Mankind Killing the Universe and More

Here is the link about how we are destroying the universe.

Death to the Universe!

Irish Songs

I have notice a new trend which is disturbing me greatly. Apparently, after years of being considered one of the largest nerd dorks in the world for liking such a thing, Irish Folk music (which I am a singer of) is becoming popular. There are a lot of people claiming to be an athority and telling me now.

Yet for some reason, they are unable to tell me what any of the songs are even about, let alone who sings them or whatever.

For instance, (besides my Irish friends who know who they are. Hi Sharon!) who knows what the easter rebellion is or why it was important? When was it? What is a Black 'n Tan (if you say a drink i will punch you)and what does it mean that "My father was orange and my mother was green?"

Also, stop giving Flogging Molly credit for every f-ing song you hear. For instance "Kiss my Irish Ass" is not a Flogging Molly song.

This is why I hate when things go pop. It suck all the meaning out of it and makes it one more thing to be sold.

Are you kidding me?

So I have learned today that the wacko nut jobs have expanded their theory to say that humanity is destroying the universe. I have a few things to say about this but I am tired today so, later.

I hope everyone had a happy holiday and is looking forward to a wonderful Advent and Christmas.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

To all my friends, relatives and total strangers who, for some strange reason, like to read what I have to say: Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, full of blessings. Remember to hold the people you love, and love the time you have with them, because, that is all that truly matters.

God's blesssing on you all.

-Eisbär

PS. I think this picture is so funny ...

Thanksgiving In Iraq

During this time of year I am always reminded of those who are over fighting to free us all. I got in an argument a few days ago with someone who said that we are a murderous occupying force and that the Iraqi people were better off before. I know that there are a lot of Iraqis that disagree, so to those people, I give you the cyber finger.




Happy Thanksgiving. Remember to give thanks that you are here, instead of there.

SFB- From A Friend of Mine

Something that bothers me is what I call an "SFB" which I'll define in a moment. In a nutshell, an SFB is a type of person who doesn't want to cooperate with you and comes down with a bad case of the stupids to confound you. The first case of an SFB that I can recall is a guidance counselor I had in High School. She disliked my family for some reason and seemed to work overtime to screw up my older brother who was trying to apply for college. When my turn finally came around, I was summoned into her office where she greeted me cheerily as if we were long lost friends. I said to her frankly, "Look, let's not kid each other, you have no use for me and my family, and I frankly have no use for you. I am going to work through the principal instead of you."

She looked at me coyly and said, "Well, I don't know what you mean." She knew exactly what I meant, she just came down with a bad case of the stupids to cloak her dislike of me. I've come across this same type of scenario time and again as I got older, especially from government bureaucrats and people participating in nonprofit volunteer groups. They just look at you seemingly dumbfounded and say, "Gee, I don't know what you mean," or "Whatever gave you that idea?" This really bugs me. Instead of saying, "Look, I'm having a bad day, why don't you go away until I'm in the mood," or "Quit bothering me and talk to someone else." Even when you articulate your problem carefully, they pretend ignorance instead of trying to help you.

This SFB phenomenon is really disturbing in business, particularly in a Customer Service situation. Instead of looking for ways to help you, people look for ways to confound you so that you will take your problem elsewhere. I think this is why voice mail was invented, so people can pick and chose who they want to talk to.

I recognize there are times where it is necessary to practice tact and diplomacy when dealing with people, but pretending to be brainless is certainly not a good practice particularly when interacting with people on a regular basis is an inherent part of your job.

As I've mentioned in the past, I have a letter carrier who delivers mail to my office only when he is in the mood (which seems to be twice a week). When I confronted him about why he wasn't delivering our mail regularly, he became an SFB and feigned ignorance about what I was talking about. Even when I complained to his superior at the post office, he also became an SFB and pretended not to understand what I was talking about. I guess being an SFB is contagious.

So what exactly is an SFB? Actually, it's quite simple; it's three little letters representing: Shit for Brains.

Such is my Pet Peeve of the Week.

