Just Kidding

What follows is just a little bit of a rant about the way a certain phrase is being used lately.

I get more than a little irritated when people misuse and abuse language. Here’s an example that I’ve seen happen a few times a week for the last several months and even been the unwitting victim of the exchange quite a few times too.

Person A, “Hey I’ll trade you that watch for this used popsicle stick.”


Person B, “No way!”


Person A, “Yeah I was just kidding.”

The watch and the popsicle are just examples. Substitute the watch with anything of value and the popsicle stick for anything of substantially less value or no value at all. The conversation typically takes this form. Person A proposes a very lopsided deal. Once rejected A then attempts to camouflage the scam as if it was just a joke. My irritation comes at the use of the phrase “just kidding”. I wonder if B had accepted the deal would A have accepted the watch. If so, then was A really kidding? I think not. In every situation I’ve seen A was completely serious and would have followed through with the lopsided deal if B had accepted. So they were not kidding. They only chose to claim that they were kidding once they had been caught. “Just kidding” seems to be used as a poor substitute for “I’m sorry to have even proposed such a lopsided deal. Please forgive me.”

I recently had somebody propose a deal to me that was very much not in my favor and opened me up to some serious liability. I promptly declined the offer. They followed by saying, “I don’t blame you. If I were you I wouldn’t have done it either.” Really? They openly confessed that they knew the deal was not fair but they followed through with it anyway.

Yeah I know this is kinda petty. I just find it irritating. Whether you call it The Golden Rule, Kant ‘s Categorical Imperative or any of the other names that it goes by treat others the way you would like to be treated. If you would accept the deal if it went in your favor then you were not “just kidding” you were being manipulative. And if you wouldn’t accept the deal if it was offered to you then don’t offer a deal that you know is unfair.

Hypocrisy

It snowed in the Southeast a few weeks ago. Since Atlanta has no appreciable snow response plan other than to just wait for it to melt, most of Atlanta was stuck at home burning vacation days as fast as they were their Kroger bought firewood. Nothing pulls out the deniers of Global Warming more than a colder than average day. Never mind the fact that most of them were conveniently silent during the records highs of only a few months ago, 87 degrees on October 11th and I didn’t hear a peep out of any of them Saturday and Sunday when it was in the 70s. I could do a whole post on confirmation bias here. If you only look at the data that supports your conclusion and ignore the rest the world looks just like you imagine it would. But I’ve done that before.
Of course a few hot days in October or a few days in the 70s in January don’t prove it is happening any more than a few cold days in January proves it isn’t. If you are talking about a global issue increasing over the long term you have to average all of the data for the long term.
My post today is to issue a challenge to those who honestly believe that a few cold days mean that the general trend is not increasing. Let’s put your money where your mouth is. Do you believe the same thing about your stock portfolio? I propose that we take all the stocks in your portfolio and every time one hits a localized low you sell it to me at that low price. If we apply the same logic to your portfolio that you apply to the weather then a localized low must mean that the general trend is not increasing. So why would you want to hang on to it anyway?
Any takers? No I didn’t think so. Because most people are smart enough to realize that when it comes to their stock portfolio it’s the long term trends that are important not the localized highs and lows. Sure there are bad stocks out there that are not performing well. But if you look at all of them all and average them out, it’s still a pretty good place to invest. Why, because in spite of localized events the trend is generally increasing.
I think that most people who deny the evidence of global climate change are smart enough to realize this point. They obviously accept the same logic when applied to their portfolio. They just choose to deny it because they don’t like the political implications that accepting the evidence would have. And they know that a cold day in January doesn’t prove anything except that it’s a cold day in January, yet they deliberately play on the emotions of those that follow them to lead you to a fallacious conclusion. They think their listeners are that easily manipulated. Unfortunately, many of them are.

