Dangerous Logical Fallacy

OK, we've all seen the ads on TV for some alarm company where some creep is watching an innocent woman or child or both and kicks open their front door in broad daylight. All of a sudden, an alarm shrieks to life, the criminal makes eye contact with his intended victim and runs off.
I can't tell you how much these ads offend me. First of all, anyone fucked up enough to kick in the door of someone's home in broad daylight is not going to turn tail and run off just because some alarm goes off. The first thing they are going to do is get hold of their victim to control their movements, that way they can keep them away from any exit or phone. The next thing they'll do is bind the victim with something so they can be controlled with minimal effort. So by the time the company monitoring the alarm system lets the phone ring the required number of times, they then have to determine whether it's a genuine emergency or someon'es talking on their phone & just doesn't want to answer the call-waiting signal (I do that all the time), they then call 911 to alert the authorities. You think the cops are going to show up in time to save you? Ask Nathan Lee how that worked out:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/28/florida.murder.kidnap.911/index.html?iref=newssearch
His wife was kidnapped, raped and then murdered while she was talking to 911! Ok, they may not have heard the gunshot that killed her but fuck! Five calls to 911 did sweet fuck-all to help this poor woman. It broke my heart to listen to her calls & it made me angry at the impotence of the "system" that so many people count on for their safety. If you worry about safety for yourself & your family, learn how to avoid or take care of trouble. I have dogs & guns, but let's be honest, that's not a universal solution & won't work for everyone. Same for Martial Arts. But you can do something, just find out what that something is and do it.

That's a classic example of Appeal to Emotion, a logical fallacy used to prove a point without resorting to actual facts. Any time you see an ad that implies "what you have is not good enough" whether it's your SUV, sunblock or alarm system, they are appealing to your emotions rather than your rationale. They count on your ego, lust, ignorance and fear to motivate you to buy the latest & greatest products, namely theirs. Why else would someone buy a Cadillac Escalade? It's the exact same vehicle as a GMC Yukon, just dolled up so they can charge a shitload more money for it, because isn't a Cadillac better than a plain-old GMC?
The whole SUV craze was based on an appeal to emotion: "Don't you want your family to be safe?" - an appeal to fear, because it's been proven time and again that SUVs are less safe in accidents; "How impressed would your neighbors be if you brought home a Lincoln Navigator instead of a boring old Ford Explorer like they have?"- an appeal to vanity or pride, because they never explain why the Navigator is a better vehicle, just that it's an impressive display of wealth & it will make your neighbors jealous of you; "You can do anything or go anywhere! It's sporty and useful!"- an appeal to vanity again, because the only time 99.9% of SUVs go off-road is when their drivers are drunk, and minivans are way more utilitarian. But don't minivans have their own logical fallacies attached to them? "It's not Manly," "It's a 'MommyMobile,'" are classic appeals to vanity. You don't need a 6000 pound all-wheel-drive vehicle to negotiate the strip malls of Suburbia

The Most Patriotic Design You'll See on the 4th of July

Here's likely the most honest and straight forward design you will see while celebrating "Independence Day" in 2009.
Consider this: The average American household has about $8k just in credit card debt, and the national average interest rate is somewhere north of 17%. Do the math & see how fucked almost everyone is.
That's just credit cards, too, that doesn't include that $56k Slow Useless Vehicle you just had to have to impress those asshole neighbors you can't stand, just to rub their noses in it. Good job, Dicktard, that mountain of debt will show them you're no one to be trifled with....
Not to mention the overvalued house you "bought" with a subprime mortgage. How else could you afford a $250k home on thirty grand a year? Guess what? You can't, Dumbass! Now that your payments have tripled, you're crying "foul" because you signed something without reading it, or if you read it, you certainly didn't understand it. And since this is America, it's always someone else's fault, because it most certainly isn't yours.

