Cathartic Vitriol

• Note to Scott Kurtz of the normally-excellent comic, PVP: The lives of the secondary characters, Robbie and Jase, are NOT INTERESTING. We’re gamers and geeks who don’t want to see anything of these dumb jock drunkards, unless you’re planning to draw their horrible, bloody deaths.
• American Lagers: Real American lager beers, the sort that appeared in the late 19th Century, are excellent. They’re smooth and easy to drink during summer heat. However, adding rice and other lightening ingredients (listen up Anheuser-Busch, Miller, et al!) was only a good idea during grain rationing. The World Wars are over! Stop making shitty beer!
• Email List Arguments: If you want to argue about the something, please do two things, 1) know SOMETHING about the topic, 2) take it OFF the email list. This is for you, Tal-Rides!
• The History Channel: Perhaps the rumor was true. Apparently employees, concerned with the amount of World War II material programmed, called it “The Hitler Channel.” Variety was needed. Unfortunately, ghosts, UFOs, and ridiculous religious speculation is not history.

• Email Jokes: I hate email jokes. You know, the ones with nine-bajillion pages of forwarded email addresses stacked on top and a shitty picture from some unrelated source tagged on for good measure. Dad is currently upset that his latest forwarded email joke (a not-bad story in its own right) was not correctly formatted in HTML with the offensive inline photos. Thus ensued a long explanation of HTML and text-only email and what could and could not be done to insure that formatted text appears in the manner you intend for every recipient. Of course, he’s also deaf as a post, so after hearing every third word I said, with growing agitation, he just re-asked the question. All that for this crappy graphic:

My dad constantly hands me investment newsletters and other materials he has read. He subscribes to a large number of them, and the volume tends to blur the lines between what is content and what is simply advertising. And for advertising, these guys do a bang-up job of obscuring their information behind layers of suspense-writing.

“TWO Governtment Guaranteed Programs…to collect 80% Returns in Two Years…”

“WILL YOUR WEALTH PRESERVATION PLAN SURVIVE GLOBAL DEPRESSION?”

You get the idea. Inevitably, the last page has a cut-out form for you to subscribe to their latest newsletter for 79.95 to $1449.99 a year. What’s more, you end up getting MORE advertising from the same newsletter authors if you DO subscribe to one. What are these guys investing in? Paper company stocks?

To be fair, there is some good advice out there. Porter Stansberry offers some real content in his newsletters and on his website. Of course, he splits this information up across fourteen separate newsletter subscriptions and four various lifetime memberships. At subscription rates of $199 to $5000 per year, it’s pretty clear where Mr. Stansberry’s REAL income is from. Sold to paranoid investors like my father, these rags are a cash cow.

Most recently, my father, a self-professed Christian of profound belief, handed me an article he called “the most interesting article he’s read in a long time.” It was an article about self-reliance and economic freedom which started by defining man’s self interest, in an evolutionary sense, as the basis for free-market economics. As a free-market economist himself (at least, until we start buying Japanese cars), my father found such preaching-to-the-choir very comforting. But wait, what? Evolution? Dad’s “profound belief” pretty much negates anything he reads about evolution. What’s going on? Dad argued that the article, despite mentioning evolutionary theory quite clearly as the foundation for the essential premise, did not in fact, mention evolution. When countered with the actual reference and information concerning the author (John Pugsley,who is an evolutionary biologist and libertarian, among other things), Dad responded, “Well, he’s right there. It doesn’t mean his beliefs are right.”

And here we have an illustration of the essence of America. We profess beliefs we don’t understand. Why think about what you believe and why when you can spout knee-jerk reactionary garbage (”God made me in his own image; I didn’t come from monkeys!”) or feel-good platitudes (”It’s so refreshing to see our youth so committed to the service of our Lord. It gives me hope that our world will become a better place.”)? These are quotes from friends and relative, by the way. So what if you don’t read? Who needs it? You can get all the philosophy you need from a bumper sticker!

I just completed an Ebay transaction with a woman in Austria. It is, of course, for bike parts. In this case, it’s a new-old-stock Shimano Dura Ace partial group, part of which includes a 27.0 Dura Ace seatpost. Now, I have a 27.2 seat-tube so I need a 27.2 seatpost, if possible. The seller said to contact her, so I added this to my Paypal payment:

Do you have the seatpost in 27.2mm? If so, I’d prefer it. Thanks.

After thinking about it, I realized that someone might send me another type of seatpost–a seatpost that was 27.2 but not from the Dura Ace group. So, I sent another message through Ebay:

Just to be clear, although I’ve requested a 27.2 mm seatpost if you have it, I MUST have the Dura Ace seatpost. I don’t want to swap it out with a different model or year or brand. I don’t expect you to have it, but I thought I’d ask. Thanks again! Sorry this is in English!