Mandatory

Earlier this year I blogged about the logical fallacy “begging the question”. Take a second to re-read that post.
I had another rather frustrating example of begging the question today. At work we frequently get sent email notifications telling us to take some online training. It’s a great way for us to get covered on company polices and procedures at our own pace and without having to get together for a group meeting. So normally I don’t have any complaint.
Today I got one such email. The training class was scheduled to take 45 minutes and there was a quiz at the end that I had to pass in order to get credit. This is about average for these classes. Well after I looked at the class description it was clear that it didn’t pertain to me at all. It was about using a specific company program that I don’t use to track my corporate travel that I don't do and expenses that I don’t have. So I fired off an email essentially asking, “Why do I have to take a 45 minute course that does not apply at all to my job?” Now comes the logical fallacy. The answer that came back, “This course in mandatory for all managers.”
How’s that for a non-sequitor? I asked why is this course mandatory and the response, because it is mandatory.
So rather than debate the concept of begging the question with them for 45 minutes I just took the course and then, of course, blogged about it on my lunch hour.

Selfishness

Victoria asked me to stop by the credit union to get a few buck to pay Eve’s piano teacher. There is only one teller open since they are trying to close. The guy at the teller is on his cell phone talking asking about his accounts and trying to figure out what he needs to do at the teller. The teller politely asks him to step aside so she can assist other customers while he gets what he needs form the call. So, I step up and give my account information to the teller. At this point the guy has finished his call and is standing only a few inches from me. He looks at my uniform shirt, sizes me up and says, “AT&T huh? I just wanna say that your phone service SUCKS!!” I was a little irritated from some other events of the day already but I forced some restraint. I simply turned to him, put my hands on my hips and stared. At this point he said, “No offense.” and took a step back. I turned back to the teller shaking my head and finished my transaction.
Then on the way home this kid in a little sports car is treating Hwy-78 like it’s Talladega and he’s Richard Petty. He gets so close behind my truck that I completely lost him in all of my mirrors. He passed me and began drafting this minivan next to me with less than a foot to spare. I honk to signal my displeasure at his driving and he returns by giving me a universal hand gesture and telling me to “go vacuum”. At least that’s what I think he said. My hearing isn’t what it used to be. I see him again about two miles down the road and he’s still only about 100 feet in front of me. Apparently all his NASCAR driving strategy gets him about 50 feet per mile.
This morning Aaron and I are headed to seminary. We stop at the light a the front of the subdivision. It turns green. I pause for a second and then start to make my left turn. Then out of nowhere going about 70 MPH a little 2-door comes in from the left and has to swerve all the way into the other lane to avoid us. We clearly had the light but, I lock the brakes and hit the horn. Again with the hand gesture.
I could go on and on. I actually have several more not-so-uplifting stories about society. But the common theme that I believe ties all of them together is selfishness. All of these people were soley focused on their own needs. I wish I could say that I saw changes in the future, but I don't. Increasingly our social and political world is dominatite by selfishness. Now, I full admit that there are some valiant exceptions to the rule. The last 24 hours have jsut seemed to have been dominated by the selfish.

Left at the Red Light

If you’ve ever asked for directions in Georgia it is very likely that you have been told at least once to “turn left at the red light”. I used to respond by saying something to the effect of, “How about I stop and wait until it turns green and then turn left?” This usually is met with a puzzled look on their face, as if they don’t even realize that they had encouraged me to break the law and potentially risk my life. You see in the south when you ask for directions the term “red light” actually means the next intersection with a traffic signal no matter what color it happens to be showing when you get there. I’ve learned to just enjoy this little colloquialism. I don’t bring it up to criticize well-meaning people who are just trying to help out, but I do get a little chuckle when I hear it.
Yesterday a friend showed me this story. This lady took the advice of Google Maps at the expense of her own common sense. She got hurt. And now she thinks it’s Google’s fault? I’d be willing to bet that this same person would “turn left at the red light” and then insist that it was the well-meaning guy at the Citgo’s fault for using a southern colloquialism that got her hurt.
It really amazes me how frequently people completely turn off thier brain and then think it's somebody else's fault.

This Post is So EPIC!!

I'm really getting tired of the word "epic". But only because I rarely hear it used correctly. My kids seem to think it's a synonym for “very” or “really” or just “neato”. Twenty years ago everything was “awesome”. And before that I guess it was ‘cool”. I guess I’m from the “cool” generation, which seems to have come after the “hip” generation.