Gays Are the New "Coloreds"

Well, well, it seems that the Neo-Nazi religious fanatics in this country have found themselves a whole new group of people to subjugate, and apparently the Supreme Court in the People's Republic of Kalifornia think it's just A-OK with them. I'm talking about Prop 8, of course, the bill that basically states that homosexuals are second-class citizens.
Think that's over-simplified? Think of it this way: separate is NEVER equal. To "allow" LGBT couples to form "civil unions" is the worst kind of Orwellian Doublespeak bullshit spouted by people who don't have the balls to speak the truth.
That truth, as I see it, is that elected officials would rather discriminate against the LGBT community than upset the semi-literate, jackbooted, bible-thumping religious fanatic members of their constituency. They say it's to protect the "sacred nature" of marriage. I call mega-bullshit on that. If marriage were so fucking sacred, divorce would be illegal, and how many elected officials would sign their name to that piece of legislature, honestly?
These are the same types who passed the notorious Jim Crow laws so they could keep all those recently freed slaves "in their place." They also tried to ban interracial marriage, and used the same tired bullshit to justify it then as they are using now.
You think that's not a legitimate comparison? Ask any schoolkid if they'd rather be Black or Gay for a day at school.... Sure, the cops aren't using fire hoses or attack dogs on them, yet.
Look, I don't want to minimize the Civil Rights movement from the 60s, because I remember seeing how awful that shit was on the news. All I'm saying is that in a modern society what's good for one is good for all, you can't pick and choose who gets to exercise their rights & who has to sit in the middle & suck on it. You also can't legislate morality, nor should you even try. Marriage is sacred? According to whom? Certainly not any of the Abrahamic religions, whose founding namesake married his own sister, who also gave him a green light to bang the help. Too bad hypocrisy isn't physically painful...
And all you "people of color" who voted to support Prop 8 should be ashamed of yourselves, because I guarantee there were gays marching to support your rights 40 some years ago, so fuck you.
Don't you think they're entitled to the same chance at happiness as everyone else?


I'll tell you this much, I'd give a gay man my last dollar before I'd piss in a bible-thumper's sucking chest wound, because I know the gay man would never try to cram his belief system or lifestyle down my throat, or up my ass, or....fuck it, find your own analogy. At least all the gay men I've known never found a compulsion to try to convert me, or worse, judge me.
To all you Nazi pricks trying to hide behind your Stone Age dogma just so you can feel superior to someone, try a new experience, try minding your own fucking business & not telling other people how to live, at least until you're as perfect as you think you are. And to all you religious organizations out there: if you want to chime in on political issues, pay for the right like the rest of us, pay taxes or shut the ever-loving fuck up. Stay out of politics & stick to what you know: selling salvation to a gullible flock of morons, polygamy and child molestation.

All Too Common

It's been a while since I've posted anything, but I do have a job. At one point in my life I had actually contemplated a career in law enforcement. That's right, a cop. As things stand now, I'm glad I didn't, because I'd be associated with these gems of today's Fascist society:

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Opinion/Content?oid=oid:58248

I hope if this guy's married they showed these pictures to his wife. First of all, only the worst and most cowardly of cunts hit women. On top of that, where does the "Serve and Protect" part cover beating the shit out of any prisoner, let alone a handcuffed woman? Your Mom sure would be proud to see this, once the swelling around her eyes goes down enough for her to see anything at all. I guess those dishes aren't going to do themselves, are they? At least your Dad will have something to talk about when he's forcing himself on some teenage boy at that "one" rest area on the interstate right by his house. A quick search on Youtube will net you some graphic video. What a dick.

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Opinion/Content?oid=oid:58248

I'm sure this skilled officer is much better at threat assessment than me, because a NINE FUCKING YEAR OLD MENTALLY RETARDED GIRL could certainly be easily underestimated. I'm sure she brought it upon herself, though, being all small and "slow" and unpredictable. I can't even fathom the cowardice of anyone who witnessed this not at least saying something to this fucking thug hiding behind a badge. If I saw anyone else but a cop doing something this mortifying I would feel obligated to try to stop them any way I could. See that picture of me at the top of the page? That's a good choice for what they call an "appropriate response."

