It's all about the right wing agenda.
Three months ago Republicans hit the House with majority and say it's all going to be about jobs, after all that's what's holding this country back.
JOBS.
Did they ram through any legislation to help jobs?
No.
But as this article laments, they have created rules for the IRS to ask anyone audited if they've had an abortion. Good win you idiots. (hey do dudes need to naswer the same question?)
http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8FDJWG?OpenDocument
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, November 5, 2007
Recipe of the Day
Ingredients:
One generation of gangsta rap culture.
Several immature individuals highly overpaid for playing a game
Lots of beer
A pinch of adrenaline
A total lack of self-control
Mix thoroughly and what do you get? An NBA basketball game of course!
However, worse than what happened at the game, was the response of the ESPN commentators on SportsCenter this morning… it was all the fan’s fault! Pahleeease! Yes, there was uncalled for fan involvement… yes, the fans got out of control… yes, the fans showed poor judgement… but to exonerate the players? I don’t think so.
Presumably, the players were the ones with clear heads and the fans clouded by alcohol (I guess that’s a fair assumption). The players were the ones out there making more in two hours than most everyone else in the arena makes in a year. Couldn’t they show a little discipline? Evidently not.
Seems to me that this was only the tipping point of a trend that’s been brewing for a long time. I stopped watching basketball long ago. Gone are the days of classy players like Wilt, Larry, Doc, Pistol Pete, Kareem, etc…. replaced by a generation raised on gangsta rap and seemingly determined to bring those same values to the court.
It won’t be long now until the NBA and even colleges will have to provide terrorist level security just for a basketball game. I fear that basketball is only the start. Seems that football is headed in the same direction.
A sad day when what used to be a valuable learning experience (sports) turns into a bad example for our youth.
Friday, June 9, 2006
GTA is the new crack for kids
A few days ago I talked about the problem of porn. There isn't much we can do about the girlie mags hidden by teenagers in park bushes and stumbled upon by 11 year old boys (which is how I got my introduction to the genre by the way), but if there is one fixture in the 11 year old's boy's life now, it is video games.
I could talk about games like beach volleyball, that are pretty obviously produced so that guys can pant over the jiggling pixels of the players. However, there is one really obvious case-in-point which pulls back the screen on exactly what the entertainment industry, and by extension, the video game industry is up to.
Sure, they make all kinds of PC noise like "oh, we would NEVER market sex to kids... that is just wrong" but then along comes a game like... oh... say Grand Theft Auto. In its original incarnation, it was a game teaching and glorifying car thievery, and associated crimes such as cop killing, reckless driving and vehicular homicide. Sure, that's pretty bad, and lots of caring parents told their kids no, they can't play it. But lots more (I think specifically of single parents, or families with both parents outside the home most often) either didn't care what their kids were playing, or cared by were overruled by the lack of control they have over their kids and caved to "keep them happy" and assuage the guilt they felt for not being "able" to spend more time with them. (I'll rant on people who choose their career over their children later.) GTA became GTA 2, an even bigger seller, and finally they launched GTA: San Andreas I believe about a year ago.
The latest kerfuffle that has arisen is that the way these games are made now, the manufacturers all include "cheat codes" and "hidden extras" kind of like easter eggs in DVDs. They allow people to play the game more easily, or show extra minigames and such. In some cases, "mods" need to be made by changing the code of the game to reveal the extra. These are "discovered" by hackers and released to the public (though I kind of doubt that hackers discover them... I think more likely they are simply leaked by the company itself to generate interest - why else would they be programmed into the original game then left defunct like an appendix?)
In San Andreas, a minigame was "discovered" that took the main character into a sexual scenario, where he "does it" with his girlfriend. The extra is a minigame, interactively making the character have sex and using a meter to get his GF to orgasm. Obviously this involves explicit images, sounds and so on.
The game creators at first denied this was part of the game - they claimed the person who released the "mod" made all the code himself. Astute journalists (wish these guys were working on Canadian politics) thought to go ask the guy who released the mod. Oh, but he says no, he just unlocked the code - it was there all along - and proved it.
