Behind The Laughter

I had the luxury of watching Glenn Beck this morning on CNN.  Well, not so much “luxury” as much as “unfortunate experience”, but I digress.

Ye olde Beck was discussing the merits of The Dark Knight (yea!) and how it was a direct parallel to the War On Terror (noo!). You see, Glenn was extolling the virtues of Batman’s “whatever it takes to stop evil” attitude and his contentment with being the villain for the sake of the greater good, and how it was very much like George W. Bush’s actions during the Global Struggle Against Radical Extremism. But alas Glenn, these are not the same things.

Let me count the ways:

1. The Dark Knight is a movie. When Batman breaks the law, he breaks a movie law. When Batman spies on people, he is spying on movie people. Get it?  It is fake. Unlike in the real world, where Mr. Bush positions mis-information to the People of the United States and makes a fake case for a war with Iraq and where Mr. Bush allows warrant-less wiretapping of United States Citizens that hasn’t yielded any useful information.  Hmm, not seeing a parallel.
2. Batman has a long and storied past.  I mean, c’mon, he was “born” in May 1939.  Batman has a well-known history of fighting crime on the streets of Gotham City and has occasionally “crossed the line” between right and wrong in order to stop criminals.  The earliest examples of this are way back in 1988 during Batman: The Killing Joke and A Death In The Family (where Robin II dies at the hands of the Joker).  Using “new” math, I deduced that 1988 came well before 2001 (when the War On Terror was, at least publicly, conceived).
3. If I understand the movie correctly and draw the supposed parallels that Glenn (Frey, The Heat Is On) Beck eludes to, Batman is George Walker Bush and the Joker is “The Terrorists”.  Ok, let’s go with that.  Well, then I have to give some props to Batman for identifying the actual villain and apprehending him.  Contrast that to the real story of Mr. Bush’s failed attempt at going after Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq (which had none) and, in seven years since the War On Terror began, failed to apprehend anything.  Though, I will give him credit for ousting Saddam Hussein, destabilizing Iraq, indirectly making Iran a player of greater importance and creating more terrorist organizations wanting to bring harm to the US.  Well done Batman; not so much President Bush.
4. I’m sure there are more things I could say here, but honestly, I’m getting too worked up to continue.

Finally, I must say, shame on you CNN.  You are the Cable News Network.  Not the Cable Opinion Network, a la Fox, and I use the term loosely, News.  If you are going to air editorial opinionated material, then preface it as such.  And to you Mr. Beck, don’t ruin my favorite modern-day superhero movie (sorry Batman, Superman II will always be #1 in my heart) by comparing it to a failed political agenda almost 8 years in the making.

A couple of weeks ago, my Jetta and I hit a major milestone. We celebrated 6 years together and 70,000 miles worth of earth-destroying emissions. Huzzah!

How did we celebrate? Well, my stupid car’s sun roof opened automatically (a common occurrence of late) and I suddenly realized that I wanted to share my love with another vehicle. My love is not for another four-wheeled death machine; instead, I’m saving myself for a two-wheeled mode of transportation.

Motorcycle? Nope. Scooter? Yes!

I’m down to two choices, the Schwinn Newport 150

or the Genuine Scooter Buddy

Why a scooter, you ask? Well, I will tell you.

Scooters appear to be more efficient with the use of the foreign oil, to the tune of approx. 70-80 miles per gallon. That’s a lot of miles. Compare that to my Jetta which gets, on a good day, 26 or 27 miles per gallon. The cost savings over my car alone makes this worth considering.

However, in all truthiness, I really want a scooter to infiltrate the hipster culture that so many of my generation belong to. I mean, I don’t want to be a hipster myself. Nothing like that. I just want to understand them. In order to understand them, I must immerse myself in their culture. Yeah, that’s it.

This Week In Hate is proud to have the distinguished gentleman from Arizona, the honorable John McCain, joining us.

Let’s get started, shall we?

There are no words to describe McCain’s latest stupid-as-shit-comments regarding the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

I’ll let Think Progress sum it all up for me:

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) skipped the vote on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which “restores the longstanding interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act,” overturned last year by a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling. In New Orleans today, McCain explained his opposition to the bill by claiming it “opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems.” He added that instead of legislation allowing women to fight for equal pay, they simply need “education and training“

Ummm. This is a pretty egregious statement about his views on women.

I’m floored that anyone in this day and age still thinks like this? What year does he think it is? 1950? Talk about being out of touch. Sheesh.

Wal-Mart backed off.

Read all about it on WalmartWatch.

Wal-Mart still sucks.

Wal-Mart, the world’s foremost supplier of cheap crap, has finally crossed the line from retailer that displays everything that is wrong with the world into the realm of pure, unadulterated evil.