Copyright © 2007 by Tim Bryce. All rights reserved.

Court agrees to rule on gun case

This could be one of the most significant cases of the decade, or possibly the century.


After a hiatus of 68 years, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to rule on the meaning of the Second Amendment — the hotly contested part of the Constitution that guarantees “a right to keep and bear arms.” Not since 1939 has the Court heard a case directly testing the Amendment’s scope — and there is a debate about whether it actually decided anything in that earlier ruling. In a sense, the Court may well be writing on a clean slate if, in the end, it decides the ultimate question: does the Second Amendment guarantee an individual right to have a gun for private use, or does it only guarantee a collective right to have guns in an organized military force such as a state National Guard unit?

The city of Washington’s appeal (District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290) seeking to revive its flat ban on private possession of handguns is expected to be heard in March — slightly more than a year after the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the Second Amendment right is a personal one, at least to have a gun for self-defense in one’s own home. (The Court took no action on Tuesday on a conditional cross-petition, Parker, et al., v. District of Columbia, 07-335, an appeal by five District residents seeking to join in the case. The absence of any action may mean that the Court has decided not to hear that case. If that is so, it will be indicated in an order next Monday. The Court also may simply be holding the case until it decides the Heller case.)

The Justices chose to write out for themselves the constitutional question they will undertake to answer in Heller. Both sides had urged the Court to hear the city’s case, but they had disagreed over how to frame the Second Amendment issue.

Here is the way the Court phrased the granted issue:

“Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?”

The first listed section bars registration of pistols if not registered before Sept. 24, 1976; the second bars carrying an unlicensed pistol, and the third requires that any gun kept at home must be unloaded and disassembled or bound by a lock, such as one that prevents the trigger from operating.

The Court did not mention any other issues that it might address as questions of its jurisdiction to reach the ultimate question: did the one individual who was found to have a right to sue — Dick Anthony Heller, a D.C. resident — have a right to challenge all three of the sections of the local law cited in the Court’s order, and, is the District of Columbia, as a federal enclave, even covered by the Second Amendment. While neither of those issues is posed in the grant order, the Court may have to be satisfied that the answer to both is affirmative before it would move on to the substantive question about the scope of any right protected by the Amendment.

The D.C. Circuit ruled that the Amendment does apply to the District because of its federal status, subject to all provisions of the Constitution. At this point, therefore, it appears that the Court’s review may not reach a major question — does the Second Amendment also protect individual rights against state and local government gun control laws? But a ruling by the Court recognizing an individual right to have a gun almost surely would lead to new test cases on whether to extend the Amendment’s guarantee so that it applied to state and local laws, too. The Court last confronted that issue in Presser v. illinois, in 1886, finding that the Amendment was not binding on the states.

Some observers who read the Court’s order closely may suggest that the Court is already inclined toward an “individual rights” interpretation of the Second Amendment. That is because the order asks whether the three provisions of the D.C. gun control law violate “the Second Amendment rights of individuals.” But that phrasing may reveal very little about whether the Amendment embraces an individual right to have a gun for private use. Only individuals, of course, would be serving in the militia, and there is no doubt that the Second Amendment provides those individuals a right to have a gun for that type of service. The question the Court will be deciding is, if there are individuals who want to keep pistols for use at home, does the Second Amendment guarantee them that right. Just because the Second Amendment protects some individual right does not settle the nature of that right.

One of the interesting subsets of the question the Court will be confronting is whether the 1939 case of U.S. v. Miller is a precedent for what the Second Amendment means — individual or collective right. If that decision did find in favor of a collective right, the current Court would have to decide whether this was a binding precedent, or whether it should be overruled. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., has already taken a stand on that question. At his nomination hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he said that “the Miller case sidestepped” the issue of whether the Amendment protected a collective or an individual right. He added: “An argument was made back in 1939 that this provides only a collective right, and the Court didn’t address that….So people try to read into the tea leaves about Miller and what would come out on this issue, but that’s still very much an open issue.”