So now, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is being pulled from store shelves across the country, as it is being officially assigned an Adults Only rating. Its manufacturers are saying they will be releasing a new version of the game without the questionable code shortly, returning it to a Mature rating. But my question is, why was it there in the first place? What were they trying to do? They claim they are marketing this game to the 16-25 year old, but I'll tell ya, most of the people playing this game are not 16-25. They are 10-15. And they are boys.
Kind of makes all those old myths about Disney slipping nude pictures into animated films not so far fetched now doesn't it?
Aw, heck. I don't know what I am railing about. Another couple years, they will be using this mod in schools as a sex-ed lab. I mean, you can only learn so much from putting a condom on a banana can't you?
UPDATE: Seems the MSM decided to talk about this too... in the context of commercials. I note in 3 pages of article, there is ZERO mention of what can be done to reverse this trend... it's like it is almost... inevitable... even as they freely admit that the trend is leading to approval of pedophilia and statutory rape.
I could talk about games like beach volleyball, that are pretty obviously produced so that guys can pant over the jiggling pixels of the players. However, there is one really obvious case-in-point which pulls back the screen on exactly what the entertainment industry, and by extension, the video game industry is up to.
Sure, they make all kinds of PC noise like "oh, we would NEVER market sex to kids... that is just wrong" but then along comes a game like... oh... say Grand Theft Auto. In its original incarnation, it was a game teaching and glorifying car thievery, and associated crimes such as cop killing, reckless driving and vehicular homicide. Sure, that's pretty bad, and lots of caring parents told their kids no, they can't play it. But lots more (I think specifically of single parents, or families with both parents outside the home most often) either didn't care what their kids were playing, or cared by were overruled by the lack of control they have over their kids and caved to "keep them happy" and assuage the guilt they felt for not being "able" to spend more time with them. (I'll rant on people who choose their career over their children later.) GTA became GTA 2, an even bigger seller, and finally they launched GTA: San Andreas I believe about a year ago.
The latest kerfuffle that has arisen is that the way these games are made now, the manufacturers all include "cheat codes" and "hidden extras" kind of like easter eggs in DVDs. They allow people to play the game more easily, or show extra minigames and such. In some cases, "mods" need to be made by changing the code of the game to reveal the extra. These are "discovered" by hackers and released to the public (though I kind of doubt that hackers discover them... I think more likely they are simply leaked by the company itself to generate interest - why else would they be programmed into the original game then left defunct like an appendix?)
In San Andreas, a minigame was "discovered" that took the main character into a sexual scenario, where he "does it" with his girlfriend. The extra is a minigame, interactively making the character have sex and using a meter to get his GF to orgasm. Obviously this involves explicit images, sounds and so on.
The game creators at first denied this was part of the game - they claimed the person who released the "mod" made all the code himself. Astute journalists (wish these guys were working on Canadian politics) thought to go ask the guy who released the mod. Oh, but he says no, he just unlocked the code - it was there all along - and proved it.
So now, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is being pulled from store shelves across the country, as it is being officially assigned an Adults Only rating. Its manufacturers are saying they will be releasing a new version of the game without the questionable code shortly, returning it to a Mature rating. But my question is, why was it there in the first place? What were they trying to do? They claim they are marketing this game to the 16-25 year old, but I'll tell ya, most of the people playing this game are not 16-25. They are 10-15. And they are boys.
Kind of makes all those old myths about Disney slipping nude pictures into animated films not so far fetched now doesn't it?
Aw, heck. I don't know what I am railing about. Another couple years, they will be using this mod in schools as a sex-ed lab. I mean, you can only learn so much from putting a condom on a banana can't you?
UPDATE: Seems the MSM decided to talk about this too... in the context of commercials. I note in 3 pages of article, there is ZERO mention of what can be done to reverse this trend... it's like it is almost... inevitable... even as they freely admit that the trend is leading to approval of pedophilia and statutory rape.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
The Shortsightedness of Man
OK… so I haven’t written for a long time. All two of my readers can sue me. First things first… my most loyal reader is back from Iraq… welcome back Kenny!
