Frustrations

Frustrations have once again kept me from doing any posting here.

First, let me get my warning out of the way; RANT ahead!

At first, I thought it was annoyance over cutting ties with the person I used to collaborate with on my Witchfire stories. Well, sort of collaborate. We tried to create a shared world with some crossovers for our stories. That ended over their insistence upon demonizing anyone they disagreed with politically or socially, and me saying one time too often to look at other POVs and not stereotype entire groups just because a media talking head and their sheeple said so.

So many of the problems in society today are caused by people on BOTH sides of various issues having blinders on like that. Sadly most of them are otherwise decent people. They just can’t be bothered to work past their personal biases. Too easy to hate because somebody told them that their personal problems are the fault of that group over there. Old trick though; it’s worked for Hitler, groups like the Proud Boys, and the FAR Left as well. “Hate! Fear! Follow me blindly! I’ll lead you to salvation”.

95% of the time these would-be saviors are only exploiting people for their own selfish ends by playing off one group against another.

Need I say it AGAIN?!? Judge people as INDIVIDUALS instead of using group-think and blindly applying labels that promote conflict and division.

AND THEN THERE WAS THE BLOG…

First, let me say I hate some of the new changes to WordPress. Even using a spacer insert is harder now since there’s no box, just a little circle now that you move up and down. The (picture) cropping and resize tool doesn’t work for me. They’ve even done away with the ability to select specific font size from a drop down. Now it has to be keyed in if you want to change it. Every “improvement” to the block editor seems to make it a bigger mess.

Some sort of background changes have me locked out of replying to or even liking half the blogs I follow AGAIN. This is the third or fourth time it’s happened since I started here. If I haven’t liked or commented in your blog in a while and I usually do, that’s very likely why. This change no doubt so WP can data mine blogs more easily.

Then we get back to PEOPLE as relates to blogging…

First, there’s my ongoing gripe over USERS masquerading as followers. If you’re doing THIS, you’re not reading and you don’t care about anything anyone else has to write about:

Doing that regularly just says you’re only using people to gain followers and pad your fragile ego. It’s happening increasingly from people who I’ve made effort to genuinely interact with on WP too, or at least used to. And I’m talking them doing 20+ likes in 1 or 2 minutes. I have a few pics of THAT also. I figured 8 likes was enough to make the point though.

If you don’t have time to read and have no desire to do so, just don’t reply instead of using people for your vanity. I’d rather have 5 followers like Refarmer, Joanne the Geek, Sheree, BigSkyBuckeye and a few others who will actually read, than have 10,000 fraud followers.

Then there’s another issue that’s been simmering for a long time also; appeasement and self censorship. I left and loudly denounced Twitter for similar experiences, but really WP isn’t all that different in a few regards. I speak out against some of the heavy handed aspects of the SJW movement (even though I support the overall movement / idea), then I’m evil. I have to push anything spiritual over to another blog because I might offend religious people. Can’t believe in chi and God after all *rolleyes*

Same idea with some of my adult writing. I sort of give that one a partial pass as I don’t want people to have to worry about anything vaguely NSFW here, and WP is absolutely one of the worst sites out there for providing any sort of age check tool for that kind of content. Even just an “Are you 18?” button pop-up would be nice!

Maybe NextDoor.com is a better overall comparison. Can’t write anything there other than garage sales and recipes without offending somebody. I’ve felt increasingly the same way here.

Write about self-defense or martial arts, you’re violent.

Talk about RESPONSIBLE gun ownership (and I have a very negative opinion of some gun owners), and you’re going to go out and do a mass shooting.

OK, enough said. The point is I’m sick to freaking death of judgy fucks presuming they know what others are thinking and feeling, AND that said judging fucks have the imagined godlike wisdom to tell others with absolute certainty how to live their lives or even what they should say. Yes, I’m sick of the “this means you’re a that and need to change NOW” crowd.

I’m NOT advocating people be allowed nor encouraged to run around acting like asses with no filter either. Can’t we find a happy medium though?

Truth; I’m frustrated at feeling like I can’t be me. I’m shutting away and compartmentalizing pieces of me to try to appease people who are never going to read my writing or buy any book I write anyway.

I’m not sure how quick I’m going to really get back to posting “full time” here again. I do know that when I start though, I’m going to be more ME. Politics I will still refuse to cover. The waters there are just too muddied, the real truth too hard to find and I think everyone is corrupt. Adult content is staying at SilksErotica.

Anything else is one the table though. I’ll do my best to discuss topics in an intelligent, calm manner. I’ll try to be positive and upbeat too. Trust me, I’m sick of bitchy posts here

Don’t like a particular subject in the future? I’ll make sure the headlines are clear so you can bypass it. That, and a return to days having regular topics, are as good as you’ll get.

Reboot It, Renew It, Reshoot It!!

