"A Dose of Cynicism, a Debt of Gratitude"

As some may have already guessed, I am an obnoxious and arrogant bastard. I'd have to be. As a police officer I am expected to arrive at someone's home and in 15 minutes or less solve problems that they have been cultivating and perfecting for years. Are they perfect solutions? No. A perfect solution would not only mend the issue in total but also make everyone involved equally happy.

Not happening.

Fortunately, I'm not in the business of making people happy which makes my job considerably easier.  I don't have to mend an issue, I only have to patch it up enough to make it pretty. I don't have to make everybody happy, I just have to keep them safe, if only from themselves.

Now, dealing with the type of people that I do on a continual basis for the past twelve years has made me a tad cynical. My own issues are depressing enough without having to clutter my brain with somebody elses crap. So, I tend to believe that people suck and richly deserve whatever end eventually comes to them.

Dose of cynicism administered.

My days off consisted of squirreling myself away at home with my family and trying to forget the world exists. Helping me in that pursuit were game consoles. I've been a console gamer most of my life. Starting with playing ansci graphic "Pitfall" on the Commodore 64, to an Atari 2600, Intellivision, Nintendo, SNES, 3DO, PS1, and PS2. Of course there were the customary PC titles, DOOM and Duke Nukem.

Life was good. I could single player myself into blissful oblivion, forgetting all the bad shit I had to learn about my fellow man if only for a few precious hours. I dabbled in online 2 player. Mostly with the odd PS2 title. But, it was found lacking. As interesting as "Star Wars: Battlefront" was, it was not fast paced or challenging enough. The connections were two laggy for any real multi-player communications. As a consequence, I remained a single player devotee. Cynicism safely intact.

Then Sony shit the bed with their debacle of a release for the PS3. There I was, all set to budget the money for the much touted console, hyped as the greatest thing since large breasts. However, when it was released I, like the rest of the known world, cried, "WTF"? Where the hell are the frickin' games Sony.

So, having nothing to do with my PS3 money I looked over at the XBox 360. I'd always considered a 360 but, I can't stand Microsoft. However, after looking at the 3 games for the PS3 and the 4 billion titles that were available for the 360, I decided, "WTF, I'll do it." Then, I bought a copy of Halo 2. I've been playing Halo for 2 months. For the last two weeks, Halo 3 Beta.

As odd as this sounds, thanks to the XBox and the Halo community, I have a slightly more positive outlook on at least a portion of humanity. While I run across the occasional dipshit, the majority of players are civil and just trying to enjoy themselves. Considering the potential level of anonymity the net offers, I expected the dipshit ratio to be much higher.

And in that lies the debt of gratitude owed. I still escape on my days off. I still primarily stay at home with my wife and kids. Now however, my precious few hours are spent realizing that every other biped on the planet is NOT a waste of God's time and oxygen. And THAT is a good feeling.

Thanks.

Posted by cmoth @ 8:54 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

"Why I love Doritoes and can't stand Socialists"

I love Doritoes. They are God's great gift to the snack food kingdom. My son is a Cheeto guy. My wife, kind of a ranch flavored rippled Lay's gal. My daughter follows her old man's lead and goes for the orange triangular goodness. And why not, they're damn near perfect. A sweet balance of corn chip flavor topped off with a good sharp cheddar cheese powder substance. Who cares if it doesn't really taste like that, it still tastes awesome.

I hate socialists. Most people would call them liberals, but they'd be wrong. Nope, while some identify the far-left wing of the democratic party as "liberal", they are really only showing that they really don't know what the word actually means.

Here's what Dictionary.com had to say:

Liberal–adjective

 

1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.

2. (often initial capital letter) nothing or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.

3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism.

4 favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.

5. favoring or permittin freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.

6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.

7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.

8. open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.

9. characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts: liberal donor.

10. given freely or abundantly; generous: a liberal donation.

11. not strict or rigorous; free; not literal: a liberal interpretation of a rule.

12. of, pertaining to, or based on the liberal arts.

13. of, pertaining to, or befitting a freeman.

–noun

14. a person of liberal principles or views, esp. in politics or religion.

15. (often initial capital letter) a member of a liberal party in politics, esp. of the Liberal party in Great Britain.