The local law at issue in Heller has been discussed widely as a sweeping ban on private possession or use of handguns. But the Court order granting review took it a step further: the one section that will be at issue that goes beyond handguns is the provision that requires that any gun kept at home be unloaded and disassembled, or at least be locked. Thus, that provision also applies to rifles and shotguns kept at home, in terms of whether those weapons would remain “functional” in time of emergency if that provision were upheld. That part of the order appeared to widen the inquiry in a way that the local residents who challenged the law had wanted.

Additional grants on Tuesday:

The Court also granted review on Tuesday of the question of whether federal labor law bars a state from forbidding a company that receives state funds from using any of those funds to speak out on issues in bargaining with a labor union. That case is U.S. Chamber of Commerce, et al., v. Brown, et al. (06-939). The U.S. Solicitor General, asked by the government for its views on the case, urged that review be granted. At least 16 states have laws or are considering laws like the one in California at issue in the case.

The Court also said on Tuesday that it will hear an appeal by Alabama’s governor, Bob Riley, in a voting rights case — but will not necessarily decide the merits of the appeal. The Court postponed the question of its jurisdiction until its hearing on the case of Riley v. Kennedy, et al. (07-77). That means the Justices will, indeed, hear oral argument, but will focus part of that argument on whether the case is properly before them. The other side in the case contended in its response that the state officials waited too long to file their appeal, thus depriving the Court of jurisdiction.

The merits issue raised by the governor is whether rulings by state Supreme Courts on the meaning of state or local election law do bring about the kind of changes in voting rights that must first get federal clearance before going into effect — for those states and local jurisdictions that are covered by the pre-clearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5.

These other two cases, like Heller, are likely to be scheduled for argument in the March sitting that begins on Mar. 17.

Source:

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/uncategorized/court-agrees-to-rule-on-gun-case/

MySpace Child Abuse .... Resulting in Death

I don't know if any of the rest of you have been following this story.. it's really pretty horrid. I definitely think an adult who fucks with a child's head this way and pushes her toward suicide deserves some sort of civil or criminal consequences.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/saturday/chi-suicidenov17,0,2946138.story?page=2&coll=cs-home-headlines

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1120072megan1.html

Argument with an Idiot

I ran into something that made me shake my head in wonder today. I saw in an online discussion someone telling a group of kids that no one ate Turkey on thanksgiving until the late 1800s because it was not a Native North American bird. I attempted to gently correct this person, telling them that she was confused with the ring neck pheasant. At this point the person in question flew off the handle, telling me that I was a stupid kid that needed to shut up and get more education like she had. I reminded her of a mouthy student of hers that thinks he is right about things too, and on top of that, she had a teachers edition text book that said that what she was saying was true and that the first thanksgiving was a vegetarian meal with maybe a little fish. She also mentioned that she is a middle school history teacher and does important work. I let the issue drop at the moment, but responded with this email.

I was extremely baffled by your insistence that the turkey came from somewhere other than North America.
Since you seemed so completely sure of your self, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and look into it some more.

It is a North American bird. Simple as that.
Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica, US Department Of Fish, Wildlife and Game, the National Wild Turkey Symposium, the Smithsonian Bird Center and Cornell University where it is currently the bird of the week for the Ornithology Department.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Wild_Turkey.html

As to the personal issue. I am not a kid. I have 2 undergrad degrees and I have 8 years of post graduate education. I have a Licentiate degree as well as several certificates from various peripheral inter-disciplinary tracks.

I am glad you can read your teachers addition, but that is not an excuse to turn off your brain, because frankly whoever wrote it was an idiot.

As to reminding you of one of your students, it appears that you would do well to listen to him more and hold rigid false opinions less.

It is exactly this kind of nonsense going on in public schools that makes me believe that they are rather pointless.

I really believe that the public schools are doomed.

When I Will Die

Against my better judgment, I let someone talk me into taking one of those silly online tests about when I will die. It asks you all kinds of questions about your stress level and general outlook, eating, smoking, weight etc.

Well, I found out that I only have about 10 to 15 years more to live due to the fact that I am apparently morbidly obese. I am apparently at extreme high risk for heart attack, stroke and Type II Diabetes.

