A Lesson in Caution and Humlity

          Anyone that knows me or reads my work knows that I am an Ass with an Ego the size of Jupiter (Planet not God).  It takes a lot for to admit that I am wrong and even more for me to apologize for it.  Well, mark this day on your calendar folks because here goes.  I was wrong for something and I apologize to anyone who may have been offended by it.
          To keep the background simple, I posted a "poster" on my FB wall that featured an Actress who gained some fame as a somewhat dimwitted character on a long running comedy show.  In the poster, she essentially grouped every single member of a certain demographic together and accused them all of being guilty of thousands of years of hatred and crimes against humanity.  The group was The Christian Right and the group they were accused of torturing was the LGBT community.
          No GROUP is responsible for any action.  It is the individuals within the group that perform, for good or evil, any action and it is the individuals that should be held accountable.  Blaming all for the actions of some is just as much intolerance and a crime as any violence performed by the individuals of the group. 
          So this is me, saying "I was wrong and I apologize."  Thank you.

Friday's Random Musings or Things that made me go Hmmm.

          Okay as a sort of writing exercise and a way of pandering to my growing number of readers  (1009 page hits!  Whoo hoo!) I have decided to take a moment or three each week to look back and ponder some of the stories that didn't piss me off, annoy me or in any way inspire my usual Ass-ish nature.  Don't worry, the other blogs will still do their very best to really make people think and hopefully honk as many people off as possible.  Ready?  Okay, here we go!
           http://gma.yahoo.com/mysterious-forest-boy-identified-german-police-091307335--abc-news-topstories.html  Okay so in this story, apparently a young boy wanders into the city claiming to have been living in the wild with his Dad for five years after his Mom died.  The boy was clean, well groomed and even had good teeth.  The gear he claimed to have been using was too new looking to have been used in the wild for five years.  He claimed to have came to town after his father died and he had buried him, but he couldn't remember where he buried him.
          Now, at least to me there were so many holes in this "kid's" (Turns out he's actually 20 years old) story that it isn't even funny, but the authorities in Germany seem to have mostly took the kid at his word giving him a place to live and support.  Now it turns out the Boy is a runaway with at least one living parent and now everyone is all heated up about it.  There is talk about making the boy "pay" for all the help he has received.  My advice to Berlin?  Get over it.  You got took because you accepted his story.
          http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/beef-expensive-dinner-214902964.html  Now this one hits a little close to home because I am a major Carnivore.  I like my meat grilled, fried, broiled and even boiled if done properly.  The idea that meat prices are going to keep going up and up scare the crap out of me, but on the other hand maybe it'll make people eat more veggies.  As anyone who reads any type of news knows, small scale farming is making a huge come back.  People everywhere are growing corn, potatoes, peas and other veggies on their porches, patios and fire escapes.  Whole new industries are cropping up to design new and better ways of growing your own food.
          When I was a kid (well after we moved off the actual farm) I didn't know a single person that didn't have some form of vegetable garden and at least a small chicken coop for eggs.  Even people in the "big city" (Troy at that time had a population of about 9000 I think) kept a small garden and some had bigger gardens than us country folk.  Somewhere along the line, being self sufficient became uncool.  It was better to go the grocery store to buy stuff from people hundreds of miles away that you had never even met than to grow your own or buy some maters from the neighbor down the street.  Now thanks to high prices and fears over GMOs and poisons, people are relearning the lessons my Daddy knew back in the 60s-70s.
          http://news.discovery.com/animals/iceland-river-monster-120210.html & http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/bigfoot-spotted-idaho-150527313--abc-news-topstories.html  are kind of a double whammy on the same subject.  Now as anyone who knows me knows I am a firm believer that there are strange creatures out there in the world we haven't discovered yet and yes I do believe in the Loch Ness Monster.  However, it always kills me that anytime anyone finds "footage proving the existence of ...." that the film or photos are always grainy, out of focus, shot from a distance or all three combined.  You'd think that in this era of modern tech where everyone has an HD recorder sitting in their pocket or clipped to their belt, that we could get some believable shots.  Hells, people haven't you ever heard of Fotoshop?
          New species are being discovered every day and species long since though extinct pop up from time to time (Ceolocanth anyone?  Don't know that one?  Look it up and it will blow your mind)  There are still vast areas of the world that are relatively unexplored so who knows what is out there?  However, the era of hoaxers making bad videos and fake footprints should be over with.  I want to see CGI of Bigfoot dancing with Nessie Darn it!
          Well, that's all for this Friday.  Tune in next week for the next confused and random musings.  Thanks to all of my readers.  Have a great weekend!