Hollywood used to call movies that told the life of a historical figure an epic. Lord of the Rings is an epic.
But the kids were really excited that Victoria had bought Reese's Puffs cereal. I'm sorry but there's nothing epic about that.
In 1995 I went on a climbing trip to Yosemite. My partner had exaggerated his abilities and lied to me about having climbed the route we were planning on climbing before. We had to back off of a dangerous climb because he couldn't do a relatively simple technique. I ended up getting a massive sunburn after standing the whole day on the same little ledge 2000' up the rock. Then the next day we had to get rescued off another route because we made a mistake while trying to get back down off a climb. Somebody was at the base of the rock stealing our packs and we got in too much of a hurry. Then on the way home I blew the engine on my car in the middle of the Nevada desert and had to hitch-hike to the nearest city and then get a ride home to Salt Lake in a tow truck. Now that was epic.
As good as Reese’s Puffs cereal is, "epic" just isn’t the right choice of words.

Nonsense Intolerance cont.

As I’ve stated before I have a pretty low tolerance for nonsense masquerading as science. Well last Thursday I hit DEFCON 4.
On the way home from work I stopped by the library to pick up a few books that I had on hold. I also noticed that Victoria had a few on the shelf too. So I picked them up. One of them was a DVD titled simply “Brain”. The cover looked like a National Geographic type program. It looked interesting. I even had a pleasant conversation the librarian about how interesting it looked. After dinner Victoria suggested that we sit down as a family and watch it.
It started off just fine. Slick computer graphics showed cutaways of the brain. They then moved over to interview scientists who were doing research on that particular part. The format kind of reminded me of the Universe series that we really love. So the format felt comfortable. The first half hour of the program was just fine. I take issue with a little bit of the ethics of using this type of brain science to improve combat forces but the science was well done. Then it took a turn off the deep end.
The last half hour was about ESP. They extensively interviewed the unremarkable cold-reader, John Edward and explored his so-called psychic ability as if it was a foregone conclusion. That’s when I really blew my top. The first step to investigating any phenomena is to see it the phenomena really exists. You don’t speculate as to how something works until you’ve determined that it works. But that is exactly what Dr. Dean Radin did. And they gave him the last ten minutes of the show to spout his nonsense.
I completely lost it during one scene. Radin had speculated that during one of his readings Edward’s heart rate would synchronize with his subjects. When he tested it and found that their heart rates did not synchronize he interpreted this clear defeat by claiming that he must be syncing with the person who had passed on. Unbelievable! His test failed completely and he interprets the results as a success. But not just any success, a success that is unfalsifiable. How in the world could we test to see if Edward is syncing with a person who has crossed over? Radin has obviously convinced himself that psychic phenomena is real and all of his results, positive or negative are interpreted to support that forgone conclusion. The kids were laughing at me by this point. I was not reserving any comment and they thought it was funny that I was yelling at the TV. “You do know that they can’t really hear you, don’t you, Dad?”
I was patiently waiting for the token skeptical response. They had it. It was about a 15 second shot of the cover of Skeptical Inquirer with overdubbing that said little more than some in the scientific community question Dr. Radin’s research. That's it? Something as controversial as psychics and you can only spare 15 seconds and one still graphic.
After the program was over Victoria noticed that the program was produced by the History channel. If there is a more inappropriately named TV channel I can’t think of it. A close second it ABC Family. What in the world does a program on ESP have to do with History? But this is the same station that has marathons on UFO stories, etc.
So afterword I took advantage of the teaching moment to talk to the kids about what psychics really do. I showed them a few youtube.com videos of psychics being tragically wrong and having no remorse about the consequences of their wild guesses. I then took out a deck of cards and showed them how I could steer the kids into picking the card I had chosen and making them think that they had chosen it. I then showed them a video of Dr. Richard Wiseman doing a psychic prediction and explained to them exactly how it works.
Hey I’d think it was really cool if ESP really existed. But it’ll take more than these con artists and their carefully selected rubes to prove it to me. Shame on the History channel for giving an once of credibility to these con artists and pretending that there is any scientific validity to ESP.