Although I admit that I am somewhat chubby, I am constantly being told by everyone who knows me that I do not look fat at all.

I have a hard time believing any of this crap.

COFFEE

Some Advice From Your Public Defender

First, let me say I love my job and it is a privilege to work for my clients. I wish I could do more for them. That being said, there are a few things that need to be discussed.

You have the right to remain silent. So SHUT THE FUCK UP. Those cops are completely serious when they say your statements can and will be used against you. There’s just no need to babble on like it’s a drink and dial session. They are just pretending to like you and be interested in you.

When you come to court, consider your dress. If you’re charged with a DUI, don’t wear a Budweiser shirt. If you have some miscellaneous drug charge, think twice about clothing with a marijuana leaf on it or a t-shirt with the “UniBonger” on it. Long sleeves are very nice for covering tattoos and track marks. Try not to be visibly drunk when you show up.

Consider bathing and brushing your teeth. This is just as a courtesy to me who has to stand by you in court. Smoking 5 generic cigarettes to cover up your bad breath is not the same as brushing. Try not to cough and spit on my while you speak and further transmit your strep, flu, and hepatitis A through Z.

I’m a lawyer, not your fairy godmother. I probably won’t find a loophole or technicality for you, so don’t be pissed off. I didn’t beat up your girlfriend, steal that car, rob that liquor store, sell that crystal meth, or rape that 13 year old. By the time we meet, much of your fate has been sealed, so don’t be too surprised by your limited options and that I’m the one telling you about them.

Don’t think you’ll improve my interest in your case by yelling at me, telling me I’m not doing anything for you, calling me a public pretender or complaining to my supervisor. This does not inspire me, it makes me hate you and want to work with you even less.

It does not help if you leave me nine messages in 17 minutes. Especially if you leave them all on Saturday night and early Sunday morning. This just makes me want to stab you in the eye when we finally meet.

For the guys: Don’t think I’m amused when you flirt or offer to “do me.” You can’t successfully rob a convenience store, forge a signature, pawn stolen merchandise, get through a day without drinking, control your temper, or talk your way out of a routine traffic stop. I figure your performance in other areas is just as spectacular, and the thought of your shriveled unwashed body near me makes me want to kill you and then myself.

For the girls: I know your life is rougher than mine and you have no resources. I’m not going to insult you by suggesting you leave your abusive pimp/boyfriend, that you stop taking meth, or that your stop stealing shit. I do wish you’d stop beating the crap out of your kids and leaving your needles out for them to play with because you aren’t allowing them to have a life that is any better than yours.

For the morons: Your second grade teacher was right – neatness counts. Just clean up! When you rob the store, don’t leave your wallet. When you drive into the front of the bank, don’t leave the front license plate. When you rape/assault/rob a woman on the street, don’t leave behind your cell phone. After you abuse your girlfriend, don’t leave a note saying that you’re sorry.

If you are being chased by the cops and you have dope in your pocket – dump it. These cops are not geniuses. They are out of shape and want to go to Krispy Kreme and most of all go home. They will not scour the woods or the streets for your 2 grams of meth. But they will check your pockets, idiot. 2 grams is not worth six months of jail.

Don’t be offended and say you were harassed because the security was following you all over the store. Girl, you were wearing an electronic ankle bracelet with your mini skirt. And you were stealing. That’s not harassment, that’s good store security.

And those kids you churn out: how is it possible? You’re out there breeding like feral cats. What exactly is the attraction of having sex with other meth addicts? You are lacking in the most basic aspects of hygiene, deathly pale, greasy, grey-toothed, twitchy and covered with open sores. How can you be having sex? You make my baby-whoring crack head clients look positively radiant by comparison.

"I didn't put it all the way in." Not a defense.

"All the money is gone now." Not a defense

"The bitch deserved it." Not a defense.

"But that dope was so stepped on, I barely got high." Not a defense.

"She didn't look thirteen." Possibly a defense; it depends.