Sounds good right? Pay careful attention to items 4, 5, 7, 8, and 11. Doesn't much sound like the left-wing of the Dems does it? Sure, it's what they'd LIKE to be. Kind of like how the Republican party would like to actually be conservative. Nope, now lets take a casual glance at socialist.

 

Socialist - noun

 

 1. an advocate or supporter of socialism.

2. (initial capital letter) a member of the U.S. Socialist party.

- adjective

3. see Socialism.

 

Socialism -From The American Heritage Dctionary.
n.  

1.       Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

2.       The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.

There, that's better. See a true free-market economy is one based upon the means of production and distribution is controlled through the private ownership and mutual interest in capital gain. The individual is supposed to control there own business based upon the needs and demands of his customers. Keep the customers happy, they support your business. Don't please them and they support your competitor.

 

The federal government was never meant to have a vested control in private or corporate business. It was only supposed to regulate interstate commerce disputes, to act as a mediator when the states can't agree.

 

Consider the activities of the political parties. The manner in which they regulate our everyday lives plcaes them squarely into the arena of socialism. It is however our own fault. If we paid more attention to our neighbors needs and concerns and took responsibility for our own failings we wouldn't need to be babaysat by an Uber-Bro. Instead we line up to demand more and more social controls so that we can sit on our asses and be absorbed in the lives of celebrities and frivolous pursuits.

 

Now, where the hell are my Doritoes?

Posted by cmoth @ 5:10 am EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

""Bush may not have lied but he sure as hell didn't tell the whole truth"

First of all, I'm a conservative and normally vote for Republican candidates. This is not technically just another Bush bashing article. Plenty of dumbasses can parrot what the talking heads are pissed about without giving anything much real thought.

Secondly, I do have a legit reason for the rant. I voted for Bush, twice. So I have a responsibility to comment since this is partially my fault.

I do NOT dislike George W. I respected him a great deal when he was my Governer when I lived in Texas. He did a lot of good things while Gov so I expected the same when he became President. At first everything seemed good. He had a HUGE mess from the Clinton White-House to clean up and didn't do it the heavy handed way that most newly elected Presidents (such as Clinton) do when they first take office.

After 9-11 his focus shifted, and should have, towards more foreign security concerns. Problem was that a lot of things started happening that didn't really need to. The Patriot act for one. Basically, when you look at it a piece at a time, it's an amalgimation of restrictions that the Feds have been trying to implement for years. As far as I'm concerned more good could be done by people simply caring enough about others enough to start paying attention enough to see suspiious activity AND reporting it to the proper authorities. Unfortunately we are all worthless and lazy and would rather have some Orwellian watchdog keeping us "safe". If most of us are unwilling to "get involved" when someone is breaking into a car they probably won't be active enough to become involved when hey see a potential act of terrorism.

I'm getting a little off topic.

Bush did not lie about Iraq. It's well documented that Iraq had a capacity to produce and stockpile so-called WMD's. We ought to know, we gave him the capability or at least turned a blind eye while others did.

I'm going to use a Law Enforcement analogy. Let's see if this makes sense. I get information that someone is manufacturing meth, good information. An informant provides me with all kinds of really juicy stuff that is dead-on probable cause to immediately obtain a search and siezure warrant. Now, instead of just getting the warrant immediately, I wait. Instead I call him every day for 2 weeks and tell him that I know that he has a meth lab and that if he doesn't allow the narcotics task force to search his home then by gosh I'm coming to get him.

Would anybody be surprised that after 2-weeks when I finally served that warrant I didn't find anything? No, of course not. Would it make since if I let his druggy buddies or buyers have a say on when I could serve my warrant. Don't be an idiot.

14 months. 1 year and 2 months, Bush taunted Sadam with fire and brimstone BS while waiting for the UN to pull their thumbs out of their ass. Thumbs so deep in the Iraqi Oil for Money scandal pie that they couldn't get it out.

Some fun facts. During the 8 year war between Iran and Iraq, the United States backed Sadam Hussein because we hated Iran (remember the Iran Hostage issue in 80?) We provided him with weapons and chemical / bio weapons by either directly prividing them or by turning a blind eye while other countries did. Are you ready for the names of those other countries? Russia, China, France, and Germany (the major players anyway) sound familiar. The same countries trying to stall or prohibit the entry of the US into Iraq prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. It's not liek we really made that much of an effort to push the issue. It would be mighty embarassing if we had gone in hard charging and found a bunch of reactor components with Russian instrcutions, centrifuges provided by the French, etc.