So, what’s got me all fired up enough to write again after such a long absence? The hurricanes! The power of God always tends to point out the weakness of man, and boy have we seen some weaknesses recently. I’ll touch on them one at a time in a series of posts. First topic: The Shortsightedness of Man
I’m so sick about hearing that Rita was, “the third-strongest tropical system ever recorded in the Atlantic basin.” News reports, NOAA, commentaries, the local weatherman… Arrrrgh! How short-sighted does one have to be to get suckered in by this statement?
Answer me these questions:
Q: How long is “ever”?
A: For the purposes of hurricane intensity measurements, back to 1854. Looking in the record books, that’s the earliest recorded “record” storm that you’ll find. But even that’s misleading. Those just happen to be storms that crossed the coast where accurate instruments were found and someone was lucky enough to get a measurement and live to tell about it. If you’re going to compare the intensity of storms out in the middle of ocean, then you can only go back to when we started flying into the middle of them (about 40 years), and even then, only the storms that were reachable from land. So, Rita was the third strongest storm ever in the Atlantic basin? Yes it was… to the exclusion of the thousands (or tens of millions if you’re an evolutionist) of years worth of storms prior to it!
Q: What’s the extent of the Atlantic Basin?
A: From Africa to the Americas in the Atlantic. Yeah, we measure all those storms out over the Atlantic, and have from the beginning of time. Right! I’m sure that the average 18th century sailing vessel was able to venture into the eye of a Cat5, take a barometer reading and return to the queen to tell her about it.
For all practical purposes, “ever” consists of the last forty years, and even then, only considering the storms near enough to shore to reach by airplane. But over and over again on the news, we have the breathless reporting of the third largest storm ever! As is typical for man, “ever” consists of about a generation, as if his generation were the only one in the history of mankind. No wonder we keep making the same mistakes over and over and over. As Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
Sunday, December 5, 2004
Bill's Financial Analysis
I keep reading about how the whole world is going to end on December 25th because Wallmart’s holiday sales are lackluster. Here’s the man-on-the-street financial analysis:
Yes, Wallmart’s sales are down, but it’s because people are shopping at other stores. All over the country, Wallmart has been on a campaign to turn normal sized Wallmarts into Super-Gigantum-Mega-Colossal-Titanic Wallmarts. This happened to my Wallmart about five months ago. I’ve shopped there exactly once since then. The parking lot is the size of your average national park. To get from one side of the store to the other requires a bus ride with two transfers, and the crowds are worse than a college pub on free beer night. A classic example of “too much of a good thing”.
All that money that Wallmart’s whining about?... It’s getting distributed to smaller stores such as K-Mart, Wallgreens, etc. It’s not going to be a bad holiday sales season overall… only for Wallmart. I’m buying some Sears/K-Mart stock for Christmas this year.
Fine Print Disclaimer: I suck at financial analysis. When I speak, everybody listens… so they’ll know what NOT to do. So… don’t blame your losses on me!
Yes, Wallmart’s sales are down, but it’s because people are shopping at other stores. All over the country, Wallmart has been on a campaign to turn normal sized Wallmarts into Super-Gigantum-Mega-Colossal-Titanic Wallmarts. This happened to my Wallmart about five months ago. I’ve shopped there exactly once since then. The parking lot is the size of your average national park. To get from one side of the store to the other requires a bus ride with two transfers, and the crowds are worse than a college pub on free beer night. A classic example of “too much of a good thing”.
All that money that Wallmart’s whining about?... It’s getting distributed to smaller stores such as K-Mart, Wallgreens, etc. It’s not going to be a bad holiday sales season overall… only for Wallmart. I’m buying some Sears/K-Mart stock for Christmas this year.
