Un. Be. FSCKING-Lievable!

Hillary Clinton, today, about why she's staying in the running despite her being virtually mathematically eliminated from nomination contention:

Responding to a question from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board about calls for her to drop out of the race, she said: "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don't understand it," she said, dismissing the idea of abandoning the race.

This remark is utterly beyond the pale. Yes, Bill Clinton didin't wrap up the nomination till June, but back then we didn't have the front-loaded system we have today. I almost read this as an idle wish that her rival -- Barack Obama -- were to be assassinated to clear her way to the nomination!

Consider this: Senator Obama and his family have been subjected to death threats since he announced his candidacy over a year ago. Not to mention this: Inspirational American political leaders have all too often been the targets of assassins the last fifty or so years. Given the groundbreaking nature of his candidacy and the fact that too many people have too much to lose if Obama is elected, I'm not very surprised at the talk. Eight years ago, when Colin Powell was considering a run for the Presidency, the racists in my family said that "He dropped out because he's be shot like a dog for being black if he dared run."

Hell, a few months ago, when Ex#2 served me my divorce papers, I asked her who she supported. "Obama, of course. But I think he'll get assassinated."

Nonetheless, it's nothing short of reprehensible of HRC to even go there.

Kids, this shit has to stop, NOW!

Time to put on your magickal thinking hats. No, not the one with the stinky fish entrails. When you think about something, you feed it's thought-form. When you feed a thought-form enough energy, you make it real and give it impact in the world. How many thought-forms are dining on the thought-energy of the thousands of people out there this subtle but toxic meme is evoking?

Here's the counter: visualize Barack Obama taking the oath of office next January 20. Visualize him shielded from harm by the good wishes and the hopes of the millions who will have cast their ballots for the change he represents. Let THAT thought-energy protect and preserve him. Ask the God/s you reverence to ward him from the ill-actions of others.

And most of all, admonish Hillary for her ill-chosen words.

Cheers and Jeers: O:M edition

So sue me, Bill in Portland Maine, over on Daily Kos. Remember who writes your performance reviews . . .

1. Cheers to Blizzard Entertainment. WoW patch 2.4 is out; Blizz dedicated it to the late, great Gary Gygax. Without EGG, WoW and Diablo would not exist. This patch is nowhere as massive in impact as 2.3 was; at least they fixed several annoyances.

1a. Jeers to breaking my damned UI mods, as usual. I guess you can't make an omlet without breaking UI mods . . . bastards.

2. Cheers to Seanan McGuire. Her Bardic Blondeness is coming to town this weekend. I haven't seen her in more than a decade, and I'm looking forward to paying my respects in person to one of my favorite multi-talented artists. She should be your favorite too. Check out her LJ, website and music for reasons why.

3. Cheers to over a century of fearless journalism. My new favorite political magazine is The Nation. I've been on their mailing list since forever, when ex#2 and I used to subscribe to the dead-tree edition of this august journal of liberal opinion. These guys have been around since the 1860s fighting for the abolition of slavery and continue to cover Stuff That Matters (sorry, Slashdot) like elections campaigns and ongoing corruption without accepting a single dime of corporate money.

4. Cheers to filkerTom-foolery: I thought I was hallucinating when I read that Tom Smith, aka the world's fastest filker, is going to be part of the entertainment for Eschacon'08, the lefty blogger con organized by the influential Atrios in Philadelphia this weekend. I'd love to see his set list for his performance . . . .

5. Jeers to sports memes as workplace motivation. Every company seekd competitive advantage through incentivizing its workforce through a variety of means. I have no problems with most of the ways Management motivate us worker bees. I don't even mind those STUPID motivation posters. However, few things this side of the Veil-between-Worlds piss me off more than big time sports. I was raised in a sports-saturated household. There was always sports on TV or the damned radio, and to hell with me if I wanted to watch something mind-streching like Star Trek or listen to music. To this day, I cannot stand sports or TV. This time, it's March Madness, the 63-game marathon men's college basketball tournament. Pick one of the 64 teams (preferably one that stands a chance of winning) as an identity and rank those corporate metrics against them. Frankly, I couldn't care less weather Gonzanga (sounds a stripper's stage name) or UConn or Louisville wins the damned thing. Please. Make Them Stop!

6. Cheers to the Nurses of Kaiser South Sacramento. My wound care issues brings me in contact with a lot of nurses. When I moved south last year I figured I'd have to move my care (which I did) and I worried about continuity and quality of care. Pam, Connie and Valarie, the triumvirate that change the dressings and track the progress of my wounds throughly impress me.

SotR 2008-02-21: Eris' Personal Plaything

A few months ago, when my life was even more whacked than it is today, I told M that I believed that Eris, the goddess of discord and chaos, had selected me as her personal plaything (I actually used a five-letter word referring to a female cur rather than "plaything" with her, but you get the idea). She didn't dispute the idea.

Being Eris' personal bitc, er, plaything, means that both good and bad stuff happens, not just bad stuff.

This week gives me no reason to believe otherwise. A too sharp right turn and a too-rough curb blew out the right rear tire on the Vanmobile. In the rain. And I didn't have a clue as to how, where or if the beast had a spare. It took the light of day and the help of Rob at work to get the VM rolling again. In the process of changing the tire, I found the black Motorola v3 RAZR I thought had been stolen from the VM last week. This was after I'd bought a cheapass Samsung A127 plain vanilla no-Bluetooth-no-sync-with-a-Mac-model. One SIM swap later, my RAZR's operational. Finally, my tax refund check, Fed version, hit the bank along with my paycheck.

