Stupidity on Parade

Welcome to a new feature* here where I wade into the cesspool of stupidity that is anonymous comments on the internets to make fun of the stupidity of others for my own amusement. What prompted me to do this, you ask? Well, I was reading through the comments at the link and just decided that some of this is too stupid to go by unremarked, and there was no one within earshot at the time, so I decided to share it with you instead. I realize it's not nice to make fun of people, but I think when you put this kind of stupidity out there for everyone to see, you deserve to be mocked. The subject today is an article from FOX News about recent polling regarding the election. Including, for some reason, some nonsense about who Osama would be rooting for.

Comment by Debra Harrington
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 am

I’m sorry but I honestly have a problem with a muslim being charge of my security when it is muslims that want to kill all Americans. The terrorist don’t care if you are republican or democrat. Doesn’t anyone else see a strange coincidence here? Obama will be so one sided on the terrorism issue that the terrorist will have a field day getting over on this guy. Obama is not going to take them seriously, either because he does’t “get it” or maybe he just won’t care.

As for the war lasting 100 years, that isn’t written in stone anywhere. Anyone with half a brain knows you can’t tell the enemy when you are going to end the war, because it doesn’t make sense. I would explain it, but I’ll let some excersise their minds.

Lucky for Debra, I guess, that there aren't any muslims running.

Comment by Marion Raia
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:05 am

Well, it seems easy enough to guess at Usama’s choice for President of the United States. It is the candidate who looks, sounds, and smells most like a Socialist. That could be any of the current candidates, Democrat or Republican. However, in my opinion Hillary is that candidate and Usama wouldn’t go that way because of the obvious. Osama would definitely be the “MAN”, being the most qualified Socialist in the government today. Seriously, are the people of this country really crazy enough to put Hillary or Barack into the White House and put a name plate on the desk of the oval office that says “COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES”? Are there really that many Socialist, Communist, or Nationalist Socialist supporters in this country? It just can’t be so! Why did our soldiers fight and die in WWII, Korea and Vietnam? To put one of the enemy in the White House?

I'm really not sure how or why socialist got to be such a horrible dirty word around here, but I am pretty sure that they've never been our enemy, and I don't think many of our soldiers died fighting against socialism. Anyway, since there aren't any socialist candidates running, everything should be ok regardless.

Comment by jason
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:35 am

Ron Paul 2008.

Ok, so it's probably not fair to call anyone stupid just for supporting a particular candidate, but I had to include this one just because at this point, these people just make me laugh. They didn't even bother to mention Paul in the article.

Comment by Military
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:31 am

To SIUE student:
Your an ass clown, plain and simple. Usama would vote for Obama because he wants to put us on the defense. WE in the MILITARY are voting for McCain because we trust him with our lives plain and simple. If it looks, smells, and tastes like a turd. Then guess what surrendercrats its Obama.

This one doesn't really need much comment, but it is amazing to me that people haven't yet puzzled out that your/you're thing. Also, I'm pretty sure assclown is one word.

Comment by sue
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:51 am

I support Hillary and everyone I know would not vote for Obama. I hope your polls are better than they have been lately. I would not be relying on your polls. Fox news had a gentlemen on their show yesterday evening talking about how Racist Obama is, and hides it very well. Did anyone see that and if so do you know his name?

Hillary or McCain

I guess his full name is Racist Obama, hence the capitalization. I think sue expects too much from Fox news as far as their polls go, but even so, I doubt they confined their poll to "everyone sue knows."

Comment by TerryD
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:06 am

Bloggers don’t you just love how the Obama sheep all repeat the little

clichés that he has emphasized in his speeches such as

“We don’t want the same old, same old politics.”

No, what they want is the newbie’s running their country.

Well, if Obama does win the presidency, he will need the equivalent

of what President George W Bush has, he will have his own Cheney

like person telling Obama what to do and say. Gee I wonder who that old geezer will be?

The newbie's what, TerryD? Also, I can't figure out if this one is supposed to be a poem or something.

Comment by TerryD
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:48 am

Barack Hussein Obama has a one trick horse;

I DID NOT VOTE FOR THE IRAQ WAR!

Of course, you did not vote for the Iraq war you were not in the senate now were you obliged

to vote for or against the vote.;which according to your past voting history you would have

voted present!

Stop beating a dead horse, you act as if you had insight or knew all of the circumstances that

President George W. Bush was talking about.

He showed the senators which included Ted Kennedy, highly confidential findings by United

States secret CIA’s and other agencies ie., British Intelligence to justify why they should check

into Iraq. And would you not believe your President, would you think he would be lying to you?

So, unless you were present in a highly critical stage in American history, you can not

pompously point out that I did not vote to go to war with Iraq.

This has to be a parody of some sort. Notice it seems to be the same guy from the last one. I guess he couldn't cram all his thoughts into one comment.

