Secret Service Protection

Another political one that I have saved for a couple of days and since I missed the news tonight I have to pull it out.


So I heard on the news that, because of his sudden popularity, presidential candidate Rick Santorum will now be receiving Secret Service protection as presidential candidate Mitt Romney was already receiving.  Who is paying for this protection?

Faith Ended Slavery? Really?

Oh how I am going to love the political campaign season!  This is going to be fun!


So the other day I caught part of an interview with Rick Santorum.  The interviewer asked him about his deep faith and why he thought it was so important that it be part of his campaign.  He then went on a tirade about how important religion was in many of the greatest changes in United States history, even stating that our faith brought an end to slavery (note this is the gist of what he stated, not the exact  quote).  Really?  Silly me!

Military Blunder

I have a bunch of potential ones from today but I settled on this one because I can't believe that it happened.

So if you can't guess by the title this has to do with the burning of the Quran.  This is such a horrible blunder by the United States military that I have a hard time believing it.  I have a couple of questions that I would love to hear answers for:

1. What in the world possessed them to do this?
2. What gave them the impression that this would be a good idea?
3. Isn't there somewhere that they could have donated these?
4. Or how about speaking to some folks (not sure of what the equivalent to a priest would be) on how to dispose of them properly?
5. Is this just a ploy by the military to justify staying in Afghanistan?

Doing something like this just doesn't give me the impression that the greatest military minds are at work here.  This action is not something that should have happened by a country that is a melting pot that supposedly tolerates all religions.

Normally I only rant about something that annoys me and doesn't tick me off but this one really gets me angry! We, as a country, aren't this stupid and insensitive!  Unfortunately, that isn't the opinion of the rest of the world at this point...

Doing Their Job

Good morning!  Spent the evening yesterday watching the game and didn't get home until really late.  I didn't really have anything yesterday to complain about but I got something really interesting this morning from the Today show.  That seems to be a place where you can get a lot of stuff to complain about!  Anyway...


So they were talking about this guy who tried to carry his newborn baby around the hospital and how the nursing staff tried to stop him due to hospital policy.  I would have to guess that it is much more than just hospital policy, I would guess there are some laws with regards to it.  So you may be thinking, why is this national news worthy?  My thoughts exactly!  Well it turns out the reason is that the guys last name is Kennedy.  That's right, the grandson of a former presidential candidate from the 60's is still so "influential" that his grandson is in the news!  Or is it that they have money and a famous last name?  It is completely ridiculous that it is felt that this is national newsworthy!  What has he done to help society?  I can't think of anything so why should I care that he thinks he is above the hospital policies, and potential laws, to the point that he believes he has the right to push and kick the nursing staff that is trying to enforce these policies!  And he and his wife were "appalled that these nurses attempted to take the baby away from him."  Really?  How do they know that he wasn't trying to steal the baby because they didn't really have a good marriage?  This is their job and there are reasons that these policies, and potentially laws, are in place!


And what makes this even worse is that this incident occurred at the beginning of January!  It was reported to the hospital administrator in a timely fashion, and he chose to ignore it.  It was also reported to the police with written statements and hospital video in a timely fashion, and they chose to ignore it.  This is only coming out now because an Assistant DA finally decided that it was time to take a chance to stand up to these "celebrities" and hold them responsible for their actions.  I'm not sure who this Assistant DA is but I hope he really pushes the case rather than just doing it to say that it was done.


This crap needs to come to an end!  It is no wonder to me why the "celebrities" of today think they are above the law.  And the courts need to begin enforcing the laws removing the whole celebrity status.  They need to start siding with the people of the United States who pay their salaries!  It sends the wrong message to the youth of this great country that if you are famous you can get away with anything that you want, including drug use and possession.


I hope this Assistant DA has his stuff together so that this jackass won't get away with this...

Exaggerated News Stories

Tonight I got another one from the world news.  I can't believe they really think we are so stupid as to believe this story is as bad as they claimed.


The reporter on the scene was in Chicago to talk about the "horrible" snow storm that is just decimating the midwest.  It must have been a really slow news night as they were talking like these places never get 6 inches of snow in a day.  I'm just not sure how that small amount could be, to use their phrasing, causing chaos.  It is only 6 inches and it is a common thing for most areas that average more than 40 inches of snow per year so why is it such a big news story?  I could understand if they were talking about somewhere like Atlanta, but Chicago?  Why didn't they make a big deal out of the 2 inches per hour for 12 hours that Fulton received a few weeks ago?  I will give you that it isn't as big a city or an important transportation hub but it is a much more significant total than 6 inches in 24 hours!  And I don't think there is chaos based on this 6 inches in Chicago.  I have watched football games where 6 inches has come down in the course of the game.


This "chaos" that they were talking about is the fact that with such a mild winter across the country people have gotten really complacent.  It seems that everyone forgets that this is still February and it does tend to snow in many places throughout the country.  Perhaps this reporter doesn't know what chaos is.  The views of the airport that they showed didn't show people running around like they were crazy.  It showed what I would call normal movement.


This where the title came from for this post.  Whenever there isn't much to report we get stuck with a filler story that is so full of exaggeration that it points out the lack of quality that we are stuck with.  Most of the time it is extremely easy to spot these because they use terms like chaos to describe what isn't really a chaotic scene.  When it snows in a place such as Chicago, people understand and deal with it.  It is a part of this time of year and it isn't something that we can control.


The other side of this is that there was actual severe weather with potential tornadoes that they seemed to just blow off because it was still under investigation.  This isn't a normal time for a tornado so why not talk to climatologists to get their take on why we are seeing tornadoes and warnings for them this time of year?  Oh, that's right, it didn't happen in a major metropolis where they had cameras...

Celebrity Marriages

Tonight's rant is actually one that I have had in my list of just in case I have nothing to complain about.  But the funny thing is that it was actually brought up on one of the entertainment shows while I searched for something real to watch after the news.

The brief snippet I heard mentioned how they were going to talk about the past couples walking down the red carpet for one of the "look at me, I'm famous" shows.  Here is my take and part of the reason I don't care.  Have you ever noticed that most celebrity dating starts shortly after they meet while working on a show or movie?  I find it really funny that they always mention when the pair met but never seem to mention that they have met most of their "love" interests in the same way since becoming famous.  And it seems to me that as we get the sexual scenes closer and closer to the pornography level in standard movies these celebrities seem to fall in and out of "love" much faster.  Just think of how you felt when you first started dating someone who became significant in your life.  Imagine if you are expected to pretend that you feel that way about someone.  At some point you are going to have a hard time differentiating between the acting and reality.  What was extremely risky in the 1970's for an R rated movie is now accepted as the norm for a PG movie now.  I believe this leads to the actors having a difficult time differentiating between when they are working and when they are not.

These thoughts don't account for those that aren't in the acting business.  As for those in the music industry, I believe it is a power thing.  They have all of these people adoring them and they feel powerful.  They can't help but take advantage of their fans desire to say that did something with someone famous.

These celebrities, for some reason, apparently feel the need to rush into marriage.  Yes, that does work for some, but not most.  Getting a divorce is too easy so they figure they can just get a divorce so what is the harm.  Marriage isn't important like it once was, and I think celebrities play a huge role in that.

Ash Wednesday

Well, as you can guess by the title, I have a religious based rant tonight...


Just to be sure everyone is aware, I was brought up as a Catholic.  I have a lot of issues with Christianity in general but this time of year really bugs me.  As a joke, I have called Ash Wednesday Dirty Forehead Day.  Why is it that putting ashes from some burned log is supposed to prove your devotion to a particular religion?  But beyond that, how is it that giving up some kind of luxury is supposed to further that?  As some of you may guess, this is only a small piece of my problem.


The real problem that I have is that so many suddenly become devout Christians.  They suddenly follow the "rules" and think that they are going to be saved because of it.  They don't really follow anything during the rest of the year but suddenly they feel the need to follow everything.  For example, the no meat on Friday thing.  To start with, why does anyone think that Jesus, God, or whatever deity (or deities) you believe in really care what you eat?  I don't think (s)he/they do!  In fact, I don't think there is a care in the after-life about how much you curse or attend church.  What I believe is really cared about is how you act throughout your life.  That's right, I don't believe finding God at the end of your life, or in prison, is going to save you!  Either you have lead a life where you deserve to have a good after-life or you haven't.


Which brings us to another thing, who really gives a mortal the right to say you are forgiven?  Yes, I get it, they have supposedly spoken to God.  But notice that supposedly.  I just don't believe that any deity would take the time to talk to an individual just to give them permission to forgive people.  How does someone saying 100 Hail Mary's forgive them for treating someone poorly or worse?


Rather than go on and on about my thoughts on that, I would like to point out something that most people forget.  Religion started as a form of government.  Most of the "rules" that are in place are really a way to get you to conform to a norm.  And if you look at some of the laws that are there now you will notice that there is a similarity to one of these "rules" of a religion.  Once it proved to be just another form of monarchy and people started to defect, they began praying on people's biggest fear, the unknown.


Now this is certainly not to say that people who devote their lives to following a religion are bad people or wasting their time.  In general they lead a good life.  There have been a recent rash of these people not following a good life, but that is, I believe, truly rare.  The only issue that I see with those few is that the "separation of church and state" in the US has allowed these criminals to get away with something that would put someone like me in prison for a long time.  True separation would mean they pay taxes and face the same penalties as we do.  But perhaps that is a different rant for another day...

Opening of Comments

Good evening.  Just wanted to let everyone know that I just changed the settings so that you can post a comment anonymously.  I was thinking it would get some more interest in the comments.  Would still love to have some followers though...


Tonight's rant in a few...

The Medical Problem

Tonight I am going to talk about a problem there is with all of the medical studies.

I was watching the news tonight, it was on both the local and world, and they were talking about heart attacks. The focus of the studies were on women and their symptoms.  The whole gist of the study was how to most talked about symptom, a shooting pain down the left arm, wasn't the most telling sign for women.  The signs could be a pain in the lower back, pains in the neck, blah, blah, blah...  The problem is that many of these symptoms can be the signs of many other things.  And this is the problem with many other medical studies.  Most of the time the symptoms have a lot of similarities to other medical issues.  If you were to actually look at the symptoms in the list (I can't remember now, CRS you know), it is amazing how many things they point out could be a heart attack in a woman.  Some of them would not normally be considered leading to a heart attack.

Now before anyone accuses me of being biased and defending the doctor's in the urgent care facilities or emergency rooms, let me be clear I am not!  To begin with, I am extremely glad that this is getting some attention as heart attacks are the #1 killer of women, not breast cancer!  It is about time it is mentioned as a real problem.  If this study is true with regards to the misdiagnosis that is happening I would guess that the number of deaths could be reduced drastically if when someone comes in to one of these facilities - regardless of race, religion, or sex - all things were checked.  What I am complaining about is the study itself.  Studies like this are what made my grandmother on my mother's side a hypochondriac.  They spread paranoia for no reason other than to justify the financing of the study, not to mention allowing the author to get their name out there.  The other issue with many of these studies are the number of people involved in the study.  Quite often there are numbers near 1000.  I have never been able to understand how such a small percentage of the population is supposed to represent the whole population.

I understand that they want to get information out there so that doctors can make informed decisions but I think they need to do a little thinking prior to the release.  This particular study could save some lives if applied correctly.  Of course, it could also cost a lot of money because every little ache or pain doesn't mean you are having a heart attack...

The Drunk Defense

I've had this one stored for a couple of days and have to use it because the kids are off this week so I didn't watch too much television.


There was a news story a couple of days ago about a murder trial in Virginia, a fairly open and shut case because he admitted to it without coercion.  They were talking to the attorney for the defense and he started talking about how the defendant was drunk so he didn't know what he was doing and it should be excused.  Before I could go completely nuts with that statement, the started talking to some other attorney (could have been the DA for all I know) who started to explain that it was a legal defense in Virginia.  If you are drunk when you commit the crime, there is a chance you will get away with it.  Basically they related it to being psychotic!  I can't believe that a law like this exists in this day and age, or maybe I should...


I have talked before about how much this country is about lawsuits and that no one can take responsibility for their own actions.  This is an example of this being legalized.  In this particular case, who was the one that forced this person to drink to the point that he was so drunk he was completely unable to control his thoughts.  I'm going to guess that he did, no one else.  The closest that you could come to an argument on this was that a bartender kept serving him.  The flaw there is that the bartender was doing their job, with the only possible flaw on their part being letting him drive (though I don't know if this person actually did that).  So once again, it falls back to the defendant's own actions.  But this law makes it so that it isn't his fault.  He will probably have to go to AA or something like that but will get away with murder.


I'm sure there has to be something in the law stating how they need to prove that he was this drunk, but my problem isn't with the details of the law, it is the law itself.  I can see some perpetual drunk finally getting caught driving because he killed someone in an accident and using this law.  Imagine how you would feel if this person killed was someone you cared about.  What would you think of the law then?  Or how about all of the sniper shootings that happened a few years back.  Would this law apply to them if they were drunk?  How would the country feel knowing that a couple of people who randomly killed someone for walking in the parking lot got a free pass because they were drunk when they did it?


Giving people a way to get out of consequences for their actions is not what we should be doing.  I understand that prisons are getting over-crowded but there are other things that we can do to alleviate that issue, but that's another rant for another day...

Foreign Words and Accents

Tonight I am going to talk more about speech in the United States.  Once again, this one was triggered by a show on the Food Network.

We were watching a show called The Best Thing I Ever Ate, which is a great show by the way, this one happened to be about snacks.  The way that the show works is that they pick a celebrity chef to tell where they go for their best dish based on the theme.  Then they send cameras, and sometimes the chef, to the restaurant to watch the preparation of the dish.  With this one particular dish they were showing the preparation and giving the basic ingredients, then they got to the part where adding the cheese and suddenly they decided that they needed to use the Spanish word for cheese, queso, rather than calling it cheese.  I don't know why they think what they are talking about is better when you throw in a couple of words from the origin of the food.  This happened to be a taco.  Nothing else about it was Mexican, how do I know?  The dish was a fusion dish where they took Mongolian BBQ beef and put it in a tortilla with an Asian slaw topped with queso, as they put it.  Why was it necessary?  More marketing I guess...

Which leads us to the rest of the problem that I have.  We were watching another episode a few days ago had a chef the has a Mexican heritage.  It was funny how she went through the whole interview without any kind of accent.  Then when she was in the restaurant eating and describing the food she had a really thick accent.  What was the point?  We know she has a Mexican heritage!  And she is only 1 example of this kind of thing.  Maybe I should start throwing in a Scottish background just for fun.  Watch an early episode of Paula Dean, then follow it with a recent one.  She went from saying y'all once or twice a show to saying it every other sentence!

I understand that people from certain areas have a different accent than I do.  That is part of what makes them different.  But what I don't understand, or like, is when someone purposely turns the accent on or off to attract attention or to fit in.  Be yourself no matter what that is or what it sounds like.

How Much Help are They?

Well good evening again.  I haven't had much of a chance to watch television today as I was helping my mother with her new laptop.  Which, oddly enough, leads us to tonight's rant.


There are a couple of parts to this.  First is that her old laptop really didn't have any issues other than the battery didn't hold a charge.  When I mentioned that she could have purchased a new computer battery she started saying that she had thought of that but the guy told her it wasn't a good idea.  Imagine that, a salesman told her it wasn't a good idea to spend $50 to replace the battery and that it was a better idea to spend $500 on a new laptop.  Keep in mind that this laptop is only 4 years old and was a fairly beefy machine when she purchased it.  The store you may be asking?  Well, their commercials always state that their sales team doesn't work on commission.  Based on this they work on something much like it at Best Buy.


The second part has to do with the fact that she followed through with the purchase of the laptop.  They then told her that for somewhere around $100 they could create a disk to transfer all of her files and programs to the new computer.  Sounds like a great idea except for a couple of problems.  The first problem was that the previous laptop is running Windows Vista and the new Windows 7.  There are a lot of changes between the 2 versions of the OS that prevent this from happening the way that they promised.  The next problem with this is that it wasn't something that they were going to do for her.  They took the old laptop and created some disks that were supposed to do this magic.  The third part of the problem was that after allowing the process of "restoration" to run for several hours, it was clear that this was a waste of time.  All this process did was create a directory of the files on the new laptop.  The worst part was that the files weren't even useful once they were copied.  I ended up deleting this directory and copying the necessary files manually.  The last part of the problem is that I could have done all of this for free in a matter of a couple of hours.  I am going to have to do this anyway as this "backup" that they created didn't really back up the data piece of things correctly.  The several hours that we waited for this to run was mostly for a couple of programs with all of the data.  With these programs that we supposedly "restored" were not functional nor was the data anywhere to be found.


So the conclusion of all this?  The Geek Squad may be able to repair a computer but don't count on them to actually help when you purchase a new computer.  Just expect them to hold there hand out for something that you can easily do for free on your own.  Don't be in the same situation as my mother who went in with a $50 problem and come out after spending $600...

Horrible Marketing Terms

So, have you been watching for the next big thing to rant about?  Well, neither have I.  What I find some stress relieving about this is that there is really no trigger for what I'm going to talk about.  So tonight it is based on a commercial that I just saw.


It was a commercial for Sargento Cheese.  They started out with showing someone putting cheese from a can on a cracker.  Then they talked about how their cheese is 100% natural real authentic cheese.  What is that supposed to mean?  Do they think we are really so stupid that we won't know that only one of those terms is necessary?  This is part of the reason that the Super Bowl commercials aren't worth the time they take.  These marketing "geniuses" think we are stupid!


And how can they really call it natural?  They inject the cheese with bacteria, it isn't a natural process anymore. They don't have the patience to wait for that to happen.  And I'm not even sure that it was ever that way once we figured why it happened.


This kind of stuff is creeping into more and more ads.  The unfortunate thing is that we have little choice but to buy the products.  The only way we can show we are smarter than ads like this is by complaining like this.


Let me know what other ads you have noticed like this...

The Flag in New Jersey

Well good evening once again.  Tonight I am going to rant on something that really gets under my skin!  It has to do with the death of Whitney Houston once again.


I was watching the Today Show this morning and they stated that the New Jersey governor was going to fly all flags at half staff to in respect to Whitney Houston.  My issue with it has nothing to do with her drug and alcohol issues.  It has to do with the fact that she is an entertainer!  This honor is supposed to be for the people who put their lives on the line to protect and serve us.  Not for someone who made millions of dollars and wasted it on material things just because she could!


What is the message that we are sending to our troops when we do something like this?  What kind of message are we sending to our children?  We are belittling the honor that this was intended to be!


If he wants to fly the state flag like that I don't have an issue with it, but the American flag is a different story!


What do you think?

Redundant Data

Good evening to all.  Tonight we are going to talk about how agencies (this is more than the government but they are the worst) can't let one hand talk to the other.


In my whole unemployment thing I've filled out a lot of things for the government to get the assistance that my taxes have been paying for.  What really gets me is that for each of these I've had to fill out paperwork starting with my address, date of last day of work, previous salary, etc.  Since this is all for the same government (this happens to be New York State) why do I have to fill it out for each department?  Why can't I fill out a form for unemployment and have that trigger all other processes?  You get governors that can't figure out why it is so expensive to run the state yet something like this would be a very simple way to reduce several things.  I was talking to a case worker this afternoon because I apparently forgot a copy of something that she needs to process things.  I asked if I could scan them in and email them to her.  Talk about confusing the heck out of her!  After stumbling for a moment, she said that she could accept it to get things started but she needed the paper trail for completion, but if I could fax it that would be fine.  Wait a minute, I'm unemployed and you want me to drive to a place to spend more money to send a fax?  That has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard of!  Why can't they get 80% of this information from my tax records or perhaps my former employer?


So, as I stated at the beginning, this goes beyond the government agencies.  Think about when you have gone to a doctor's office for the first visit.  How many forms do you fill out that contain your name and address?  It gets worse when you are taking more than one kid to a new doctor's office because now you have to fill out the paperwork for each child!  And 80% of the information is the same so why isn't there a form for a family?  Of course some of us are tech savvy so we think we can get ahead of the game by filling it out online.  Not the case because you will still have to fill out some once you get there, often it is the same because the receptionist doesn't know what to do with it when you hand it to her as she has a clipboard ready for you with all the forms.