Random v Inappropriate

My kids, particularly the oldest two, have developed this annoying habit of saying something completely unrelated to the conversation that everybody else is having and then when they get funny looks just saying, “What? I’m just being random.” For instance during the middle of a conversation on where to eat one of them will just start singing a song that has nothing to do with food. “What? I’m just being random.”
Well yesterday I’d had enough. I don’t remember what we were talking about but we were trying to figure something out. It was probably about trying to co-ordinate our schedules. Well one of the kids pulled this act again and started talking about something completely off topic. And, you guessed it, I got the same response about just being random. So I went on a diatribe something like this.
“No, you are not being random. You are being inappropriate. A six-sided die is random. Occasionally, when you are looking for a six you will get a six. And when you are looking for a one occasionally you will get a one. If your outbursts are truly random then every now and then they should be on topic and still be classified as random. Since none of your outbursts that you label as random are ever on topic the conclusion seems to be that you are trying to be off-topic. Since you’re trying to be off-topic you aren’t being random. You are just being inappropriate. And I don’t appreciate it.”
At this point Victoria was laughing hysterically and told me that I had to blog this before I forgot about it. My only regret was that one of the prime offenders was not in the car and I’ll likely have to give this speech again soon.

Fark

So shortly after I got back from lunch I decided to check a couple of news. I’ve made it no secret that I’ve been very disillusioned with the crap that masquerades around as news lately. But I still feel some pathological need to check in with the big sites periodically just to see if I’m missing something important. Well what do I find today at 12:15pm? CNN.com has a front page, biggest font and a picture and story with video of the fashion accuracy behind the series “Mad Men”. MSNBC.com has an article about the 10 day old non-news event about Falcon Heene AKA“balloon boy”. And FOXNEWS.com has a story about another hoax, the Latvian meteorite.

This is just sad. Did nothing important happen today? Or have they just completely forgotten what classifies as news? The top stories on three of the biggest news sites today had nothing to do with news at all. Who cares about any of these events?

This first story, “Mad Men” fashion accuracy, are you serious CNN? Who cares? Shouldn’t reporting of this calibre be reserved to a fan site on AMC.com? How in any measurable way will the accuracy of inaccuracy of the suits these actors wear affect my life? It won’t.

Next we have two hoaxes that wouldn’t have existed at all if the media didn’t have a predisposition to air anything at all without checking the facts first. Even the local authorities played the media to help gain the trust of the Heene family and get them to slip up and admit the story was a hoax. What does that say about the condition of the media in this country when law enforcement can bank on the fact that they won’t try to follow up on the story and do any kind of accuracy check at all before running the story? Even a cursory check with anyone who had taken 8th grade physics would be able to tell a critical thinking reporter that there was no way in the world a balloon that small could have lifted itself and 37 pound Falcon Heene. But who cares right? They pay good money for that news helicopter so let’s air the stupid footage without any kind of critical review. And 10 days later we can still talk about it as if something new has happened even though it really hasn’t. Give it a rest. The sooner the Heene family falls back into obscurity the better.

I haven’t read much on the whole Latvian Meteor yet. The one picture I saw was obviously created with buried explosives and not the relatively slow moving mass of a meteor. I’ll wait for the scientist to debunk this story completely. Until then I’m sure all the media is perfectly content to continue giving the attention that was planned from the beginning to this complete non-event.

I’ve just finished reading It’s Not News it’s Fark is written by the creator of the website fark.com. The author, Drew Curtis has spent a decade running a website that makes fun of the crap that we continue to call news. The book is a riot. It’s irreverent and frequently potty-mouthed, but always right on the mark. Each chapter is dedicated to one of the many ways that the media puts crap in print, online or on the air.

To hear conservative talk show host lambaste the modern media you’d think that they were controlled by the some liberal conspiracy organization. I’ve been personally analysing the news for several years looking for the liberal bias that is so frequently trumpeted. The only way you could get a liberal bias out of the crap that gets aired is if you define anything that isn’t conservative bias as a liberal bias. But in fact much of what make headlines is neither. It doesn’t even deserve to be called news.

Who cares about John and Kate? It’s only news to about 12 people on the whole planet. It’s just entertainment to some of the rest of us. And most of the country couldn’t’ care less. The fashion accuracy of “Mad Men”? Puhleeze. How about a story about the math accuracy of the latest spending bill? That would be news that really affects me.