Comment by SAY NO TO ARABIANS.....
February 21st, 2008 at 9:20 pm

HUSSEIN OBAMA ITS NOT JUST A MUSLIM-BORN BUT AN ARAB-AMERICAN TOO, ‘not
an AFRICAN-AMERICAN’

This is what it is:

His father Obama(Sr)was ETHNICLY ARAB, all his relatives are Arabs with only
1 relative African Negro. Obama’s Sr’s great grandparent.

True Obamas Sr. was born in WEST OF KENYA were the negro tribes were CHRISTIANS,
Obama Sr. GOT his ARAB name to disinguish himself from the CHRISTIAN african negro
tribes. Obama’s Sr. PARENTS WERE ARABIANS.

Barack and all his relatives have arabian names. Barack Hussein Obama is a 50%
caucasian(white mother), 43.75% ARAB and 6.25% AFRICAN from his ‘great great
grandfather’s
side.

Barack HUSSEIN Obama is indeed an ARAB-AMERICAN. Its ALL CLEAR NOW!

Don’t believe me? , go to the colum of Mr cohen at the Washington post, you
will
read more there.

take your time and read the details here too:
http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/02/barak-obama-questions-about-ethnic.html

Please, not an ARAB-AMERICAN WITH ARABIAN NAME POR USA PRESIDENT!

Usually what amuses me the most about these CAPS used for emphasis people is not so much that they're either too stupid or lazy to figure out simple tags for italics or bold for emphasis, but instead, the seemingly random words they decide to capitalize. GOT is my favorite example from this particular comment.

Comment by proudparent
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:45 pm

Personally I can’t help but wonder where all of the money is coming from for Obama’s campaign???
al-Qaeda members, Iraqi insurgents, Hezbollah, Hamas, Ahmadinejad of Iran and Chavez of Venezuela.

I wonder that myself. If only people kept records of some kind about this sort of thing. Maybe we should make some laws about this.

Well, I think that's all the stupidity I can take for one night. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

* And by feature, I mean something that I'm doing right now and will probably forget completely about in the future. Frankly, at this point, it's a wonder I still even bother to post at all.

I don't care how many cameras there are

Has anyone else noticed lately that every time there's an article or announcement for a new upcoming show, particularly if it's a comedy, they feel compelled to mention that it's single camera or multiple camera? Am I the only one who doesn't give a shit how many cameras there are? Just make an entertaining show, use however many cameras you need. Why did this start becoming important information for the viewer?

Depressing

I just saw the trailer for Away from Her, and I can't think of a movie I want to see less. I can handle tragedies, but this just sounds so depressing - she has alzheimers and enters an institution while he has to cope with her illness and her absence. I think it might be that I can identify with it more than I can with a Miss Saigon-style tragedy. Alzheimers is scary because it really does happen to a lot of ordinary people. It looks like it's very well-written and acted, but I don't think I'll be seeing it anytime soon.

Two-thirds of Americans think nanotechnology is morally unacceptable -- wait, what?

What the fuck? What could people possibly object to about nanotechnology? I really can't find any good reason to object to it at all, but I certainly don't see any moral dilemma. Surely this must be a flawed poll somehow. I don't have a lot of faith in the intelligence of people as a whole, but I can't really believe that people are stupid enough to have a moral objection to nanotechnology. I'm going to instead assume that they just have no idea what nanotechnology is and just figured that if someone was asking them if they had a problem with it that there must be something to object to.

Housekeeping

I doubt there are many people perusing the archives here, but on the off chance someone does, you might notice that all my previous posts are now attributed to Michelline. Due to a convoluted history, my blogger/google account was associated with Michelline's yahoo and gmail accounts. Rather than ask her to give up her gmail address, I just gave her the blogger/google account and created a new one for myself.

McCain backs in

Ezra has a very intersting post up with a comparison of the primary systems of the two parties. As you're probably aware, most of the Republican primaries are winner take all, whereas all the Democratic primaries (and caucuses) award delegates proportionally. The interesting result is that under a winner-take all system, Clinton and Obama would be in roughly the same position. However, under a proportional system, the Republican race would be even closer than the Democratic race. (Chart by Ezra, from Monkey Cage) Now, some people in comments have complained that this is too hypothetical, as candidates tailor their campaign strategy based on the system in place. True, but I really have a hard time believing McCain could have done much better regardless. He's been squeaking out wins over Romney and Huckabee as it is. The really interesting thing about this is that it really does illustrate that most of the Republican party doesn't want McCain. Of course, the same could be said of both Romney and Huckabee. Maybe it does help them, as the divisions in their party do seem to be much deeper than those on our side, and this gives McCain time to woo people, rather than going toe-to-toe with Romney for the next 3 or 4 months.

123 Book Meme

I was tagged below by Chris with this meme, courtesy of Toast (and Maurinsky).

1. Grab the nearest book (at least 123 pages long).
2. Open to page 123.
3. Go down to the 5th sentence.
4. Type in the following 3 sentences.
5. Tag 5 people.