Fine Print Disclaimer: I suck at financial analysis. When I speak, everybody listens… so they’ll know what NOT to do. So… don’t blame your losses on me!
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Single Greatest Threat?
The single greatest long-term threat to the United States of America is the rapid and continued dilution of its Christian heritage and values.
The Christian heritage of the U.S. was brought into focus last week by the celebration of perhaps the most Christian-like of American holidays. Of course, Thanksgiving is celebrated by Americans with a great diversity of backgrounds, but its early American-Christian roots are undeniable. Even a cursory glance at the original proclamation and Washington’s/Lincoln’s restatements leads to this inescapable conclusion. A further study of this country’s early documents points to more of the same heavy influence of Christianity in the formation of the U.S.
How far we’ve fallen in such a short period of time. It would be practically impossible in this day and age to imagine any government entity calling upon the public to “offer up our bodies and soulds (sic) as a living and acceptable Service unto God by Jesus Christ” as did the Council at Charlestown, MA. The mere mention of God is rare enough and getting scarcer still, and Jesus may as well be one of the few (if any) words still forbidden on network television.
What used to be the majority in the U.S. is rapidly becoming the “remnant” much like Isaiah refers to regarding Israel in the first chapter of his prophecy of Israel’s ultimate demise. And, like the remnant of Isaiah 1:9, the faithful, God-fearing citizen may be the only moral force holding this country together at the moment.
Well… on to the more complicated portion of the question… what to do about it?
While the threat is singular, the source of the threat is from myriad sources… the ACLU, Islam, rampant secularism/humanism, judicial overreach, political correctness, immigration, Hollywood values, and just plain crass immorality at levels unimaginable prior to the mid 1900s.
Unfortunately, I don’t have all the answers, and even if I did, I’m sure there’s someone out there much wiser than I that could give better ones. But since I brought it up, I’ll devote a sentence or two to each (they deserve a book or two apiece):
The ACLU – At some point, the myth of “separation of Church and State” has to be debunked and we have to get back to the true meaning of the establishment clause of the first article of the Bill of Rights. I don’t have a problem with any organization that protects the freedoms of the U.S., but the ACLU has gone far beyond that in their campaign to wipe all vestiges of God and morality from American life. How to get back to a constitutional view of the first amendment? I don’t know… I’m no lawyer… but seems like a good start would be to get some constitutionalist judges (if any are left to be found) sitting on benches all over the country.
Islam – I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. We have to stop treating radical Islam as a religion and treat it for what it is… a political entity bent on the destruction of the United State of America. In that respect, it should be treated just like any other political threat to U.S. sovereignty… wiped out. The peaceful practice of Islam as a religion should be tolerated under the first amendment, but we have to recognize and deal with the threat of politically motivated Islam’s attempts to build a world theocracy. At some point, the religion stops and the threat begins.
Rampant secularism/humanism – Keep your eye on Europe for the dangers involved. I’m not real sure what can be done about this problem other than for the country to provide a more favorable environment for God-fearing folk. That’s certainly not the case at present.
Judicial overreach – Impeach the judges. Enact legislation to limit the powers of the judiciary. Enact legislation to further empower the public to initiate impeachment proceedings against judges.
Political Correctness – Is nothing more than a values system that stresses there is no right or wrong… a paradoxical statement if I’ve ever heard one (not much ‘value’ in having no right or wrong). You can’t live as a Christian, or any God-fearing individual and believe there is no right or wrong. Neither God or Jesus were ambivalent about calling out good and evil… neither should we.
Immigration - Control it according to existing law. Thoroughly educate immigrants in our past.
Hollywood values – Stop going to the movies. I did a long time ago.
Immorality – Get out of this first amendment protection of smut and filth and stop placing it front and center in our children’s (and adult’s for that matter) faces. This poor interpretation of the first amendment is in direct conflict with Article 1, Section 8 in which Congress is to provide for the general welfare of the country. We also need to stop writing laws that treat immorality as a God given right…. such as adding sexual orientation to the list of equal opportunity protected classes. The entire country needs to take Honest Abe’s advice… “And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience…”
There you have it! A wholly inadequate response.