My only criticism of the book as that I wish he would have dedicated a whole chapter to the media’s impotence. Michael Eisner has gone on record that he didn’t think it would be appropriate for ABC news to report on any of Disney’s business dealings. He doesn’t mind, however, an ABC news report about the technology behind the latest Disney movie. So self reporting is okay if it’s positive. You just can’t bite the hand that feeds you. Well considering the size and depth of most of the media conglomerates today playing by Eisner’s rules it becomes very hard to say anything at all. So what are you left with? A news media that is pretty impotent.

I’d really recommend reading It’s Not News It’s Fark. Don’t dismiss it as satire. His critique is right on the mark.

Using your Brain

The hardest part about not really identifying with any major political party is that I actually have to use my brain. I’m not complaining. You see unlike many people I enjoy that. If I didn’t it would be much easier to just sit back and wait to see what my party leaders have to say about an issue. By party leaders I don’t just the official leaders. As we’ve seen far too much of lately the real party leaders are sometimes clueless celebrities and talk show hosts.
I’ve always been kind of a Supreme Court groupie and I’ve made it no secret that I was looking forward to President Obama getting the chance to make a Supreme Court appointment. For decades I’ve felt that the high court was drifting too far to the right and too frequently siding against personal liberties. In particular I’ve been rather disturbed at the extreme dilution of our fourth amendment rights by the likes of Scalia and those who seem to echo however he votes.
So yesterday I was eager to get to work to researching Obama’s choice. Since I had only heard of her once or twice before, my opinion about Sotomayor was pretty much a clean slate for me. For the record I still haven’t decided how I feel about her. I’m still doing my research. But rest assured that when I do form an opinion about her it will not be based on her gender, her race, her height, religion, or whether she eats grits or cream of wheat. It will be based entirely on whether or not she shares my opinions on what a Supreme Court Justice is supposed to do.
What is really frustrating is the water cooler conversations, that were conspicuously silent about this subject yesterday, today are all about how she is a racist. When I inquired why they felt that way all lead me to one single comment that she had made. After very little research at all I found that this is the same quote that all the conservative talking heads have picked up on and are taking out of context to make their point. She may very well be a racist, but this quote taken out of context doesn’t prove it anymore than a similar quote from Justice Thomas taken out of context makes him a racist.
I just find it very sad that so many people are so willing to surrender their thought processes over to a perceived authority. Many of our founders did not like the idea of political parties at all. Perhaps this is exactly why. Personally, I think that the current system in the United States is unnecessarily polarizing and discourages people from thinking for themselves.

False Dichotomy

All logical fallacies irritate me. But one that really gets under my skin is the false dichotomy. This is when someone takes a really complicated issue and narrows it down to just two choices. Sometimes there really is a true dichotomy, (for instance either 2+2=4 or it does not equal 4. all possible answers fit in one of these two groups) but most of the time I've heard people do this there are several other options. Perhaps even a whole spectrum of choices that they are not considering. Here's a quick apolitical example. When you RSVS to a party there is frequently a choice between chicken or fish. At first you may think these are the only options. But I can think of at least two more. Most caterers will make preparations for at least one or two vegetarians in a crowd. You could ask and see if that were possible. You could also just not eat anything. None of the above. My point is that almost always we do have other options besides the two we are given.

Since 9/11 often have we heard the phrase "You're ether with us or you're with the terrorists." Probably one of the worst abuses of the false dichotomy I could think of. Truth is there are several other positions that you could take that don't fall completely in either of these extremes. I could be 100% against the terrorists but disagree with the strategy of opposing them. This is my position. I'm against terrorism but I don't like sacrificing liberties, i.e the Patriot Act, in order to combat them. Or you could be somewhat sympathetic to a group's goals, but 100% against their actions. Pakistan? By turning the issue into a dichotomy many who may have minor strategic differences are unfairly labeled as un-American or as terrorists. Some politicians just find it easier to think in black and white and avoid the more realist, more nuanced nature of reality.