It was stupid that we went to so much effort to come up with an acceptable reason to enter Iraq. We had a great reason. We were responsible for his remaining in power and culpable for what he did while in power. We had a responsibility to remove Sadam.

However, we are not all that great at accepting responsibility for our national security snafus. Allowing the French to maintain Vietnam as a territory after WW2 for instance.

Bush could have admitted the wrongdoing that has added to the problems in the region. While we aren't solely responsible as some would suggest, we do have some share in it. That doesn't make attacking and killing our citizens acceptable.

Instead Bush did what most politicians do, fell back on saying what they think the lowest common denominator will accept as truth instead of trying to explain what really is truthful.

Please forgive the rambling nature of this post. It's 3am my time and I'm exhausted. Good night for now.

Posted by cmoth @ 4:26 am EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Why I think George Lucas Smokes Crack Cocaine

I'm a Star Wars fan. Not a fan boy mind you, but I consider myself more than a casual observer.

I was 6 years old when I first saw Star Wars and I've been hooked ever since. I'll spare the rest of you with any details as to why I like the initial films. You'd have to be living under a rock in a very dark place to not be familiar with the movies. You either like them, hate them, or are so eatin up with them that you'll embarass your family by going to a comic-convention. Not that there's anything wrong with comic conventions it's just that it's like a Renneisance Festival with batteries.

Nope suffice it to say that I loved Episodes 4, 5 and 6. Episodes 1 and 2 annoyed me and I consider Ep 3 only mildly better. What made those original three movies enjoyable was their simplicity. People are simple creatures by nature, particularly those with entertainment dollars to spend. Keep it simple, keep it lively and maybe, just maybe, throw in a pair of boobs. The original trilogy was iconic because it didn't complicate any issues. It was cowboys and indians in space. Good was easily identified and evil was so obvious that they might as well have worn name tags, "HIGH: I'm a Bad Guy".

People like simple movies were the good people are threatened by something so bad as to remove it from the normal range of bad behavior, something none of us "normal folk" could / would possibly do. They then want to see said "bad guys" getting the crap beat out of them. Probably some deep seeded need to have retribution against that lunch money bully from childhood.

All Lucas did with the Prequels was to muddy up the waters. He turned the most villified anatgonist in modern movie history and turned him into a whiney mammas boy. He took the Jedi Order, which had been built up in the original trilogy and with extended stories to be extremely wise monk-like wise-men and turned them into cowardly dumbasses.

But, the damage is done and is not why I think Lucas has a glass pipe in his pocket. No, I think he's a crack-fiend because of his current plans. During the recent G4TV "Star Wars at 30" live broadcast, Lucas revealed that they were working on an animated series that would span the time between Ep 2 and 3. WTF? Didn't he already do that? I'm pretty sure that you can buy the box set off the Cartoon Network. He then stated that the series was going to be so mindblowing that it would "wet the appetite" for a live action series.

Crap! Here he goes again. shouldn't he be put away or something. somebody, please, take away those damn yello legal pads he uses to scribble his ideas and hide them. better yet, burn them.

If I thought for a minute that Lucas was still capable of writing dialoge that meant something or crafting a story that would make sense, I'd be all for it. But, if his latest work is any indication, he should rest on his laurels and just fade into obscutiry.

 

Posted by cmoth @ 12:21 pm EDT | Permalink | 6 Comments

Introduction or "This has been another useless fact".

That this is my first blog will come as no surprise rather quickly. I had not ever planned on doing a blog as I generally find them a waste of bandwidth for someone to go on about themselves. I figured that since the world has as many opinions as rectums why would I want to clutter it up with more ? But when I registered and saw the blog entry set-up I figured, "what the hell".

Most of my opinions are more than well enough expressed on the threads that I respond to. I enjoy the anonymous nature of the web and don't wish to screw that up. I will NOT be posting a lot of private photographs of myself, my family, my home, my pets, my friends, etc. At least nothing that could be used to identify anyone I care for.