I sincerely hope these assholes lose their jobs at the very least. I also hope the inevitable (and completely justified) lawsuits bankrupt both of these departments. Fuck them, it's what they deserve for putting badges on these cocksuckers.

Not Far Off The Mark

There are three kinds of people in this world that I despise: Thieves, Liars and Bullies, and the RIAA is all three in one convenient, easy-to-loathe package.
I'm old enough to have owned (and nostalgic enough to still own) vinyl LPs and cassette tapes. My friends and I shared all our albums with each other by taking the time to record them onto cassettes, and we all had piles of homemade cassette tapes. Some of them were even labeled as well. Why did we do this? It's called "sharing" and it's how we were raised. Also because it saved us money because we didn't have to buy that particular LP. I'm sure the music industry lost money from us doing that, but twenty or thirty years ago the government wasn't completely bought and paid for by big business.
File sharing is just like spending a rainy afternoon at a friend's house turning a stack of records into a stack of tapes. It wasn't called stealing then and it's no different now, it just doesn't take as long. I now have stacks of CDs and a CD recorder, and I will gladly copy anything I have for someone.
Do I make 1000 copies of a CD and sell them? No, because that is pirating, and I have no issue with arresting someone doing that. But when the RIAA sues some little kid for a ridiculous amount of money for downloading her favorite songs I have a huge problem with that. Way to take the moral high ground and make an example out of a hardened criminal! If you are savvy enough to not have to pay for your music, awesome! If your favorite band comes to town, pay for a ticket to see them live, because at least they'll make more than a dollar from each ticket, unlike their latest CD, which, even though it still costs $18, made the record company fifteen times as much money as the artist. And why do CDs cost as much now as when they first came out over 20 years ago? Especially when you consider the cost of a CD player started out at around three grand, and now you couldn't give one away because DVD players are so inexpensive now?
I know someone who worked in a CD factory 8-10 years ago, and they told me that, including the packaging, it cost about a buck and a half to make a CD. Even taking into consideration the cost of shipping, advertising, paying the wage slaves to move it from one point to another in the store, and what the artist is being paid (minus the advance they already got, thank you), the price of a CD should be under five bucks. The only reason, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that Cds cost as much as they do is corporate greed.
So share your files with your friends, neighbors, acquaintances, online friends, even complete strangers, as long as you're sharing and not making money off of someone else's work.

The Stench of Hypocrisy

I have never been a fan of militant activist groups, I don't like their heavy-handed techniques and over-the-top propaganda. There are much better ways to get your message across than bullying and browbeating people, I think it's lazy and counterproductive, especially with Oppositional-Defiant people like myself. In fact, my least favorite phrase in English is "You have to..." Because I don't have to do anything, but I'm also aware of cause and effect regarding my choices.
That brings me to the subject of this post. Everyone knows PETA loves animals, right? Well, it turns out PETA is trying to redefine hypocrisy almost daily. There's even a website called petakillsanimals.com that exposes the falsehoods that make up a great deal of the common perception of PETA's image.
Even the head of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, spews her militant rhetoric without the slightest regard for irony. I found this blog post from last November and it's typical of the hypocritical bullshit PETA tries to pass off as policy. It's nothing new, either, because this article from the Center for Consumer Freedom has quotes dating back to 1990.
If you have ever seen Penn & Teller: Bullshit! then you shouldn't be surprised to know they did a whole episode about what kind of bullshit these people try to get everyone to believe.
In conclusion, fuck PETA and others of their ilk who live in the "Do as I say, not as I do" world of hypocrisy.

I Can't Believe This

I don't understand how someone so FUCKING STUPID could make it to adulthood, let alone live outside an institution without a fucking helmet! I found this article yesterday and had to write about it. I know human stupidity knows no bounds, but god damn! This just really solidifies my "view" of television programming as a whole. I really hope this is just some ratings ploy, because otherwise it's just sad.