One abuse of this fallacy is the one that comes all too frequently from the pulpit. Either quoting Joseph Smith or any number of the other general authorities who have restated it, "The Book of Mormon is either the greatest book ever published or it is a fraud." As with the political example there are several varying other interpretations and positions. A religious scholar who doesn't have a testimony of the book doesn't necessarily have to think it is a fraud just because he doesn't believe the doctrine. An investigator who is trying to gain a testimony may gain a testimony step by step. There is no quantum leap from thinking it is a fraud to thinking it is doctrine. These things come "line upon line".
Specifically with regards to the Book of Mormon dichotomy, this can be a very disastrous way for someone who is struggling with their testimony to think. If they were to find a story about any number of the missteps of our early church leaders they may be tempted to "throw the baby out with the bathwater". The truth is much more nuanced. It is not an all or nothing proposition. I find it ironic that most LDS members can accept these same nuances and gradations of truth in the Bible, but would consider it heresy to apply these same rules to the Book of Mormon.

No matter what the subject. I find that only very rarely can my choices really be narrowed down to only two.

Negative Campaigning

Take a second and watch this smear ad from Senator Obama.
Now watch this one from Senator McCain.

Now read the following quotes from both men earlier in their campaigns.

Sen. John McCain: I pledge again a respectful campaign. A respectful campaign based on the issues and based on the stark differences we have on the vision for the future of America.

Sen. Barack Obama: I said I was looking forward to a civil substantive debate on the issues and he agreed.

McCain: I've pledged to conduct a respectful campaign and I urge, time after time, various entities within the Republican party to also do that.

Obama: We don't need John McCain and I to be demonizing each other. You won't get that from my campaign.

They must have drastically different definitions than I do of words and phrases like; respectful, based on issues, substantive, demonizing, etc. And now both of them are asking me to accept that they will bring "change" to Washington. I frankly don't trust either one at this point.

Gas Shortage Becoming a Blood Shortage

I just got back from donating a triple unit of platelets. Earlier today the Kroger up the street had a fresh supply of gas so I waited in line for 30 minutes to get a tank full of gas for $3.79 a gallon. I was going to cancel my appointment because I didn't want to use my precious gas just to drive for a blood donation. It didn't take me long to rule out that idea.

As I was going through all the preliminaries I asked the girl at the Red Cross if the gas shortage had affected the number of donations. Unfortunately it had. They had 6 cancellations today and 7 yesterday. I felt even better about my decision to drive down and donate.

It's not much of a stretch to see that needless government intervention is now causing blood shortages.

If I have a company that sell widgets for $4.00 and I make a $.40 profit on each widget. I can make a pretty good business as long as there is still a market for widgets. Now suppose that the supply of widgets drops in my area but the demand has stayed the same. I will soon sell out of widgets. Since there is still a demand for the widgets I could FedEx some from another part of the country to sell. If I did I'd have to increase the cost to cover the additional cost of FedExing the widgets. The demand is still there so I could sell them all at the increased cost. Once widget supply got back to normal there would be no need to FedEx them in so competition would force the prices back down to pre-shortage levels.
Now suppose the government passed a law that you couldn't charge more than $4.00 for your widgets. I'm not going to spend extra money that I can recoup to increase my supply. So rather than sell them at a loss I'll let the shelves sit empty until I can get some widgets without having to pay the FedEx cost. If this goes on for too long any industry that relies on widgets will start to feel the effect of the government regulations on the cost of widgets. The supply could be increased, but government regulations make it not profitable so the effect of the legitimate shortage is exaggerated by regulation.

Does this sound familiar? This is exactly what is happening in Atlanta with the current gas crisis. The pipeline is below capacity, but anti-price gouging laws are preventing stations from charging higher prices. If they could charge a little more they could pay the extra cost for a truck to come in from another source. But since they can't the stations just wait for their normal sources and just sell it all out.
The government created shortage is now causing people to cut back on their extra travel. Unfortunately too many have decided that donating blood was one of their optional activities.

I'm not a fan of complete deregulation. Sometimes that can get us in just as much trouble. However too much regulation really gets in the way of letting the market work the way it should.