From The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman:

They were quite close now, and seeing what was coming, some of the villagers looked up and called to each other to look. The party from the road slowed to a halt, and Mary clambered stiffly down, knowing that she would ache later on.
"Thank you," she said to her...her what?

I'm not tagging anyone, feel free to join in if you like.

123 Book Meme

Here's a nice quick meme, courtesy of Toast (and Maurinsky).

1. Grab the nearest book (at least 123 pages long).
2. Open to page 123.
3. Go down to the 5th sentence.
4. Type in the following 3 sentences.
5. Tag 5 people.

I'm at work, so there aren't a lot of books around. I have my Intro to
Java book, but it's one of those Kinko's things with sections instead of
page numbers. Rolling over to the file cabinet, there are quite a few
books, so I grabbed the first one to catch my eye - "PowerBuilder
Application Techniques Version 6". I know, it's exciting stuff.

"This example deletes one item and all the small pictures from a
ListView:
int li_index
li_index = This.SelectedIndex()
This.DeleteItem (li_index)
This.DeleteSmallPictures()

ListView report view requires more information than the large icon,
small icon, and list view. To enable report view in a ListView control
you must write a script that establishes columns with the AddColumn and
SetColumn functions, and then populate the columns using the SetItem
function."

Hmm, maybe I'll redo this one at home for a little contrast. Not that I
have anything against technical manuals, I enjoy programming, but this
is a bit dry for general consumption.

Ok, 5 people that Toast didn't tag - I'll tag John, Michelline, Mr F,
umm, Chemist and umm, well crap, I'm about out of readers. Nightshift
doesn't read this blog, but I'll tag him anyway.

Relationship Advice

This CNN article (via parenting.com) has some pretty good advice that contradicts some standard relationship conventional wisdom. I think the points about sex and arguing in front of the kids are especially good. But there was one I just didn't get -

Myth: Spouses should be best friends as well as romantic partners

It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? After all, you and your husband know each other better than anyone else, so why wouldn't he be your best friend, too?

What we say: "Romantic relationships are different from friendships. One person can't be everything to you," says Andrea Smith, a mom of two in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

In other words, don't beat yourself up if it sometimes feels like you're closer to the mom next door than to your mate. "It would be great if your husband is someone you have fun with, respect, have great sex with, work well with as a parent, and is your soulmate. But almost no one gets all that in one relationship," says Wexler. And if you and your partner manage some of these things, "you've been blessed," he adds. The trick is to keep your bond going on some level. "Stay involved in your partner's life. When you separate in the morning, make sure you know at least one detail of each other's day -- and ask about it later," says Wexler.

It helps to be grateful for what you do have. "Rick and I have been together since high school -- and he's not my best friend," says Deborah Coakley, a mom of three in Ridgewood, New Jersey. "But after everything we've gone through, he's definitely my most constant friend."

I don't think there is a right way or a wrong way to create and maintain a relationship. The only hard and fast rule is that both people should be happy with whatever arrangement they have. That said, I don't really get the point here. Maybe they have a different definition of best friend than I do. This is the part that confuses me - "It would be great if your husband is someone you have fun with, respect, have great sex with, work well with as a parent, and is your soulmate. But almost no one gets all that in one relationship,". So what in this list do you not expect? How can you be married to someone you don't have fun with? Respect? Any relationship without respect is doomed. No great sex? That's fine, but only if neither partner cares. Unaddressed differences in sex drive is a killer as well. Working well together as parents? And what's the alternative? Soulmate is a bullshit romance novel idea, so I think we can ignore that.

I'm not saying that I think spouses/significant others should want to spend every minute together, or even that they agree on everything all the time. That's unrealistic. I like alone time, I like spending time with friends without Michelline, we have divergent interests and hobbies in some cases. But she is my best friend. What that means to me is that when I see something interesting or exciting, she's the first person I want to share it with. I can be completely unguarded with her without fear. She's the person I most enjoy spending time with. We've been together for 20 years and we never run out of things to talk about. Our interests overlap in most areas. The things that are most important to me are also important to her. I see us together 40 years from now and I don't feel limited or constrained by that, I feel excited about the prospect. And the sex is great ;)

I don't expect that all successful marriages will be like ours, I know that's not the case. But I don't understand a committed relationship where one partner feels emotionally closer to someone else, and that's what I get from the quote above.

My desktop

Here's my desktop on my laptop, which is the only computer that's all mine besides my work pc. I have a few too many icons on the desktop here, but this is actually pretty good. At one time, I had practically the whole thing covered with crap. I usually put temporary install files, pictures etc... on the desktop. And then there are the shortcuts that put themselves there when you install a program. For menus, I always use the quick launch for a few essentials and create a tools folder to contain the rest of my shortcuts on the taskbar.

This was my wallpaper ever since preseason this year. While for months it was a source of excitement, now it's just a painful reminder. I'll change it soon, but I've been using the pc in the office mostly lately, so I haven't gotten around to it.

Meme from Eric through Toast.