price gouge by making it illegal for other companies to compile and sell public facts.  In a free market this is called competition, and I can see how Canada Post might not like that because access to their own database of postal codes is extraordinarily expensive.

This is exactly the same situation as in other copyright cases, where rather than innovate to provide an awesome product at an awesome price, fat-cats in business lobby the fat-cats in government to protect lousy old business models with overreaching copyright law, protecting the interests of business over the interests of the consumer and of the society at large. 

US Allows Police to Strip-Search Anyone Arrested for Anything, Anytime.

The United States' supreme court has allowed police to strip-search anyone arrested for anything, anytime.  Yeah, for a speeding ticket.  Yeah, for not paying alimony.

“People detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals,’’ wrote [US Supreme Court Justice Anthony] Kennedy. As an example, he cited McVeigh, the domestic terrorist who was executed for his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, who was first arrested for driving without a license plate. Kennedy also pointed out that one of the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks was stopped and ticketed for speeding just two days before hijacking Flight 93.
- Joan Vennochi, The Boston Globe

Left as a weird exercise for us all is to understand how strip-searching a speeder might offer predictive evidence of some terrorist activity he or she might be planning in the next few days.
 
A more sinister view is offered in this article by Naomi Wolf, writer of The Beauty Myth, about the connection between sexual humiliation and control of the masses, and how this ruling is just one of many recent events that are eroding personal freedoms in America, the country that used to call itself, with pride, the land of the free.

Of greater concern to me than the fact that these erosions are occurring is the fact that nobody seems to care.  Yeah, you can find out about this story if you search for it specifically, but if it was the cold war and Russia enacted this law, it would have been all over our news.  But enacted here, where it can do us significant harm?  Our media are mostly silent.

Simplified: How to be a Sound Banker.

I saw this quote today, which I think is really quite brilliant. 

The "sound" banker, alas! is not one who sees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows so that no one can really blame him.
–John Maynard Keynes

If I was as lousy at my job as are many politicians, bankers, and business executives, I wouldn't just be fired, I'd be jailed. 

GOP Misogyny: Out There for the World to See

From MoveOn.org, this video powerfully repeats comments made by prominent US Republicans.

Guns Don't Kill People, Hoodies Kill People: Trayvon Martin II

I don't know what to say.

I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman.
- Geraldo Riviera

Well then, someone arrest the f**king hoodie.

Trayvon Martin: Wrong Place, Wrong Time.

Trayvon Martin is that kid who got shot by the neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, who is alive today because he had a gun, which was smart of him.  Guns don't kill people in much the same way that cigarettes don't kill people.  The only thing that can kill people is, of course, people.

Or maybe the flu.  I guess the flu can kill people, if it's Spanish or Swine or SARS, so I guess flus that start with 'S' are the most deadly.  Oh, and there's snakes of course, sometimes people can die at the hands of snakes, except snakes don't have hands, nor do they seem to need them. But it's clear that just because they can't handle guns doesn't mean snakes are safe, so clearly deadliness is not something we can strictly associate with guns, or cigarettes, really, since there are so many, many ways for people of frighteningly large minorities to die, and not just gunshot wounds.

So really it's more of a 'wrong place, wrong time' kind of thing, since in the right place at the right time everything would have been fine.  So Trayvon was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was dark, which is not surprising.  It could probably be proved that a lot of 'wrong place, wrong time' kinds of events happen when it's dark, and when seeing is clearly hard.

So the lighting could have been better, and if he was carrying skittles and ice tea it might have looked like a gun, which couldn't have killed people, but might have frightened George Zimmerman, and what if he was afraid?  It was dark, and Trayvon had dark skin so maybe it was harder to read his intentions, and if he didn't get a bag for his ice tea then probably he was grasping it and pointing it at George.

Nobody deserves to die, obviously, but just yesterday I was sitting at home and *bang* a bird flies into the living-room window and breaks it's neck, and so can we blame the window?  If the bird leaves it's nest it takes a chance, really, and hopes for the best for that day, like we all do.

To sum up, guns are a symbol of our freedom and our right to keep ourselves safe against--you know--the living-room windows that any of us might, and often do encounter on a dark night, or if it's so bright that you see a tree reflected in the window and you go to fly into that tree and *bang*.  Also, if I was Mr. Martin, I would think about carrying a gun in the future, not so much to hurt somebody, but so I could feel safer, and to exercise my inalienable second amendment rights.

Avoid Extreme Wrist Angles

I'm writing an inventory control system so I bought a barcode scanner. I guess it can be dangerous...

Who knew?

That says, "Have a nice day," in barcode.