Some Consistency Please

How would you like to be playing a game, lets say it’s baseball, and the umpire allows one team to get away with something that he doesn’t allow the other team? It would be kind of unfair don’t you think? Both teams should be playing by the same rules. No matter what those rules are, they should be consistent. If a visiting team member just ties the ball to first base the tie should go to the runner. And likewise for the home team, the tie goes to the runner. It wouldn’t be a level playing field if the tie went to the runner for one team and to the ball for the other. Even if some umpires take a stricter interpretation of some rules there usually isn’t much of a problem unless he seems bias toward one team or the other. I’ve heard post game interviews with pitchers who had an umpire with a very small strike zone. Typically they could work within the tighter strike zone as long as he kept the same tighter strike zone for the other pitcher too. Consistency. Both teams are accepting of the limitations as long as they are consistent for both teams.

Reporters, pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle have a lot to learn about consistency. I’ve been amused by some of the claims and accusations that have been tossed around during this election. It seems that each side will claim that what they are doing now is fair and what the opposite side is doing is unfair, even if that directly contradicts the actions and claims that were made are few months ago. Personally I’d just like to see some consistency so I know what the rules are.

A few examples:

If you’re going to count every day of their life since one candidate started getting a government paycheck as time spent serving the country then you should do the same for the opponent and not just add together the number of days he signed in for role call. If total days since x is the rule, fine. If total number of days signed in is the rule, fine. But be consistent for both sides.

On that note If experience in office is used as an asset for one candidate it shouldn’t be used to criticize another for being too entrenched in Washington as usual politics. Just be consistent.

On the flip side of that if being an outsider who hasn’t had much Washington experience is a benefit then allow the same claim from both sides. Just be consistent.

If a certain phase is determined to be sexist or bigoted then it is sexist and bigoted for all candidates. Don’t use the phrase yourself and then criticize others for using it.

If a candidate is going to tout a certain aspect of their life like their religion or their family life or whatever as an asset, then they have by their own actions made that part of their life "in bounds" and it should stay "in bounds" for both sides to either praise or criticize. It's like after you hit a ball that looks like it might have homer distance you try to declare it a foul if it looks like it might not make the wall. Just be consistent.

As a short disclaimer: I have yet to make up my mind about who to vote for in November. If you think this post is biased toward any candidate, you are wrong. I'm pretty annoyed with all of them.

The Password Paradox

In our new fangled, hi-tech world it seems like we have to have passwords and usernames to do anything. Most websites will allow just about any username as long as nobody else has it. My favorite sites are the ones that just let you use your primary email as your username. Most sites are pretty open on passwords too. I don't think I've ever had a website tell me I couldn't use a certain password. Add on top of that the fact that most browsers will store your passwords for you and it really makes surfing rather seamless in spite of having a couple hundred different logins and passwords.
No let's go to work. I start my day of by signing in with a username and password. My username is a randomly generate series of letters that was hard for me to remember at first. My password has to be in a very specific format. It must have a certain order of letters, numbers and special characters. Then on an average day I may access 15 different systems that each take a login and password. IT has disabled the password keeper function on the browsers so that allowing the browser to auto populate it is not an option. So, I have to remember all 15 different logins and passwords. Now the format requirements are different for each system. Some require a certain length; others don't. Some require a letters numbers and specials, others don't. Some even have a certain orders, like so many alphas followed by so many numbers, etc.
As if having to remember all of these usernames and passwords wasn't enough the passwords expire. Some expire every month, some every 8 weeks and some expire whenever IT decides to make them expire even if you've just reset it two days ago. When the expire the good systems will let you logon one last time as send to to a reset password screen. Others will just expire an you have to call tech support to reset them. Tech support got tired of handling all of these calls so they created a password reset website. Guess what? You got it, it requires a password. And then once you log on it still doesn't allow you to change the passwords for some of the systems.
Last year my company was purchased by another big ol' company. We had to start learning about all of the new systems that they were using. We were bracing for the fact that we'd have to learn all new systems at the same time we were still waiting for them to phase out the others. We were prepared for our password and logins to double. But that's not what happened. You see the new company had previously acquired another large company out west. And in the process it had already adopted all of its systems and hadn't yet completed phasing out the redundant ones. So when they acquired our company rather than doubling the number of logins it has almost tripled.
The complexity has also gotten really bizarre. One password requires a a very specific combination of capital letters, lowercase, specials, and numbers. It has to be a certain length and the first and last digits must be capitals. This is also the one that requires you to change it the most frequently. So as soon as I get this weird sequence memorized I have to pick something else.
At last count I have 32 different codes that I use pretty much every day in order to do my job. Here is the paradox. The only way I can remember them all is to write them down. I find this incredibly ironic that all of these steps to make the passwords safe may actually make the systems more vulnerable. It doesn't matter how bulletproof the systems are anymore. All you have to do is figure out where they're written down any "viola" you can log onto the school computer and change Alli Sheedy's chemistry grade. We've made all these systems impervious to hi-tech snooping around, but made them much more vulnerable to low-tech snooping. It seems to me that it'd make a lot more sense to make the systems just a little simpler so that we didn't have to write them down.
Incidentally, if anybody were to ever find where I wrote down all of my passwords you wouldn't be able to read it. You see, it's protected by a password.

