Cluestick
When they come up with germs that travel across phone lines, we're all screwed.
Conference call this morning. More fun than slicing off your own leg, but only barely...
Shamu has been sick for three months now, hacking directly into the phone all the way. So much for the intelligence of sea mammals. There was a time I would think that even a cow would be intelligent enough to COVER THE DAMNED PHONE or GO OUT AND GET A PHONE WITH MUTE, but apparently I would have been wrong! Yes, we do all hear you and it is terribly annoying you inconsiderate bitch!
This all just adds more support to the argument that the future is looking pretty sorry.
I've worked in the high tech industry most all of my life. There was a time when I believed the tools and devices that industry created helped make the world a better place. That belief died many years ago. While the tragic moment generally coincided with the advent of AOL - the original onramp to the information superhighway for the average person, my disillusionment is much wider than that.
The world we live in is becoming increasingly fraught with technological gadgets in search of a problem to solve. This is because the marketing whores now drive what gets developed in the industry. The engineers searching for solutions to problems that already existed were pushed out long ago when the industry began generating massive profit. At that point, the bean counters took over and stuck the marketers at the helm. Now we have shit like cell phones with cameras that you can use to read the bar code in a magazine article associated with a band you've never heard of before and couldn't care less about so that you can hear samples of tracks that are mostly crap anyway. All for a small fee. Everything, in case you hadn't noticed, will be for a small fee.
The end result of this search for instant gratification for everything is that the world becomes that much more driven by the nanosecond. I cringe every time I watch Castaway and hear "We live and we die by time. And we must not commit the sin of turning our back on time." This brave new world is an environment of attention defecit disorders and pervasive use of anti-depressants. It's a world in which it is increasingly difficult to get away from the oppressive marketing hype constantly trying to sell you something you don't need. Technology only provides more avenues for the sales pitch and distractions from the ability to focus and ultimately cope with life. People spend time in their cars on cell phones instead of focusing on driving. They medicate their children instead of helping them build skills for coping with life's challenges.
The future holds virtual teams communicating without being anywhere near each other. In some cases, I long for a camera to be able to pick up the subtleties that you lose when you can't see the person you're speaking to. At the same time, there are plenty of people who I'd rather never see again. Not through a phone and certainly not in person. If there's any true benefit to be had through this new paradigm, it is that those of us that are able to avoid illness through other choices in life will finally be able to avoid being in the same room with people like Shamu that are constantly sick and more than happy to share their plague with the rest of the world.
Give a little, take a little I guess.
Order has been restored...
Thank goodness that we have the old world order restored in California and Massachusettes. Now the sanctity of marriage can be restored by the god-fearing "right" in this country and the country's priests can get back to molesting young boys.
Now THAT'S what traditional, god-fearing values are all about.
Stupid hypocritic bastards...
Kick the guy out...
Today the Bush campaign is defending using images from 9/11 in commercials because the event represents not a distant memory, but that it "fundamentally changed our public policy in many important ways, and I think it's vital that the next president recognize that."
Guess what...That's the whole damned point of getting him out of there.
It's hard to look back to a president that did a poorer job of taking the good will of most of the world and telling the world to shove it up its collective ass. Not only did our country, under the arrogant leadership of George W. Bush and his overseers, alienate those that mourned with us. We closed our eyes while the same Bush administration blew one smoke screen after another while re-writing legislation that will damage this country for generations to come. The Bush administration inherited a surplus and ran it right back to record defecits - supposedly the role of the "tax and spend liberals" they are constantly warning all of us against and carved away at our civil liberties.
Nice track record. I guess we need to be reminded of tragedy and its aftermath in the hands of zealots more often.
Of course, you won't be seeing this real track record in the Bush campaign's commercials. You'll be seeing the wrapped-in-the-flag false patriotism that so defines this country in times like this. Instead of analyzing what went horribly wrong with the path our leadership took, we have people freaking out about same-sex marriage to try to unify the least common denominator in its reaction against a new phantom threat. What we should be focused on is how we can reconcile with the rest of the world - not how we can be even more divisive here at home.
The world is NOT a safer place today than it was before 9/11. I realize this goes against the grain of common wisdom, but think about it and challenge the brainwashing you're getting over the boob tube. The number and locations of terrorist attacks now are about the same as they were before that fateful morning we all woke up to the tragedy in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Before 9/11 we didn't have a rash of major terrorist attacks on our home soil and we haven't had them since. Moreover, the very people that are supposed to be affording us this new level of protection are quick to point out that it is just a matter of time until we experience another such attack. They can't stop them all folks. Welcome to freedom.
The world COULD be a safer place if we were working in concert with our allies in good will to protect all. This is the legacy of the Bush Administration. They took a golden opportunity to unify the vast majority of the world and shattered it amid arrogance and petty revenge. They stole the election after campaigning against a lack of integrity. This was supposed to be the "compassionate conservative". All bullshit. The man deserves impeachment more than his predecessor did.
A Kerry administration would likely suffer from all of the same special-interest corruption that the Bush one has. The potential benefit is to show the world that We The People do not approve of the path our prior leadership charted for us. A reconciliation with the world is in order. In case the dinosaurs haven't noticed, it's a much smaller place with much less room for arrogance and erroneous foreign policy than it used to be.
Kick George out the door and on his way.
