Saturday, August 4, 2012

Baffled by the Bullshit

You need look no further than a glance to the right to see I haven't made a post since March. In that time...wow. A lot of crap has been going on in the American political landscape. Romney clenched the Republican nomination and brought an end to, what I thought, was the greatest political circus in the history of ever. It was so damn amusing watching the candidates tearing each other down that I wanted to campaign for Frothy McSweatervest just so it would keep going and going all the way until November. But, alas, all good things must end. Frothy dropped out and I thought that would be an end to the lulz.

How wrong I was.

You see, I had no clue that Sir AfterLifePlanetOwner would prove to be a circus of his own. The most recent example of his idiocy I can think of off the top of my head would have to be his overseas tour. The British have a reputation for dry humor and a thick skin, but how bad do you have to screw up to get the fucking Prime Minister to insult you? And then blabbing to reporters that you spoke to the head of MI6 when that's a huge no-no over there? After that, he had the bright idea to skip over to Israel and demonstrate his international savvy by calling Jerusalem Israel's capital, which the international community doesn't do. And why did he think it's a bright idea to insult (multiple times) the Palestinians? Did he think it was gonna help smooth over that bad blood by telling them the reason they're constantly getting fucked over is because they worship the wrong god and their culture is inferior to Israel's? Smooth move, Mittens. So how did he wrap up his international tour? With a trip over to Poland where he shows he can't even keep a reign on his own staff after one of his staff members told a reporter to "Kiss my ass."

Mittens has been called The American Borat and after this trip of his overseas I'm inclined to agree. Whatever else he may have said or done over there was painfully overshadowed by this display of incompetence.

But beyond that, the largest reason I haven't made an update lately can be attributed to a quote from W.C. Fields;

“If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”

I have been baffled by levels of bullshit I didn't believe was possible before on a scale as large as this. Every time I turn around, they're making fuck-up after fuck-up. At this point, someone would happily point to the polls showing them pretty much in a dead heat but I won't do that because, as I have said to others, its a long way until November. Polls change all the time so at this point, I'm not bothering with them.

There are a lot of things he says and does that strike me as being...wrong. From laughing when "apologizing" about forcibly shaving the head of a fellow student he thought was gay to his insistence that he's not gonna watch his wife's horse which got into the fucking Olympics, this man has shown a remarkable lack of empathy for his fellow humans. These examples aren't even scratching the surface.

And this is the man who is running on the Republican ticket for President of the United States, ladies and gentlemen.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Truthy Slips

Romney was making a speech in Illinois and I think the truth finally came out when he was quoting Obama.

"We are inventors, we are builders, we are makers of things. We are Thomas Edison, we are the Wright Brothers, we're Bill Gates, we are steal jobs...wait, I missed that, we are Steve Jobs. That's who we are. That's who we need to be right now. That's true. But the problem is: he's still Barack Obama."


Steal jobs. This coming from a vulture capitalist.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Password, Please

This is something that's been bugging me for around a month now. Employers screen applicants with background checks, fine. I can understand that to a point; you don't want to hire a serial rapist/murderer/cannibal, I get it. Employers also screen for drug use, which I don't get. Is there some skill that you only have when not stoned out of your gourd that allows you to work a cash register correctly?

Eh, whatever.

But when I heard about employers asking applicants for their social networking names and passwords, I have to wonder "who the fuck do you think you are?"

They say it's just a suggestion, that the applicant is only volunteering this information. But that in itself a load of shit.

To quote Lori Andrews on this subject:

Lori Andrews, a law professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law specializing in Internet privacy, is concerned about the pressure placed on applicants, even if they voluntarily provide access to social sites.

"Volunteering is coercion if you need a job," Andrews said.



Let's look at it this way. If you don't get a job soon, you'll be on the street. This makes you desperate for work, any kind of work. This employer knows this. They also know that with the unemployment rate still sitting high at 8.3% as of March 21st, 2012 there are millions of people just as desperate as you. So, they ask you to give up your privacy in exchange for the hope that they might hire you when it's just as likely that they'll hire the other guy who'll not only take their privacy raping dick up his ass but will likely turn around and say "You don't even have to give me a kiss."

How is it that employers can get away with this? High unemployment breeds masses of desperate people. Is this unethical? Yes, of course, but since when has a business ever been over burdened with ethics? Is it illegal? No, but just fucking barely.

That may well change. Maryland (pdf) and Illinois are introducing bills that would "prevent employers from discriminating against prospective employees who don't give them their password."

That's a step in the right direction, but as the Maryland Department of Corrections have proved, they'll just make you log in to your Facebook account and tell you where to click just to skirt those laws.

See, one is an invasion of privacy while the other is an invasion of privacy as well as a nice bag of humiliation.

Privacy is not a dirty word and people need to remember why it is such an important right.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Damn Queer-o-sexuals and their Rights

So, it seems that some people have been on me to update, noting (rightly) that I haven't updated since November.

So, here I am again, not even sure why I took such a long break after all the crap that I've seen to annoy the piss out of me. I think today, I am gonna talk about marriage.

No, I am not going to talk about "gay marriage" because same sex couples don't send out invitations to their "gay marriage" and they don't say their gay vows at the gay altar and then have a gay wedding reception. They get married. End of story.

Is it a civil right? Yes, I do believe it is in much the same way that interracial marriages are a civil right. I hear people saying it isn't like interracial, surprisingly quite often coming from African Americans themselves. To anyone who says that I have but one thing to say:

You have no idea what you're talking about.

You don't think it's a civil right to be able to marry the person you love? Seriously? You don't believe it's a civil right to be able to raise a family with the person you're in a committed relationship with? If you think that, you're a moron; plain and simple.