Quest for Mediocrity

This is going to be my new mantra. No more will I strive to do my best or anything else like that. From now on I'm going to just strive to get by. Whatever the absolute minimum I can do to still eek it out, that's the path I'm going to take. I'm just tired of going the extra mile, going for the gold, and giving it my all. I mean why should I go an extra mile when most people are content to just do the least amount of work they can without getting fired? Doesn't an extra mile put you past your goal? That's just nonsense. And as far as that "going for the gold" thing, what's wrong with just enjoying the friendly competition no matter who wins what award, if any at all? And why should I give it my all when people don't really complain for too long when I just give 76%?. 76 is a C right? Or is it a D? Either way that's passing, right?
Those overachiever nuts are just wierd. They expect you to show up on time, follow the rules, turn in your assignments on time, magnify you calling and actually be productive. What a bunch of zealots. They've lost my support. They're just weird.
Besides my personal quest for mediocrity, from now on I'm going to demand it in others too. If I walk into an Arby's and see a 99% on their last health deparment inspection I'm walking staight outta there, that place is probably run by an overachieving wierdo who makes his employees tuck in their shirts, comb their hair and actually wear the Arby's uniform. The Taco Bell across the street probably only got something in the low 80s, and they use lower grade beef than Arby's. They let their employees wear jeans too. Oh and that artificially processed American cheese stuff they use for the nachos is pretty nasty too. Oh yeah! Mediocrity here I come. "Hey you there in the cut-offs and the bad attitude. I'll have a number one please. And be sure to break the shell at the bottom so all the meat falls out when I pick it up."
What is it with baseball teams having like 30 something players on their roster? They only need nine. Right? You can play the game with nine. Why do they need folks warming up the bench doing nothing. Most of those players could be doing other things so why even make them show up.
I have a 6-month performance review coming up next week. I'm gonna start it off by asking, "What's the least amount of work I can do for you in the next year and still keep my job? I'm not looking to distinguish myself here. I just want to barely get by." He may not take it so well. After all he is my boss and that more than likely puts him in that over-achiever group. I'll let you know how it goes.
As I drive home from work today I'm gonna do my best to weave back and forth in the lane as much as possible, but not enough that the cops think I'm drunk. As long as I'm on that subject what is legally drunk anyway? I need to figure out exactly how many beers I can drink to be just under the legal limit. I think more people need to be riding that line of just barely acceptable behavior.
If anything should go wrong on my little mediocrity experiment I'll just look through the phone book and try to find the guy who just barely passed law school. I need somebody who shares my quest for mediocrity philosophy to represent me.
Now that I think about it, I've been spending far too much time with my family too. That'll have to stop. What do mediocre people do rather than go to pre-K dance recitals, drama club plays, cub scout day camps and serve as scoutmasters? I'm gonna have to break down and get cable. Sports packages. I'm cutting up my library card too. I'm gonna start memorizing sports stats, but not too many. I don't want to stick out as the guy who knows too much about sports.
Whew! I jsut had to stop myself. I almost spell checked this post. No more of that. Now's when I would normally start thinking about writing a concise conclusion to this post. However, mediocre people would probably just stop typing.


(6-10-2008 comments)
Just to clarify; I don't really feel this way. I'm just sick and tired of having to deal with people who really do have this philosophy.)