Cry Bullcrap and let loose Dogs of Conspiracy!

http://www.eutimes.net/2012/06/380-american-rebels-reported-killed-in-michigan-battle/

High Quality fertilizer given above!

          Okay, I will be the first one to admit that we've got a bunch of lunatics in power right now who love to tread on the most basic of rights and even a couple that I firmly believe would love to round up all the naysayers and lock them up somewhere dark and scary.  Hell I will even go so far to as to say that one or two of the nutballs in power would do exactly what is described above if given half the chance, but even my level of bullshit acceptance is overwhelmed by this so-called news article.

Whew what's that smell?

          So according to this learned report produced by the Kremlin (You know the masters of misinformation.) the "Obama Regime" ordered a massive military attack against American Rebel Forces which including dropping a 2000 pound laser guided bomb on them.  This attack supposedly killed "at least 380 men, women and children who had gathered to oppose their nations slide towards a totalitarian dictatorship."  The bomb "hit in the middle of those gathered at this meeting killing over three quarters of them instantly."  Supposedly then "Obama regime military forces “numbering in the high-hundreds” descended upon Michigan [photo 2nd right] utilizing nearly 85 combat transport helicopters and A-10 Thunderbolt air-to-ground missile equipped fighter aircraft."  To finish the job, I am assuming.

          Now lets pause for a moment and ponder these "facts."  I know a little about munitions and know a lot of people who know more.  I am pretty certain that if a ton of high explosives were laser guided to a target where a large group of people were gathered, I doubt that there would have been any survivors at all.  That's a lot of bang!  Secondly, does anyone in their right mind believe that a "covert operation" involving nearly a hundred heavily armed aircraft could be conducted in MICHIGAN of all places?  There would have been hundreds of YouTube videos posted before anyone could do a darned thing about it.  

          Now onto more silliness.  "Russian nuclear experts contributing to this FSB report state that the elevated radiation levels associated with this attack by the Obama regime upon these rebel forces state that they were caused by the bombs used because they contain depleted uranium, and that there is the “strong likelihood” various other rebel areas of the States of Michigan and Indian may have been targeted too."  Okay first let's deal with the concept of a 2000 lb bomb being fitted with depleted uranium.  To achieve the levels of radiation cited in this report, the bomb would have to have been laced with so much DU that I doubt the darned thing could have been carried let alone dropped.  Secondly, DU is used as an armor piercing agent.  Unless these rebels were hold up in a massively fortified underground bunker (Which admittedly would be cool.) there would be no point to using DU.  DU does not make a bigger bang, hence the Depleted part of DU.

Fox News/Faux News

          Now anyone who knows me knows I love to rag on Fox News or Faux News as I like to call them, but this time they are pretty much blameless for the quote used in the article.  Here is the actual article quoted out of context by the offending piece.  As you can see it has absolutely nothing to do with attacks on rebel forces.  

  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/08/pentagon-putting-brakes-on-program-that-gives-weapons-to-law-enforcement-until

          So the fact that this piece can deliberately take information and distort it by simply quoting, "The Defense Department has stopped issuing weapons to thousands of law enforcement agencies until it is satisfied that state officials can account for all the surplus guns, aircraft, Humvees and armored personnel carriers it has given police under a $2.6 billion program, The Associated Press has learned. The department’s Defense Logistics Agency ordered state-appointed coordinators in 49 states to certify the whereabouts of that equipment that has already been distributed through the long-running arrangement overseen by the agency’s Law Enforcement Support Office." completely destroys any possible credibility that the piece might have had.  In short, the Rebels article is a combination of pure bullshit mixed in with heresay and neatly wrapped up in misinformation.

          Don't get me wrong, I know that there are a lot of things messed up in this country and things could get a lot worse, but can we at least try to find out actual facts before believing any and every conspiracy that comes along.  God I am clinically paranoid and even I am not this bad.  40 years ago, a conspiracy nutjob might reach a few hundred people by standing on a corner handing out mimeographed fliers.  99% of the people ignored them because, well they were nuts.  Now these same crazies can reach millions of people with the power of the Interwebz.  Because the info is on Websites slickly done, it gives the lies some appearance of credibility and people who should know better are drawn in to it.  Those people tell their friends "Wow do you know what I saw on the net last night?" and the madness just grows.

           Just when you see this crap, don't automatically think "Oh my god, really?!"  Do some research, ask around and actually find out as much as you can.  Because if you can seriously read an article researched by the Kremlin and reported in an EU paper about the Obama Regime launching a massive covert military strike against rebel forces in MICHIGAN and not have anyone in the country find out, you need serious help.

Boom!  What was that?  Must've been a cow farting.