travis' brain dump

So… There is one thing that I have noticed over the last few days with these protesters. 90% of them are IDIOTS. Yes kids, you are. While the ideals of what you may be protesting may in theory be good ones, your execution shows just how uneducated and immature you really are.

http://www.webcastr.com/videos/news/anti-war-protesters-meance-intrepid-fox-news-reporter.html

There’s a great video of a march by “re-create 68” where, when approached by a fox news correspondent they didn’t have anything to say the camera except “F*** Fox News” and flip off the camera.  When asked what their message was, only one of them seemed to have an answer. Go Figure.

You see, this as well as other things I’ve observed over the last couple of days just goes to show that most people who are protesters or activists have no lives and feel they need to belong to something so badly they will embarrass themselves with uneducated chanting and the passing of inaccurate propaganda just to get their face out there and feel like their doing something. We even saw someone out protesting BIRD PORN! (Birdwatching).

One of the groups we saw yesterday screamed and yelled about how 9-11 needed to be investigated and it was a conspiracy by our own government, yet when asked, none of them had a single shred of evidence outside of quotes out of context from different sources, much of them not even pertaining to even the era in which this occurred. *rolls eyes*

I honestly don’t get it. Two of my biggest pet peeves out there this week:

Global Warming: You say the Earth is undergoing global warming … well NO KIDDING! It’s been doing that since the end of the ice age. It’s not something new that we’re doing. The planet has been warming up all along. We are *not* impacting the world as much as you would like us to think. A natural disaster such as a volcano blowing up does more damage than we’ve done in 100 years in under a day.

Ending Wars: You say stop wars and promote peace. As long as people (on both sides) cannot get past their human flaws and continue to be greedy, power hungry and/or secretive about things, it will NEVER end. I tell you what. When you’re done taking your 1st Amendment rights for granted and complaining on behalf of the individuals we’re at war with rattling off to our government like a bunch of wimpy kids screaming from behind the big kid “you better be glad he’s holding me back”… take your concerns about war and oppression over and march down the streets of Tehran or sit down and have a mocha frappuccino with Osama Bin Laden. Talk to them about terrorism and oppression and how they need to chill out. Oh wait, that would require you have a pair and some courage so I guess we won’t see that happening any time soon.

My point here is. While our country does some pretty dumb things, there are people in power who are much dumber in other places. While greed and power trips still drive many of the individuals here in our country just as it does elsewhere we still are better off than most of the world. Yes, there is definitely some room for change so stop whining about it and do something about it. Stop expecting someone else to fix a problem you see  and fix it yourself. A police record for jumping around naked in front of an oil and gas building because you think drilling for resources is bad is not going to help your future or anyone elses. But taking that step forward and doing something with your life, while it may not help you right now, just might help someone elses in the future. If you’re sick of our foreign policy or how things in this country are being conducted, fine, do something about it directly. Get off your lazy butt and get involved in politics. If the existing politicians don’t want to hear what you have to say you have to find a way to make them listen. Make your voice heard loud and clear from inside the walls of congress and the senate or even the oval office instead of being another crazy screaming out on in front of The White House about how life is unfair for you. No one of consequence pays attention to you when you’re with the circus, you’re just another clown for them to laugh at.

You probably won’t though because once you became educated and leveled your mind a little you might just find that things aren’t all that bad and you can make a difference if not just for a handful of people. Instead of waging a little war of your own in protests so your voice could be heard and people would walk with you shouting your chants, you might just see how much good you could do if you were a little more humble and politely asked for support nicely or just did it yourself. Then instead of being on TV and shouting about how the police are oppressing your freedom of speech or on the front page of the Denver post with your riot handcuffs on that you can show off to your cronies 10 years later, you might just disappear into the history books of America with a little one liner that said you helped some kids in a third world country and be remembered by those close to you as someone who cared enough to do things directly for others instead of for yourself.

Which would you rather die with? The knowledge you helped someone live another day with a smile on their face or that knowledge you squandered the opportunity just so you could yell at some people about how they’re doing it all wrong when they don’t care what you have to say anyway?

When you tell people the best suggested courses of action to resolve their problems and they don’t want to follow your advice. They instead still want to bitch and complain that your IT department isn’t doing their job right. Can I choke you please?

I mean seriously. What’s the point of having an IT department if you won’t listen to them?

I also love it when you’re told you can’t use a network pipe to do your job, but that’s another story.  %(*#)(*%#@)(

*stomp* (whiny voice) I hate Myke Reinhold … 🙂

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/20/corporal.punishment/index.html

Feel free to go read that article if you must but either way my opinion is about to be posted.