Her response:
First of all: Hello!
2nd thing: be gentle, I am a Woman!
3rd: you have never reqested an other seatpost size. NOT, to the Ebay system, also not to my E-Mail.
Last thing: I have a 27.2 seatpost (DA 7410). If you like it or not does not care me, if you write me in this kind of English. Please think over what you wrote and what you think. After this, please write back if you want to be charged back or take it with the mentioned seatpost. Cheers, Petra

Ur….what? Apparently, the use of caps for emphasis is considered rude in Austria. Also, it appears that chauvinism is alive and well in Austria, as I am especially prohibited from using all-caps in front of a lady. Of course, I started responding with a flame, then bit my tongue, hit backspace, and responded nicely:

My apologies if you took offense, I was not trying to be rude at all! I just wanted to ask for the 27.2 Dura Ace seatpost if you had it from the same group. You mentioned in your auction to contact you concerning it, but I forgot to add it to the payment message. I was only trying to be clear, and I am very sorry if it seemed rude. I would prefer the 27.2 if possible. If not, please send the 27.0.

Of course, I DID go and check Paypal to make sure I sent the first message, and it was there. So, let’s see if she reads her email at all and how this will work out. If it ends badly, I will post a full accounting.

As it is, however, I think it’s important to do one thing when corresponding with someone via email: assume the best. If you receive a message that appears to be second, follow-up message to a prior one, and you didn’t receive the first one, don’t assume the asshole on the other end didn’t send it. People are generally pretty cool about things, so responding to rudeness with kindness frequently straightens out wrinkles before they descend into chaos and anger. When dealing with non-native English speakers, this is especially important. Perceived rudeness is generally the product of cultural misunderstandings, as is likely in this case.

Still, as this is a rant site…

…I think she’s a twat.

For those of you who are unaware, the United Nations has recently passed–for the ninth year in a row–the Combating Defamation of Religion Resolution. This has become little more than a routine vote and at first glance seems to codify the UN’s support of the ideas of tolerance and diversity.

Bullshit.

The 57 Islamic states who make up the Order of Islamic Conference (OIC) are the primary supporters of this resolution. Interestingly, the resolution only mentions Islam by name, making only vague references to other religions.  In addition, the resolution calls upon nations to alter their constitiutions and laws to prevent the defamation of religion. (For those of you who can’t read, “prevent” means “to make a crime” in this instance.)

Yet again, religion rears its fanged, putrescent head. This isn’t about tolerance, it’s about the imposition of shariah blasphemy laws on the rest of the world. (Remember, I’m not here to simply report this, I’m here to vent.)

Islam sucks. It’s an obvious theocratic mind-control experiment, meant to consolidate power in the hands of clerics and mullahs. If Allah existed, he’d be the most horrific monster imaginable, right up there with the Christian god. The leaders of Islam only wish to model the behavior of such a monster right here on Earth. Case in point: Iran’s threat to remove Israel from the face of the Earth. How do you think the Iranian ambassador to the UN would respond to questions about this, in the face of his support of the anti-defamation resolution? What do you expect of people who follow a “loving and beneficent god” who teaches us to “love one another” and a chapter later wipes out an entire civilization? (The people who can rationalize this behavior? Fucking imbeciles.)

Humanists must unify in the face of these threats. We must not kowtow to the interests of “anti-defamation” in the face of loss of freedom, no matter how warm-hearted we feel when we say “anti-defamation.” Religion is an evil that will be destroyed by education. Freedom of speech is the only freedom that allows us to continue our fight without picking up arms.

Links are coming. Right now, I’m just pissed off.

I am sitting in a bookstore next to a young woman studying biology. I am afraid I should use quotes around “studying,” as she is reading from a book entitled Exploring Creation with Biology. Excuse me, what?

From a short gleaning of the Web, it appears this is a textbook that

1. Ignores the cornerstone of modern biology, evolution, in favor of a “god created the world and everything in it in a static fashion”
2. Purports to teach biology

Are these two goals compatible in the slightest? (Even more frightening–the existence of a whole collection of these textbooks.)

Why can’t we present the best of human knowledge to our children and allow them to come up with their own half-cocked malarky, rather than force-feed them our own malarky to perpetuate the cycle? This is why I fucking hate religion and religious people. They claim confidence in the superiority of their beliefs, yet they must hide from possible exposure to any information that might undermine their absolute faith in a silly book. So self-important that they must discount the work and progress of three thousand years in favor of the primitive, superstitious beliefs and writings of a bronze-age society.

What use does society have for this self-imposed and rigorously-sustained ignorance?

I say none.

Yeah, it’s a weird name, but there’s a point to it.

Catharsis:
… 2 a: purification or purgation of the emotions (as pity and fear) primarily through art b: a purification or purgation that brings about spiritual renewal or release from tension3: elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression

Cathartic:
of, relating to, or producing catharsis

Vitriol:
… 2: something felt to resemble vitriol especially in caustic quality ; especially : virulence of feeling or of speech

(Definitions from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary at http://www.merriam-webster.com/)

So, simply put, this is a place for me to bitch and moan. Hopefully, it will be literate, semi-rational bitching and moaning that others might find pleasant, funny, or otherwise interesting to read.

If you’d like to bitch-and-moan, or if you have ideas for proper bitching-and-moaning topics, feel free to comment or to drop me a line. I can’t guarantee that I’ll use your topics or suggestions, but you’ll be able to read them anyway in the comments section, and I’ll certainly let you take credit and see your name in lights, if only for the Warholian 15 minutes that the Internet affords you.

Thanks for reading,

Michael