Hail Eris!

Praise Teh Sacred Google!

This. Is. C00l.

The Discordian in me loves this kind of stuff. Eris and Google -- BFF!

Google's High Holy Day is September 14, the anniversary of the date the domain google.com was registered. And, it's just five days before another geek holiday, Talk Like A Pirate Day. A holiday devoted to the discovery of truth and good, not to mention pirates, is a perfect antidote to the annual beating around the head and shoulders with the proverbial bloody shirt every Sept 11.

Of course the Dungeon Master in me beat them to it awhile ago.


----------------
Listening to: Seanan McGuire - Still Catch The Tide
via FoxyTunes

I love Sac RT . . .

Yes. Really. However, in the words of one of Kevin Smith's characters in Clerks:

"This job would be great if it weren't for the fscking customers."

As far as I'm concerned, the Sacramento version of Light Rail rocks on toast. Back in the early 90s, I was without a car for about a year, and Light Rail was my main transportation. I did a lot of walking as well, but my terms on a bus were relatively few and far between.

Yes, I love Light Rail, but there are some things about the people on Sacramento RT and Elk Grove e-Tran that get on my fscking nerves. The bus would be great of it weren't for the the other passengers . . .

To wit:

1. Operators who converse on their cellphones (even with Bluetooth headsets) while driving the bus. OK, folks, this one really hjorked my spazz-button when I first saw it. During the duration of my ride on a bus, my very life and that of every other soul aboard that bus is in the hands of an operator who may be suffering from divided attention due to domestic drama or some other conversational or emotional state. I don't know what state law or sac RT's operating instructions say, but I'm going to find out if professional drivers are allowed to use wireless headsets and drive. In either case, if it is allowed, it's unprofessional at best and fscking dangerous to passengers.
2. Light Rail passengers who engage in extremely LOUD cellphone conversation about matters that should not be publicly shared. Folks, you may not be driving, but some of your cannot-help-but-overhear due to your LOUD voiced conversations are the very definition of Too Much Fscking Information. I'm all for free speech, and I'm barely shocked by what passes for conversational profanity anymore . . . but if you must discuss intimate details of your lives in my presence, could you please lower your voice?
3. LOUD cellphone ring tones. Yes, I understand that most of the ring tones sold from AT&T and other wireless providers are from popular tunes, and this art form consists of some very angry and profane speech. Again, I'm pro-First Amendment -- NOBODY has ANY right to tell you you cannot listen to or use part of a song for a ring tone on your cellphone. If you did your fellow passengers the dignity of turning down the volume on the ringer in public (and OFF in certain venues, like theaters, for the love of Eris), I'd be your very best friend.

3. Light Rail passengers who play their music aloud in direct violation of LRT rules. Guys, this one is posted as verboten on EVERY LRT car and every bus. Of all of my gripes, this one is the least excusable. After all, you cannot control when the phone rings or remember to turn it down, and I can understand it if you're deep into conversation and not practicing consideration for others. Why is there NO FSCKING EXCUSE? EVERY CD / mp3 player comes with headphones ...please use them, OK? If you do this, for me, and listen to your music with headphones, I'll refrain from blasting you with Tom Smith, Seanan McGuire, or going nuclear with bagpipe music.

5. RT rent a cops with that wannabe cop attitude. There was this Wackenhut guard at the Marconi-Arcade LRT station hassling some poor schmoe because he was standing between the tracks, waiting for the train. The next trains were several minutes out and the passenger was harmless, not drunk or otherwise whacked. Just standing there, looking up the tracks. The rent-a-cop on patrol looked to me for a minute he was about to go tactical on this poor guy. I got my phone out and set the video camera to record if the whack job of a security officer was about to Rodney King the passenger. The passenger finally realized that Dirty Harry meant business and sat down shaking his head. He saw my phone in camera mode and smiled his thanks.

I encountered more than a little of this attitude back when I worked as a security guard. I worked as a guard for a couple of reasons. Security was very easy work. In those days I had lost all confidence in my abilities as a technician and figured I could never work in the field again . . . so I took a job that required almost no thought whatsoever. It also was a job that allowed me to do child care during the day while Ex#1 worked and /or went to school. Among the high school dropouts and fellow losers (as I freely admit I was, back then) was a small number of people who thought a stint as a security guard would look good on a resume when they applied for the police department, other law enforcement agency, or (Goddess forbid!) the military. All I can say is that some of the extreme head cases left as soon as they realized we were in the observe-and-report business and not in the kick-ass-and-take-names industry. Some did manage to perform auto-rectocraniectomies. One colleague did become a Sacramento PD officer, another went into the Army as a military policeman.


At any rate, I had to vent. Don't let this rant keep you off public transit. I know, transit has its limitations and there are many times when you gotta drive . . . but taking transit when it is feasible helps reduce your carbon emissions footprint, which makes the Goddess smile. The exercise you get from walking to bus and train stops will make your healthcare provider smile, too.

----------------
Listening to: Seanan McGuire - Dorothy
via FoxyTunes