Personally, I think these human rights groups need to do us all a favor and move to a little island somewhere that they can hash out their differences while their own children turn into criminals. 🙂

I’m so sick and tired of reading about people whining and complaining and comparing spanking children to ‘beating’ them. PLEASE. There is a HUGE difference between beating your kids abusively and handing them down some discipline via a smack on the rear-end. The same rules should definitely apply at a school as well though.

Beating Kids -> BAD
Whippin some butt -> USEFUL

No wonder this world is so screwed up. There aren’t any painful consequences for your actions when you’re a kid anymore so you don’t think it will ever happen. *rolls eyes*

All these “activists” are the same – they have to have something to complain about… constantly. Just mind your own business and leave people alone. If someone needs to spank their kid to get a point across, let em. Not all kids can be talked out of or convinced with empty threats that ransacking the dvd’s or pouring milk on the floor because it’s ‘fun’ is not okay. Geez.

With all things though, moderation is key. 🙂 ok, so I just laughed a little to myself over that comment but it’s true. A 5 yr old misbehaving suffices just fine with 1-3 pops on the butt. 3 is reserved for something serious and 1 is used for a reminder that *YOU* are the parent and *THEY* are the child.

For the record, my daughter is loved by all, behaves herself, is polite and does what she is told to do 95% of the time. I have NEVER gotten a bad report on her wherever she goes. I can count on one hand how many times she’s been spanked because every time I’ve told her she was getting one, I followed through. Granted she’s spent some serious time in a corner too, but a nose in the corner just doesn’t cut it all the time.

While all kids aren’t a model child like she is and granted my next kid will probably be a tiny terror, consistency is the key. If you punish a child by following through a threat, they get the point otherwise they don’t take you seriously. Most of the time that punishment can be a passive one but sometimes you need to be able to up the consequences a little. Having consistency is key so I’d have to say, what they get at home, they should get at school – minor, put you in the corner… a little more up there, spank em!

If all I had to do was spend some time in the corner for killing someone, the highways would be empty. *big grin* You get my point?  

For a quality rant on this because i’m too tired/lazy to write one… check out Myke’s take on things – he says it well.

You know what I find disgusting? When we use less and less of a resource in our house and yet it  costs more and more each month. Pretty lame huh?

I’m just irritated that they keep bringing these rates up in exponential percentages and then electing to cut off electricity for people who are 30 days late on the nose. While I’ve been fortunate enough to not have to worry about such things, I can’t help but think about people who are really struggling. What a pain in the rear end. Luckily for some of those people we have programs here in Colorado which help out people who are unable to afford these hikes. The sad part is, it’s those who can afford it which are also helping programs like this out through donations and other things so in the grand scheme of things if you’re helping out and donating then you’re paying not only the hikes you’re incurring but helping others to pay theirs as well.

Just as an example of these hikes, we were paying $0.02506 per kWh at the beginning of this year. From April to June they bumped it up to $0.03849 and in July they slammed it up again to $0.04824. Now to put that into perspective for you since I know you’re seeing it as “only a penny” lets explain what’s going on here. For say, 1000 kWh’s of electricity used, which is a pretty low average for a hot summer and a small house, you have to not only pay your electricity usage fee of $0.040 per kWh but you have to pay the ECA (as wells as other fees) on top of that. Broken down, the following usage+ECA is what you get:

Electric Bill 1st Quarter 2008: $40.11 in usage + $25.06 ECA -> $65.17

Electric Bill 2st Quarter 2008: $40.11 in usage + $38.49 ECA -> $78.60

Electric Bill 3rd Quarter 2008: $40.11 in usage + $48.24 ECA -> $88.35

So what you’re seeing is in the span of 7 months the cost of the same amount of electricity has gone up $23.18 in fees. For some that’s not a real big issue. For others it’s a huge issue. I realize, again, that we’re talking about a matter of pennies here but for someone who are already struggling to pay a $65.00 electric bill along with outrageous amounts for gasoline in order to get to work in the first place to pay that bill, it’s creating some serious hurt.

Now, I realize that the ECA is used to offset some costs, but you’d figure for a company who has a net income of around $105 million in the second quarter this year alone could cut some people a little slack as this goes well beyond ‘ passing the cost along to the customer ‘.

*shrug* but what do I know? i’m just the customer so I have no way of comprehending the “actual reasons” behind such hikes.