The Christian heritage of the U.S. was brought into focus last week by the celebration of perhaps the most Christian-like of American holidays. Of course, Thanksgiving is celebrated by Americans with a great diversity of backgrounds, but its early American-Christian roots are undeniable. Even a cursory glance at the original proclamation and Washington’s/Lincoln’s restatements leads to this inescapable conclusion. A further study of this country’s early documents points to more of the same heavy influence of Christianity in the formation of the U.S.
How far we’ve fallen in such a short period of time. It would be practically impossible in this day and age to imagine any government entity calling upon the public to “offer up our bodies and soulds (sic) as a living and acceptable Service unto God by Jesus Christ” as did the Council at Charlestown, MA. The mere mention of God is rare enough and getting scarcer still, and Jesus may as well be one of the few (if any) words still forbidden on network television.
What used to be the majority in the U.S. is rapidly becoming the “remnant” much like Isaiah refers to regarding Israel in the first chapter of his prophecy of Israel’s ultimate demise. And, like the remnant of Isaiah 1:9, the faithful, God-fearing citizen may be the only moral force holding this country together at the moment.
Well… on to the more complicated portion of the question… what to do about it?
While the threat is singular, the source of the threat is from myriad sources… the ACLU, Islam, rampant secularism/humanism, judicial overreach, political correctness, immigration, Hollywood values, and just plain crass immorality at levels unimaginable prior to the mid 1900s.
Unfortunately, I don’t have all the answers, and even if I did, I’m sure there’s someone out there much wiser than I that could give better ones. But since I brought it up, I’ll devote a sentence or two to each (they deserve a book or two apiece):
The ACLU – At some point, the myth of “separation of Church and State” has to be debunked and we have to get back to the true meaning of the establishment clause of the first article of the Bill of Rights. I don’t have a problem with any organization that protects the freedoms of the U.S., but the ACLU has gone far beyond that in their campaign to wipe all vestiges of God and morality from American life. How to get back to a constitutional view of the first amendment? I don’t know… I’m no lawyer… but seems like a good start would be to get some constitutionalist judges (if any are left to be found) sitting on benches all over the country.
Islam – I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. We have to stop treating radical Islam as a religion and treat it for what it is… a political entity bent on the destruction of the United State of America. In that respect, it should be treated just like any other political threat to U.S. sovereignty… wiped out. The peaceful practice of Islam as a religion should be tolerated under the first amendment, but we have to recognize and deal with the threat of politically motivated Islam’s attempts to build a world theocracy. At some point, the religion stops and the threat begins.
Rampant secularism/humanism – Keep your eye on Europe for the dangers involved. I’m not real sure what can be done about this problem other than for the country to provide a more favorable environment for God-fearing folk. That’s certainly not the case at present.
Judicial overreach – Impeach the judges. Enact legislation to limit the powers of the judiciary. Enact legislation to further empower the public to initiate impeachment proceedings against judges.
Political Correctness – Is nothing more than a values system that stresses there is no right or wrong… a paradoxical statement if I’ve ever heard one (not much ‘value’ in having no right or wrong). You can’t live as a Christian, or any God-fearing individual and believe there is no right or wrong. Neither God or Jesus were ambivalent about calling out good and evil… neither should we.
Immigration - Control it according to existing law. Thoroughly educate immigrants in our past.
Hollywood values – Stop going to the movies. I did a long time ago.
Immorality – Get out of this first amendment protection of smut and filth and stop placing it front and center in our children’s (and adult’s for that matter) faces. This poor interpretation of the first amendment is in direct conflict with Article 1, Section 8 in which Congress is to provide for the general welfare of the country. We also need to stop writing laws that treat immorality as a God given right…. such as adding sexual orientation to the list of equal opportunity protected classes. The entire country needs to take Honest Abe’s advice… “And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience…”
There you have it! A wholly inadequate response.
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