Here are the facts in the case:

1. Wal-Mart employee is hit by truck
2. Said employee is left brain-damaged and confined to a wheelchair
3. Wal-Mart covers employee’s medical expenses
4. Employee sues trucking company responsible for accident and settles for $1 million
5. Wal-Mart sues employee to recoup said paid medical expenses
6. Wal-Mart wins lawsuit
7. Wal-Mart descends into an unending abyss of moral turpitude

Here’s to you, Wal-Mart. We appreciate you forwarding the cause of human suffering beyond what anyone could have dreamed.

The bigger question is who is really to blame here? The company for suing a defenseless and hurt human being or the legal system for allowing this to occur (and upholding the decision upon appeal)?

I can’t believe I missed 37 signals’ response to Jason Calcanis’ original article.

To say they are both interesting reads wouldn’t be doing them justice. Read Calcanis’ article, then read the linked response from Techcrunch and from 37 signals.

This quote sums up how I feel (emphasis mine):

If your start-up can only succeed by being a sweatshop, your idea is simply not good enough. Go back to the drawing board and come up with something better that can be implemented by whole people, not cogs.

This week proves, once again, that you’re damned if you and damned if you don’t.

Over this past weekend (March 15-16), the Federal Reserve forked over $30 billion in tax payer dollars to help J.P. Morgan Chase buyout Bear Stearns, before the latter collapsed into (all-but-certain) bankruptcy.

What was the net-effect of this transaction?

• In the short-term, the dollar’s worldwide devaluation continued, falling to a new low against the Euro: 1 USD = 0.639 EUR
• On Monday morning, J.P. Morgan closed up 10% which roughly equates to an $12 billion increase in their market capitalization

Commenting on the deal, New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin had this to offer:

But it galls me that on Friday, President Bush asserted that we must go slow in helping the millions of struggling American homeowners. He stated that “we got to be careful and mindful that any time the government intervenes in the market, it must do so with clear purpose and great care.” I live in Michigan and drive every day past the many foreclosures and for-sale signs. It breaks my heart that these people are struggling to keep or sell their houses, and the Fed just awarded this boon.

What choice did the Fed have? I mean, sure, they didn’t have to use our money to bail-out a bunch of greedy bastards who bet other people’s money on investments backed by risky mortgages, right?

What’s the point? We’re all screwed. That’s the point.

Folks, this is not the bottom. We’re not even close. We have a deficit in the trillions and billions in continually mounting debt. Our currency’s value is going to continue in a downward spiral.

Have I mentioned that most analysts predict gas will hit $4/gallon by summer?

Call me crazy (crazy!) but I don’t think that tax rebate check is going to make much of a difference.

One of the industry’s great luminaries, Bill “My Glasses Aren’t All That Impressive But They Cost More Than Your Life” Gates spoke at the University of Texas this week. The talk was open only to undergraduate/graduate students in the Computer Science or Computer Engineering departments of which I am a member, what with my status within the Executive Software Engineering program. Well folks, no mas; I was not allowed to attend. Which brings us to…

A big Fuck You to the University of Texas Electrical and Computer Engineering department. Listen clowns, I’m paying UT through the nose for this Master’s degree.

The least you can do is treat me like the ECE graduate student that I am and allow me to see the world’s richest man on stage. I mean, how am I supposed to grovel at his feet for the spare $100 bills in his pockets if I can’t into the talk?

Apparently, students within the Option III program are not considered full time graduate students.

Last time I checked we

• take the same courses
• with the same professors
• get the same brutal homeworks and lengthy paper assigments
• and get the same degree

Needless to say I’m frustrated beyond belief. I mean, its not the end of the world or anything. It’s really the principle of the matter that angers me most.

This is the first - in what I hope will be a long and continuing practice - of self-styled “I Hate Everything” posts.

• I hate coffee shops that have live musical acts on nights that I want to get homework done. I mean, c’mon man! I came to do work, not enrich my life with further exposure to the arts. If I want culture, I’ll go pick it up from the grocery store.
• I hate undergraduates clogging up my coffee shops. Multiple times in the last two weeks, I’ve had to embark on Coffee Shop Tour 2008 (Epoch, Flightpath, Clementines and Flipnotics) and Coffee Shop Tour 2008: The Wrath of Idiots in order to find a place to work. You know what I find? The places are all teeming with undergrad bozos; their like rats or something. Go back to the dorms and have your little “meetings” or “study groups” there. Make way for me and my graduate student ilk.
• Finally, a big Fuck You to Microsoft. Why is it so hard for you to make a working product on Mac OS X? I mean, it only took you exactly 18 months to produce a Universal Binary of Office. What you produced, Office 2008, is by no means 18 months worth of improvements. Shit, even if it took you 12 months to make your code Universal, that’s still 6 months to make some useful improvements. Instead, what did I get? Stupid crap enhancements like Word Art, Smart Graphics and Quick Tables. Did I get apps that crashed less often? Nope. How about actual Exchange support within Entourage? Nope. Click on the two images below to get a sense for how ridiculous Office 2008 is with it’s windowing. Note, that I had activated “Expose: All Windows” and my mouse is over the Word 2008 window. Where is the window highlight, you must be asking yourself? Not over the fucking window that’s for sure.