As my personal stats will reflect I'm a 36 (soon to be 37) year old white male. Married to probably the finest person on God's great earth. More on that later if the mood strikes. I have two children. One 10 year old girl who is hyper, intelligent, happy, and thankfully naive. She seems to be following her mother's path of atempting to as long as humanly possible hang on to that childlike spark that keeps people happy right up until they get this stupid idea that they have to "grow up". I also have an 8 year old son. He too is intelligent and happy. He's also autistic. I only post that because it will go far towards explaining some of my later posts that I may publish here without answering a lot of questions as to "why would he be doing that"?

Autism is not a one-word catch all. Autism is a spectrum of disorders that covers a LOT of ground. Autistics can range from being the poster-child like hyper-intellectual "rain-man" with social disfunction to severely mentally disabled and physically impaired. There's even some who opine that ADD/ADHD be included into the autistic or OCD/NOS category and that ticks me off. Again, a topic for a later entry. Suffice it to say that my son's autism has manifested itself in a way that prevents him from communicating and connecting with others in ways that others would classify as "normal". If that word has any meaning left to it anymore.

I do not want anyone posting on my blog about how sorry they are to hear of my son's disability/limitation. I felt sorry for myself for far too long as it was and have no wish to go back to that place. My son is perhaps one of the most loving human beings I would ever want to know. He is intelligent and dare I say crafty. He is well-behaved and listens to my wife and I better than other children who would be classified as the aforementioned "normal". While I would love for my son's autism to be "cured" so that he could more easily communicate and achieve, I would not ever wish to give him the same BS attitude and sense of entitlement expressed by the majority of his peers.

The short of it, kids today suck. At least half are spoiled and ill-mannered. Their selfish overinflatted sense of themselves goes to nothing but creating a world that will be even more callous and uncaring as the one we are presently in. I would weap if not for my faith and belief system.

The above sarcasm and cynicism is based on two things, nature and nurture. The nature was something I genetically received from my father. The nurture came from my near 13 years as a police oficer. The nurture part I try to heavily offset with the knowledge that I deal with the lower 10% of our population. That measure has nothing to do with race, creed, socio-economic or any other politically correct diversion from the real issue.

My opinion on humanity. Most people are basically good people. I do not follow a humanistic view of the world. I do not subscribe to the belief that we are all born good and have to be taught bad things, quite the contrary. The human animal as an infant has the same selfish need to survive at all cost as any other of God's creations. Infants and children are by neccesity interested in only themselves and their needs. A child has to be taught how to appropriately interact with others. The proof exists everywhere you lok. A parent has to try damn hard to keep their kids from becoming scumbags. Innattentive parents can end up with trash that I and others like me will in some way have to clean up. Not that I think that they will all become serial killers. There are exceptions. There are a few examples of parents who did everything they could to raise decent children who end up with little satans. Their are crappy parents that despite their best efforts to completely screw their kids up, somehow end up with decent people. Again, exceptions NOT the usual result.

Disagree with me , I know quite a few will. Go ahead and cite personal examples of people you know who "beat the odds". It won't change the reality.

Most are good. There's another slightly lesser percentage of people who are well, ethically neutral. Good when it suites them, corrupt when it suites them. These people are probably worse than the out and out bad. At least the ultimately bad person can be counted on to do what is expected. Those with an ethical neutrality cannot be trusted. Friend to your face, knife to your back types. There is a very busy small percentage of people who I wold classify as "bad" or "evil". Those who not only choose to do the wrong hing when it's beneficial but activel seek out the wrong thing to do because it gives them satisfaction.

Examples:

My wife: A naturally good person. She would sooner light herself on fire than intentionally cause someone else emotional or physical harm without provocation.

Your run of the mill politician: Ethically Neutral. "If it feels good, do it".

Joseph Stalin: Pathologically Evil. By the way. For those of you who do not know. Stalin is the father of the philosophy of political correctness. Look it up.

Before you go about thinking that I am a "negative" person, don't. I am simply confident in my opinions based on a lifetime of personal and professional observations. I actually lke to have fun with the life that I have. I try to laugh and enjoy friendships with all kinds of people. I have two things that I absolutely demand of those I would consider friends: integrity and a sense of humor. Everything else is up for speculation.

I will post independent articles on my beliefs in specific areas of politics, religion, Constitutional freedoms, you name it. I am more than willing to go there.

Posted by cmoth @ 7:55 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments