New Jersey Giants?

To all of you who think the Giants should be called the "New Jersey Giants" (likewise for the Jets)...

The "New York" in the name refers to the city, not the state. Is it really unacceptable for a stadium to be just outside the city that the team represents?

Should the Washington Redskins be renamed the "Landover Redskins" or the "Maryland Redskins"?

Should the Dallas Cowboys be renamed the "Irving Cowboys"?

Should the Buffalo Bills be renamed the "Orchard Park Bills"?

Sure, it's much more common for stadiums to be within their cities, but it's not a rule, and "New Jersey Giants" is no different from "Irving Cowboys" (which would suck). And if you think Jersey's getting the short end of the stick, don't forget that they're the ones getting all the taxes and other revenue.

I could go on, but I'll end the rant here. Suffice it to further say that it would be in neither team's interest to change names.

EDIT: I don't want this whole rant to seem completely impulsive... I thought about it because somebody, who shall rename unnamed, told me that the name change was part of the new stadium deal. My own subsequent research has turned up absolutely no evidence to support that claim. So please, if you're going to comment that "you heard the same thing," provide a source/link.

Free Talk Live

From Free Talk Live's about page:

Free Talk Live is talk radio unlike any other. In an industry where shows are either pro-republican or pro-democrat, Free Talk Live is unabashedly pro-FREEDOM.

Another hallmark of typical talk radio is heavy call screening. Certain hosts are afraid of certain issues. Free Talk Live is not.

Holy god-fearing awesomeness! I've listened only twice thus far, but I really like it, even though some of the callers are lunatics (one interpreted a cartoon of an octopus crushing something as a sign that terrorists would blow up a particular building in Austin, TX). No, it isn't unbiased, but I've always had the problem that every biased show on TV or radio (99.7% or so?) is biased against me. It's no wonder my roommates at colleged liked Bill Maher and Jon Stewart so much - beyond their being skilled comedians (yes, I like them too). Like my roommates, they are blatantly liberal and painfully cynical, and what like-minded viewer doesn't like getting a little intellectual hand job now and then? I couldn't get one from Maher or Stewart, nor from the other side (Bill O'Reilly et al.). So Free Talk Live is the closest thing I have.

So, please check it out, if only for a few minutes. Get the podcast from the iTunes music store or download straight from FTL's site.

Fun from Fark.com

Live with Regis & Kelly. Awesome. 

Mr. Miyagi Dies

That's right, people, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) has passed on, about a week and a half ago. 'Tis a sad time we live in.

ESPN.com did a brief eulogy of Mr. Morita. Read it. And mourn.

Why Christmas Is Too Long

Today I heard the first musings of "the start of the holiday season," and I accordingly felt the first pangs of being pissed off at it. Having been at college for four years, I've heard plenty about how much the so-called season, as it stands, sucks. I've also heard people tell me why it sucks, and most explanations centered around a hatred of corporate America. I'm always the one to say, "It's not the corporations but the consumers; they're the ones who actually buy that junk."

Still, I get pissed off. But in my case, it's precisely because I really like Christmas. Sure, the incessant ads and promos irritate me, but the truth is that I don't like being bored of Christmas before December 1. And that's what happens. So I may as well wish the world a merry Christmas while the sentiment lasts.

Merry Christmas.

Discrimination Frenzy

The word "discrimination" has driven the American people into so blind a rage that they've mostly forgotten its real meaning.

Two definitions from dictionary.com (link):

2. The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment.
3. Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice...

An example:

Listening to WNYC just a few minutes ago, I heard a story about a man in Georgia who was convicted of aggravated assault and sent to prison. The man was wheelchair-bound, and as his cell lacked facilities for people of his category, such as grab bars, he claims to have sit in his own waste for days and to have been left to sleep in his wheelchair for weeks. Accordingly, he sued (I don't recall the defendant - most likely the prison, the prison system, or the state). Having lost his case in lower courts, he appealed to the US Supreme Court, which agreed to hear it.

The man's lawyer made a public statement which WNYC aired, in which he claimed that the behavior of his client's captors constituted discrimination solely on the basis of disability.

This is bullshit.

The very problem in this situation is failure to discriminate: the disabled man was afforded a cell identical to those of other inmates and was treated in exactly the same manner. The essence of his argument is - or should be - that the state must treat people of his category (those in wheelchairs) differently than people capable of walking, and that they failed to do so.

Thanks to the discrimination frenzy, however, a man claiming not to have been the subject of discrimination would be dismissed as a lunatic or a racist. So he's gotta make the opposite claim, when the details of his case clearly make it false.

In the lawyer's defense, the laws themselves may be at fault. But if they are written such that organizations not granting special treatment to the disabled are guilty of "discrimination", then they too are children of the frenzy.

The moral of the story: Discrimination is not, by itself, bad. It's often necessary and proper, even good. Other examples: elite universities discriminating on the basis of intelligence; employers discriminating on the basis of skill; certain magazines discriminating on the basis of gender; liquor stores discriminating on the basis of age; and consumers discriminating on the basis of price. There are comparatively few forms of discrimination that one should consider bad.

Perhaps, this has turned into a rant. Sorry.

For the record, I hope this guy wins his case, but not on the basis of these bullshit laws and his lawyer's bullshit claims. The specifics of his incarceration do constitute cruel and/or unusual punishment, which the constitution prohibits (8th Amendment). I'm no lawyer, and the legal system does not always abide by the rules of logic, but this is how I believe the Court will ultimately rule, though not in such simple terms.

Creating and Adding Value

This is the key to making $$$, no? The one common way to create value is to do what your boss tells you to do, if you have a job, as I soon will. But there are many more interesting ways to do so. For instance, I could add Google AdSense to this blog, and in 40-50 years I'd have the $100 balance necessary to receive payment. But what else?

This has preoccupied my mind for the last 5-10 minutes. It's not about the money; in fact, I really just want to display some entrepreneurial creativity.

Civilization IV Released

Now, I am truly feeling the effects of poverty. O! how I long for Sid Meier's Civilization IV, available for purchase as of yesterday. I know it will be a sweet game, folks. IGN rated it 9.4 out of 10, and the screenshots are dazzling.

Perhaps the most incredible aspect of the Civilization series its lasting appeal (IGN agrees). Just a few months ago, I was playing Civilization III to the point of near-obsession, if not beyond. It was released in October 2001, and I was the proud owner of a copy soon thereafter. So, even if Civ 4 isn't the greatest game ever, it may be the best $50 I ever spend.

Sports at Their Best

Today, Amani Toomer received a 2-yard pass from Eli Manning for a touchdown with 0:05 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter of the Giants' battle with the Denver Broncos. The touchdown tied the game at 23-23, and Jay Feely's ensuing extra point lifted the Giants to a 24-23 victory.

If only for that moment, my trip to New Jersey today was worthwhile. Not that I actually went to the game or anything...

And all this after the Giants spent the first 55 minutes of the game looking like the team from the esteemed film Little Giants, starring Rick Moranis and Ed O'Neill (1994).

My Precious Shit

Finally, I have removed the burden of my pile of shit from the good Mr. Franchak and family! The goods:

1. My trumpet! Sure, the thing's a piece of crap, but I haven't played since the spring (and not much even then), but with my vast quantity of free time, I may be able to regain some of my former aptitude.

2. My pool cue. Not the most expensive, but I really like it. Graphite, and much better than those cheap, overused craps at pool halls.

3. My copy of The Power Broker. I purchased this book some time back at Owen's semi-blind suggestion (he hadn't read the thing), but since I left it in Virginia, he's acquired a copy and read much of it, verifying his claims of its worthiness. Long book, though, so I hope I can agree.

4. Aprotim's hat. I borrowed it for the beast of a costume party (parties, really) that wound up a four-year life of drunken revelry and altogether mayhem. Didn't give it back - hell, didn't even try to give it back until the night before I was to embark on my 7,000 mile journey. Five months now, and as punishment for my laziness in May, I'll have to ship the motherfucker. Bye-bye, $5.

5. My graduation cap and gown. Utterly useless. Crappy. Don't know why I didn't just throw it out.

6. Tons of other books. Couldn't sell them, didn't want to throw them away. One I could have sold for $17 just months after paying over $100 for it - how can I not keep that? Hope they prove useful someday.

Yeah, I wrote this mostly because I felt a blog entry was in order. So, there's no reason to elaborate further.

The Tell-Tale Printer

From the Houston Chronicle:

Can Your Printer Tell on You?


The gist of this article, in case my recommendation is insufficient to pique your interest, is that many retail printers add patterns of yellow dots, which contain a cipher of the printer's serial number as well as the date and time of the printing, to every page printed.

Now, I'm not one of those people that were cutting off their own limbs to use as projectile weapons agianst the President when he signed the USA Patriot Act, but I can't say this doesn't bother me. My printer is supposed to print what I tell it to print, and if I don't want any identifying marks on it, then there should be none.

EDIT: The machine-identifying system is only reported to exist in color laser printers, so most of us need not necessarily worry about it.

Bill Clinton Cares

As little as I may like President George Bush II, I sometimes get the urge to defend him. This is especially true now, as I've been reading a book about the Clinton presidency called Legacy. It's a clearly biased book, but it was written by the editor of the National Review, and its sources are thoroughly documented.

So I write of Africa. Bill Clinton cared about Africa. He made absolutely certain that everybody around the world knew how much pain he felt on the part of the Africans. The guy seriously radiated empathy, and we all loved him for it. To demonstrate his care, he sent over a bunch of food aid to help them out. Sure, it wound up in the hands of the very groups that were making places like Somalia shitholes -- but it's the thought that counts, right?

As for Georgie? He doesn't give a fuck about Africa, the bastard! His soul lacks any iota of empathy, and all he radiates is the chill of an unbeating heart. His only "gesture" was to spend about $3 billion annually from the US treasury to combat (yeah, he loves combatting stuff) AIDS worldwide, a disease most prevalent in Africa. But he cares so little about Africa that he dares help AIDS victims in other places, like Vietnam*!

Yeah, we all know what a moral piece of crap Mr. Bush is.

Seriously, now... the reason I wrote this is that I rarely hear about how little Mr. Clinton did for Africa, but complaints about the inadequacy of the much larger aid provided by the Bush administration (with the help and approval of Congress -- gotta give them some credit) are pervasive among liberals. Clinton didn't propose anything nearly as bold as Bush's AIDS initiative because he was too afraid of the political risk. Apparently, he was right not to.

Don't try and tell me I love the President. I don't. But it really pisses me off when people complain about him without any sense of perspective. Perhaps that's just how things go: the only way to avoid complaints about not helping enough is not to help at all. It's a great message to send to charity-minded people out there.

Another example: Bill Gates and his Gates Foundation. I don't recall Bill getting nearly as much credit as he deserved for establishing that and endowing it with tons of money (at least a billion, if not several times that).

So I suppose I'll close with a piece of advise: if you want people to like you, don't help others. Just act like you care.

* where, by the way, John Kerry served. (thanks, Opinion Journal)

More info?

The President's HIV/AIDS Initiatives

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Opinion Journal (by the Wall Street Journal)

Murderous Care Bear

Listen, people: It's too early to put up Halloween decorations. For the sake of our dear Lord, STOP!

Yet, it is not too early to post pictures of one's previous Halloween costumes. I shall do just that. Be warned, however, that the following photo is not for the faint of heart or of mind.


Unfortunately, my Care Bear was murderous only for a couple of photos. The rest of the night, he was positively joyous, as was I.

Ashamed Joe: "Anime Still Crappy"

I've a confession. My shame is boundless and my embarrassment eternal. I'm completely obsessed with Naruto, a Japanese cartoon about ninjas. Sweet ninjas. Sweet ninjas engaging in sweet battles sweetly.

Still, all is not lost.

Allow me to declare this: I am, indeed one of those guys that love Naruto. I am not, however, and shall never be, one of those guys that are totally into anime.

The "Should" Fallacy

I do hereby reject the use of the unconditional "should," for it is meaningless. The word is inherently tied to a condition or goal. If someone tells me, "you should move to California," he/she might really be saying is, "if your priorities agree with mine - warm, not-to-humid weather, sandy beaches, and an altogether mellow life over a bastion of culture and services and a lot of people - then you should move to California." I haven't quite decided whether the condition is fulfilled in my case, but if it isn't, then I should not move to California unless other considerations prevail - considerations which only I can evaluate.

Likewise, when you hear that "you should really get started on that paper," the speaker is hiding from you certain assumptions about your philosophies, moralities, and/or priorities. Perhaps you don't give half a shit about the class; perhaps you have other, more pressing assignments or issues with which to deal; perhaps you work best under pressure; or perhaps you're hung over and can only fuck it up at this point. In any of these cases, it's entirely possible that you shouldn't get started on that paper just yet, and whoever is lecturing you is dead wrong.

There are those that would even say that making such unconditional statements about oneself undermines one's own philosophies and such - that doing so removes the element of decision from whatever it is one "should" do. I'm weakly inclined to agree, but this exits the realm of mere language and enters that of psychology, and I'm no expert there.

Of course, I must allow for exceptions: "putting out that fire would reduce the severity of the burns that you no doubt already have on your arm" is a tad long-winded for the situation in which one would expect to hear it. Plus, it's usually safe to assume that the listener considers uncharred arms among his/her priorities.

Hell, even the conditional "should" is a very weak word, for it is next to impossible to include every condition in one sentence. So please, just avoid using it altogether.


In the interest of consolidating posts... the Giants are now 2-0! New York overcame a hurricane-inspired but turnover-troubled New Orleans team, 27-10, and now share first place in the division with only the Washington Redskins (Philadelphia and Dallas share third at 1-1). Schwing!

Energy (disambiguation page)

I think that theoretical physicists have crossed some kind of line in their use of the word "energy". Defined in language as "the ability to do work," energy takes on a more technical meaning in the context of physics. It is a mathematical construct that summarizes certain properties of an object. Kinetic energy is for the most part observable. Potential energy, to me, is a sort of fudge which completes the "conservation of energy" puzzle. Energy in all its forms provides a very useful way of analyzing and predicting physical phenomena without regarding extraneous details. It's great! Yet it is a mathematical construct. When physicists claim that the Universe, which appears to be made out of shit (remember, "their stuff is shit, and your shit is stuff," and most of the shit in this universe ain't mine), is actually made of energy, they're really saying that the Universe is constructed from mathematical constructs, which in turn are constructed by mathematicians - and this seems to be the basis for some new religion worshipping mathematicians as Creators of the Universe. This of course is bullshit, and I call upon physicists to invent and popularize a new term for this "energy" of which they believe our world is woven.

But I mean to write not about physics, but about energy in the more human sense - roughly, a person's ability to do work, but with all the ideas connoted by the word. To get right to the point, I lack energy. I lack the energy of good rest; the energy of motivation and ambition; the energy of a curious mind; and the energy of social vigor, among others. The difficulty is that these energies are interdependent. For instance, I lack good rest because I never fatigue myself in the pursuit of ambitious goals. I lack social vigor because I'm not motivated to seek excitement. Energy begets energy, I suppose, but if I can't find something else that begets energy then I'm fucked. Coffee doesn't count.

Which brings me to liberals. It's hard to argue against the historical trends toward what we now call liberalism. Why? Young persons tend to be liberals, and young persons tend to have energy. Energy is everything in public policy*. After all, this country exists because a few revolutionaries had a fuckload of energy, and the loyalists here (who outnumbered them) couldn't match it. As long as liberals have more energy than conservatives, liberals will prevail. And just forget us libertarians; nobody has an energetic passion for freedom anymore.

Just to make my position clear, that's bad.

*Hyperbole. I'm sure to contradict it in the future. Please don't hold that against me.

Giants 1-0

That's right, the New York Giants have opened the 2005 season with a 42-19 win over the Arizona Cardinals. This is beautiful. It's so nice to be excited about a team again, after the collapse of the you-know-whos. (Note that this post is about the Giants, not the Mets)

Mets Keep Losing

The New York Mets are now 1-8 in September. It seems that they, like me, are incapable of performing under stress. Unlike me, they are professional athletes, and it seems to me that such a tendency to buckle should preclude their ascension to the Major Leagues.

Seriously though, they (as an organization) have some shitty luck. About eighty percent of the players on their 25-man roster (I have nothing to say about the September call-ups), including Carlos "Money Sink" Beltran, performed below expectations this season. And I don't mean marginally below expectations - you'd expect around half to perform at least a little worse than predicted - no, I mean serious letdowns that even a few carefully-measured kilos of Cialis can't fix*.

And the one player that has managed to notably exceed expections is a second-year player who gets paid next to nothing by MLB standards (of course, I refer to David Wright). Mr. Wright must cringe every time he hears an announcer say of him, "this guy's gonna be playin' third at Shea for the next decade!" I only hope that his spirits aren't crushed by the time he reaches free agency; only then can he pursue a decent career.

Okay, I promise: my next post will not have as its primary topic the New York Mets. I cannot, however, guarantee that there will be no mention of them.

*No, I don't have any idea how many times that line has been used, and I am completely unaware of the copyright The Tonight Show no doubt holds for it.

So Much for a Pennant Race

After losing 5 of their last 6, the Mets have dropped to 5 games behind the wild-card leading Astros, and they don't appear to have any life in them. And their bullpen is awful; the closer, Looper, had two chances last night, in the 9th and 10th innings, to pitch one scoreless inning and thereby secure a victory for New York. And twice he fucked up. So, two blown saves (one for Looper, one for Takatsu, who came in after Looper loaded the bases with no outs and actually managed to get the first two outs without allowing a run to score) in one game for the Amazin' Fuckups.

Gotta give it to them, though.... previous Mets teams lost hope in June, July, or early August. This one stuck around for awhile. But that only makes the fall further, the bones blown into more and smaller smithereens.

Also, the Braves are headed toward their 14th consecutive division title. Has anybody investigated this situation? Is it at all possible that they aren't somehow cheating? If 86 years without a championship is a curse bestowed by a fat baseballer, then 14 years of division titles must be the hand of Lucifer himself. Fortunately, our Lord is doing His part as well, and this doubtlessly will be the Braves' 13th year in 14 with a playoff berth and nothing but gate receipts to show for it. Of course, I'd like to have those gate receipts...

Zombie Grasshoppers

Imagine this: a worm infects a grasshopper and eats everything inside the grasshopper not required for short-term survival. It then compels the grasshopper to find some body of water and drown itself. The worm is returned to its aquatic home, nourished, and the zombie grasshopper dies! Holy shit!

It's true. This actually happens. Check out this NY Times article (registration may be required).

If you ask me, this parasitic worm makes a far better story than the stupid viruses in zombie films. Let this be a lesson to film producers worldwide.

Big Brother

To all the paranoid of the United States:

Most of the people actually keeping tabs on you are young people getting paid a few cents look you up in online phone books and records and add your address and phone number to a database or spreadsheet such that those employing their services, along with others who pay them for the privilege, may engage in correspondence with you.

In other words, "Big Brother" is not the government* - it's the spam infrastructure.

* yet.

Stock Market Blues

You might think that I, as a die-hard capitalist, would praise corporations. You might be wrong.

Capitalism is founded on the principle (among others) that the purpose of business activity is to maximize profit. Corporations, lacking the capacity to experience non-monetary utility (as people do), ought to be the absolute expression of this principle. Unfortunately, corporate structure has twisted the goals of the corpration: instead, executives are charged with the task of increasing shareholder value.

Often, the two ends are strongly linked together. But this is not always the case. Consider the chemical company BASF. BASF advertised itself on television a while back: "We don't make a lot of the products you buy; we make a lot of the products you buy better.™" Which products? Can I, a hypothetical viewer who was profoundly influenced by this advertisement, seek out and purchase some of these products which BASF has upgraded? No! Did BASF gain any customers by advertising to the public? Doubtful! Nay, what BASF must have in fact been advertising is its stock!

Call me inexperienced in the world of business (which I am), but this seems like a massive perversion of capitialist philosophy. And I don't doubt that it causes massive inefficiencies. Like hundred-million dollar executives ("Wow! that company pays a ton of money to its CEO. He must be good, so I'm gonna buy stock!").

True: I don't know all the details, and I'd really appreciate some education in the matter. My thesis is this: the corporation as it exists today is an entity at odds with capitalism. As much good as corporations have done for this country (which I don't even begin to question), they could do better, if they/we could find ways to prioritize profit over value.

Any suggestions?

Liberal Battle Cries

"Peace! Land! Bread!"

New Deal, New Frontier, Great Society. Affirmative Action, Social Security, Welfare.

Lock-box.

Want to create a liberal war-cry of your own? It's easy! Just think of an issue about which you care, remove any complicating details (including all those that seem to weaken your stance on the issue), and reduce to a phrase or command of three words or fewer. Exclaim. Repeat. Now it's no longer an issue, it's a cause.

Take, for instance, "Help the poor." What was once a complicated issue involving rights, ethics, morals, economics, and law is now a single-minded quest which any good citizen can understand and support. Sounds almost - oh, I don't know... religious, doesn't it? Just a thought.

My dear readers, take pity on us libertarians, for we have not such purely noble calls to arms. "Shrink the government!" we cry. "Leave me alone!" we plead. "Let those who wish to help the poor do so by methods of their own choosing!" Are you rushing to enlist yet?

Nay, we must win our allies through intelligent discourse. And just as we cannot win arguments with people shouting "You're lying!" or "You're stupid!" or "Fuck you!" at everything we say, we cannot hold intelligent discourse with liberals' Commandment-quality aphorisms.

Juicy Virginia Ham

Isn't advertising great?

Yes, I hold that it is great, no matter what y'all may think. These days, it pays for absolutely everything anybody sees, reads, hears, says, writes, or reckons. Advertising rocks the house.

I have but one thing to say to the benevolent gods of ad-heaven that reflects anything but thanks and praise: don't make comments on my blog.

In Honor of the Chief Justice

In yesterday's rant, I failed to say anything about the deceased Rehnquist - his death was incidental to the topic of my post. To be honest, I don't very much want to talk about him, but in his honor I shall post a line from his master's thesis at Stanford:

The highest end which the state can serve is to serve no end at all, but merely exist as a means for the individuals within it to realize their own ends.

'Nuff said.

A 24-Hour Human Interest Story

This is the first post here, and it was inspired by (and copied from) an email I wrote today. "Holy shit," I thought as I finished off the message to a college buddy, "this would make an excellent blog entry. If I had a blog."

Now I have a blog, and I shall use it to rant.

As you probably know, Chief Justice William Rehnquist died last night. When I woke up today, I felt like seeing what some political insiders had to say about it and about who might replace him and when... so I turned to CNN and the rest (FOX News, MSNBC, etc.: the jewels of the Cable TV Empire). As bad as these networks may be at providing news per se, they're usually very good about getting a bunch of people to talk about whatever news they do report, and many of these people are either intelligent or important (sometimes both!).

I found nothing. Every news network was showing footage of hurricane wreckage with some anchor commenting on it without actually providing information. The one short bit on Rehnquist that I did see was an anchor interviewing someone who didn't seem to know any more than anyone else, and the two of them were splitting time in a small box on the left side of the screen while uninformative hurricane wreckage occupied a larger box on the right. What a fucking outrage - not to mention an insult to the late Rehnquist.

It's the OJ trial all over again! Although this time the story is important, it's in a way worse: the hurricane story is rather deep, with political, economic, and cultural implications worldwide, but the networks, despite round-the-clock hurricane coverage, don't even scratch the surface. It's all about the rescue and relief efforts - I do care about these, but ten to fifteen minutes of evening coverage could get me all the important information concerning their progress. Essentially, it's a 24-hour human interest story on three channels
every day. And people are eating it up!

That said, the whole thing is quite the tragedy, and I don't mean to belittle it. But I don't need to tell you that; just tune in to CNN.

Briefly.