"She didn't look six." Never a defense, you just need to die.

For those rare clients that say thank-you, leave a voice mail, send a card or flowers, you are very welcome. I keep them all, and they keep me going more than my pitiful COLA increase.

For the idiots who ask me how I sleep at night: I sleep just fine, thank you. There's nothing wrong with any of my clients that could not have been fixed with money or the presence of at least one caring adult in their lives. But that window has closed, and that loss diminishes us all.

Thanksgiving?

I missed Halloween last year as I was out working in a remote place and we had little time for fun. But my friends and I have discussed how stores seem to bring Christmas earlier and earlier every year. I was never sure, but this year, I saw Christmas decorations and heard Christmas music starting about October 10th! What happened to Thanksgiving?


Has anyone else noticed this?

Border Patrol Strikes Back

These jerks got what they deserve.

Sex Offenders ... or not

Why oh why do idiotic people keep putting people on the sex offender list that are NOT sex offenders?




Sex offenders do one of 2 things:
1. Rape/molest someone
2. Have sex with a child or animal

Some sex offenders make creative combinations of the above 2 things, but those are the basic elements. Anything else does not count. Including teenagers doing it in a car or nut jobs banging their bike.

AP- A man has been placed on the sex offenders register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle. Robert Stewart was discovered in his room by two maids at the Aberley House Hostel in south west Scotland, naked from the waist down holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex."

Music I Like

If I was better at this, I would make it fit in the available space. But I can't, sorry.
Edit: I was wrong, I was able.

Tagged

EDIT: Dear readers upset by the tag post; please disregard this. You are under no obligation to tag anyone or make a blog or anything of the sort. There is no need to call me and ask what this is about, it is simply an internet game.

Rules: Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged.

1. I do not post things about myself on the internet, so the following is made up
2. I live in Georgia
3. I eat bacon for every meal
4. I sing jazz
5. I start fires with toilet paper
6. I eat candy every day
7. I love cats
8. I like the color pink

I don't have 8 other people to do this to.

Something Stupid This Way Comes ....

Ok, I saw something stupid today. Well, way more than one thing, but this stands out. On the morning news there was this report about women who have given up the Tupperware and pampered chef parties in favor of Taser parties. Thats right, those things that shoot the electrical wires and zap people. The news report went on and on about how they are protecting themselves from rapists, murderers etc. and how they are feeling empowered by having this thing. It also showed them shooting a dummy and at the end of the report, followed by the number you can call to have your own Taser party.

Let me be one of the first to say that these women are absolutely stupid. Taser products are used for non-deadly situations, (being in the human-hunting/controlling business for many years, I know these things) not situations where someone will suffer serious bodily harm or death. Rape and murder constitute serious bodily harm. If you need to protect yourself from rape, murder, battery, aggravated assault, or anything that can cause you serious bodily harm, you need a gun, not a Taser.

What Tasers are for are such things as disorderly conduct, DUI, public nuisance, trespassing , or any other situation where hitting the person with a baton, night stick, or shooting them would be over kill. It is a tool to subdue someone aggravated so they can be handcuffed and controlled.

Also, the Taser must be maintained with fresh gas cartridges and batteries. It is good to do this every other day, and certainly needs to be done weekly, if you want it to work. Also, when it is fired, you get one shot to get the probes in the correct place on the body. If you do not shoot well, the Taser will be ineffective. Also, you must be relatively close to the person to use it on them, and do you really want to be that close to your attacker?

Finally, assuming you get the rest of it right, when you hit the electricity, you administer a 3 second shock. Granted it is painful, but once the shock is over, the person being shocked is back to full strength. It is a smiler principal to a dog shock collar. So, you have 3 seconds to figure out what you will do with your violent raping, murdering attacker once he is done being shocked and is now really mad.

The good news is that this stupidity will only cost you about $400-$500 to own. Oh wait, thats bad news ... a gun would be cheaper too.