If these people really want to save money, hire a bunch of consulting analysts to figure out where some streamlining can be done!  And don't hire them from a company that sells software, what do you think they will tell you?  That you need their software.  Hire some that are independent of software companies so you can get a real sense of what you need.  And follow through with the suggestions.  What is the point in spending the money to find out what you need if you are going to ignore it?  The computer age was supposed to make things better and reduce the need for paper but what has happened is just the opposite.  People aren't satisfied with looking at a screen to see a form, they need it in their hands so that it can be filed in a cabinet.  Our government, whether state or federal, is the worst offender.  By setting things up electronically they could reduce their costs drastically, speed the processes, and increase accuracy.

Past Post Listing

I had several posts that I had put on the Google+ version of this before.  Since someone asked for the one that I mentioned in the email I sent to family and friends last night I thought I would put up a list of all of them that I have done so far.  They are in the order that I did them (not that it matters to you).  Let me know if you would like me to post any of them for you to view and comment on.  Here they are:


Snow Days
Horrible Officiating
Car Commercials
Stupid Phrases
Compact Fluorescent Lights
Food Safety and Cooking Shows
Prescription Drug Commercials
Former Athlete Commentators
Sports Markets
Astra-Zeneca Can Help
The Addition of an R
Political Games
Being a Parent Versus a Mom
Babysitting Your Kid(s)
BP's Gulf Commitment
Give Me More for Free
EPA Estimated MPG
Super Bowl Commercials
Super Bowl Attention
The Valentine's "Holiday"
Android App System Issues
More English Misuse
News Priorities

Aztec and Mayan Calendars

This was the first rant that I had posted on my Google+ version of the blog.  I had someone request to see it so I thought I would post it.  Feel free to comment on it...

So, what's on the mind of the ranter today? How about the Aztec and Mayan calendars.


I saw a commercial today for a sitcom that really bugged me! It stated that the Aztecs predicted the end of the world was in 2012. That isn't a known truth. The truth is that the calendar stopped in 2012. That is all that is known. We don't know if they believed that it would be the end of the world. There are a couple of thoughts that I have on the subject. First, there is a possibility that they only had 1 person who was capable of creating a calendar and he died somehow.


The second could possibly tie into the first. It is possible that the European invasion of the land ended the desire for the creation of things like a calendar. In this scenario there could have been many working on it. Something that needs to be understood about the major event that this was. First, the natives of the area (this includes those in North, Central, and South America) were a much cleaner society than the European societies. Many of the cultures that were completely wiped out were done so by disease as well as by conquest. So again, this could mean that the creation just stopped rather than it being a prediction.


And let me end the speculation that this can't account for both calendars matching. These cultures were relatively close geographically so it is quite possible that they were collaborating on the creation.


There is no one alive from that time and no creditable accounts of the period so we don't, and probably will never, know the truth about why it ends in 2012.

Ice Fishing

Good evening once again. I have a great one tonight for all of you who live in cold climates. By that I mean climates that are cold enough to permit ice fishing.


So as with most places in the northeast, the Syracuse area has been warmer than normal by roughly 10 degrees. I went to the store earlier and saw a large number of people out on the ice of Oneida Lake fishing. In a normal year I wouldn't think twice about this but just 1 week earlier we had 2 days where it was over 50 surrounded by several days where the temperature was at or near 40 with rain on a couple of them. Again, with the really cold nights I might not think twice about it but...you could clearly see a path in the ice where it was thin, a different color with no snow on it, that ran across the path that the fishermen had to cross. So that tells me that the ice is probably thin.


So some of you may think that it isn't a big deal since they obviously got out there, right? Well what really told me that the ice was too thin was when we went around the west end. For about 1/4 of a mile there was no ice at all on the lake. Not a thin layer that was see through, no ice at all! The wind was making ripples on the water.


The reason I have an issue with this is because it is my tax dollars that will pay for someone's rescue when they fall through. Beyond just my tax dollars, they are putting the rescuers life in danger as well. All this just to go out and freeze to catch a few fish! What are they thinking?