Paradise Lost

Opening for Nightwish was an English band called Paradise Lost. Despite being billed as a doom metal band, they were not. They were strait up, just metal, perhaps dark in their lyrical content, but a long way from doom. I heard one of their fans call them "Emo Metal" I suppose that this kind of fits, with the lyrics, but the band simply didn't seem wimpy enough to be emo. God help us if there is a movement to make "Emo Metal" I think I will give up and start listening to Yanni. At least he doesn't cry all the time.

They put on a fairly good thrash, but it was rather run of the mill in my opinion. I have not seen a metal show that was really good for a lot of years now.

That being said, they were good, with good playing and good energy. They sweat like they were English, so that added to the authenticity. Also they did the metal world the courtesy of being really ugly. So many metal bands these days think they should look pretty.
For Strongbad's commentary on this go HERE if it doesn't start automatically, select "Death Metal" from the list.

All in all, as with most opening acts, you just had to suffer through it in order to get to the one you wanted to see. Maybe one day I will seen an opener that is worth being there to see them too.

Back In Black

Well, it seems that I have inadvertently taken a week off. It has been a long and crazy week. I have been a bit under the weather with some sort of allergy problem. One that I am not really over yet. Be that as it may, I have returned and will offer a few thoughts on music.

Wednesday I saw the new incarnation of an old favorite band of mine, Nightwish. Shortly after I saw them in concert in 2004, they had a falling out with their lead singer. Mainly, the singer was being a wench and could no longer be worked with.

The new singer was quite a pleasant surprise. Although she is not a classically trained opera singer, she packs quite a set of pipes anyway. Her voice is rather bright and her sound reminds me of the singer from Aqua, (Barbie Girl, Candyman) also, they are both Swedish so they have a smiler accent.

The show was most excellent. The energy was very high and the band looked like they were having fun with each other. The were laughing, smiling and playing all over the stage, they reminded me of the Nightwish that I knew from Finland back in 1998. Best of all, at the end of the show, the band jumped down and shook the hands of the fans in the front row after the show. Something that had gone by the wayside when Tarja was singer and is now, very happily something that they do again. Well done Nightwish! I think you may be around for a long while yet.

The Secret to Happiness (This may cross the line finally)

So what is the secret to happiness?
Here is a thought:

"Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
Dance like no one's watching,
and F- like you are being filmed."

Favorite Informative Web Sites

These are my favorite sites for information.
This is good educational stuff as well as good fun.

For the best news on technology and science:
http://www.physorg.com/


Good, accurate weather:
http://www.wunderground.com

The Solar Observatory! I love watching the sun do weird things:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

How's the weather up there? Space events and weather:
http://www.spaceweather.com/

More Space:
http://www.astronomy.com

Free Books and Audio Books! Download away, and it's legal:
http://www.gutenberg.org

Cryptozoology! Need I say more?
http://www.cryptomundo.com/

Hope these are good stuff for you too.
Let me know if a link doesn't work because I can fix it.

Do You Feel Lucky? Well, Do Ya?

It has been brought to my attention that I am a person of extreme luck, both good and bad. People I know say that things that are extremely unlikely routinely happen to me, for better or worse. I have come to believe this is true.

Tell me, what is being lucky mean to you?

Silent Treatment

How do you express your displeasure with the people you interact with?

In my life, I try to be as up front with people as possible. I like to put things right out in the open, in a constructive kind of way. I like to be treated fairly and expect the same in return. If there is a problem, I expect reasonable discourse.

This is not the case with the vast majority of people I know in my life. Most people I know give the silent treatment. You may get a, "Go away" or a "leave me alone" but that is it. Silence.

The beauty of this is that I have no idea what is wrong or what can be done to fix it. It is, without a doubt, the most maddening thing that I have ever had done to me. And, everyone seems to prefer this method of communicating.

Add to the stupidity, if I try to figure out what is wrong, and get them to talk to me, I will eventually get into trouble for being mean and not leaving them alone. Now I am really screwed. This really sucks if you happen to be married to the person that does this.

I don't really have anything more to say about this except that I am about at a point in my life where if people have a problem and won't talk to me, then they don't need to be around me.