Yakko, Wacko and Dot were more on target with that song than I thought. Yet another CBS program has been rebooted, putting them in a tie with DC Comics for most reboots ever, LOL. Who is our unlucky victim this time? A cash cow that CBS decided could be milked further:

‘CSI: Vegas’ Gets Series Order at CBS

15 years wasn’t long enough, so here we go again. 😀

The new series will feature a few of the “old guard” from the original series mentoring a new group of CSIs using cutting edge technology to help solve crimes.

I’ve got to admit, I liked the old show (not loved), but another reboot in the CBS line up? When is enough enough? Even half of Netflix’s shows are reboots anymore. I’m wondering when Zorro is going to be rebooted by Disney anymore…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfuL2DU_Ekg

Honolulu Car Rental Price Gouging

I got an email about this from my friend in Hawaii. It seems with the return of tourism to Oahu (which had been down 90% for almost the entire pandemic), that the demand for rental cars has gone through the roof compared to availability.

No doubt the car rental offices were selling off their fleets to help cover operating costs during the pandemic. Now that it’s ended, their short sighted move has caught them flat footed. In typical predatory capitalism fashion they’ve decided to charge over $700 a DAY for basic rentals and over $1000 if you want a convertible:

$1,000 a day to rent a car? Low supply, surging demand are pushing up prices in Hawaii (hawaiinewsnow.com)

Normally, I’m quite pro-capitalism. I understand that TO A DEGREE, supply and demand are going to factor into cost. Doing so covers the cost of increasing the supply to meet demand.

HOWEVER… Where do we draw the line in this kind of instance? Where does the law of supply and demand become predatory capitalism? I’m not sure I have an EXACT answer there, BUT, 10x the normal going rate would seem to be across that line. We rented a Mustang GT convertible a year and a half ago for our honeymoon and only paid $100 a day, which is still pricey compared to most other locations.

Wouldn’t an ethical business simply go out and buy some cars from local dealerships to increase their fleet size? At $100 a day rental rate, the car loan note can be paid for on 5 days of rental per month.

Just because you CAN do something doesn’t make it right. Look at the price hikes on insulin as another example. Somewhere along the lines the idea of business ethics got flushed and replaced with the SHORT SIGHTED idea that the only duty a business had was to provide as much short term profit as possible to it’s investors. If one has NO ability to ponder consequences, that sounds great also. In the long term though, it destroys a business’s reputation and customer loyalty. Look at Banks and Airlines as two other examples. They’re both hated.

Worse, these greedy businesses are only fueling the call for Socialism or outright Communism by people who don’t understand these are even worse alternatives.

Where Do You Draw The Line?

Yes, I’ve been away for a few days here, but trying to at least answer followed posts. I’ve been dealing with the fallout of yet another battle with my mother. I’ve tried for years to get along with her, and when she gave me her wedding (ring) set, I’d hoped we’d truly rounded a corner in a lifetime long shitty relationship.

Image from depedkto12.blogspot.com

This time around, it was over my spinal problems and how I’m supposedly not doing anything to contribute to the household here. I’ve shown the woman my first MRI report from years back, tried to explain it over and over for almost a decade, and she refuses to accept any of it. At best, I should just got get surgery because I have insurance. As if it’s that simple.

After dropping hints repeatedly, trying to explain the problem and it’s side effects, etc… I finally had enough after our last phone call. I snapped and sent her a fairly strongly worded email saying I was sick of it, and if she spent not even half the time she did researching my grandfather’s alzheimers, she’d know what I’ve been going through. Also that I was sick of her efforts to bully me and destroy my self respect.

Her response was that “maybe we shouldn’t talk anymore since she always seems to piss me off”. Typical emotional manipulation and playing the victim card. If she’d listened the countless other times I tried to explain it all, it never would have hit the point it did.

I shouldn’t be surprised. She reacts poorly to any criticism. I’ve cut her out of my life for years at a time on two previous occasions too. This is the woman who ripped into me verbally if I brought home a B and had my first step dad beat me for Cs while I was in school. When I went to college, I was supposed to take double a full time load and work full time at a “real” job. I got crucified for any little mistake to the point I went from a major extrovert in elementary school to an isolationist level introvert from about the fourth grade on.

Oh yes, and I was told I was too much of a wimp to go take martial arts so I could learn to defend myself from all the bullies that I attracted. Belts in 6 styles later (Shou Shu Chi, Tae Kwon Do, American Sport Karate, Parker Kenpo, Tracy Kenpo and Wing Chun), I guess she can kiss my ass on that one.

Never got any credit for it either after I’d achieved it.

At this point, I want to just tell her “Fine, kiss off!”.

All the self doubt she beat into me over the years always seems to factor into situations like this though. *I* should be doing more, I should do something different, word things better, be more understanding.

She’ll quickly point out this verbal abuse goes back generations also and blame her behavior on that. It’s as close as she comes to taking responsibility. Otherwise she just blames me for not tolerating it.

I’ve worked hard to grow the last few years. Longer than that really, but it’s been a snowball; slowly picking up momentum and mass. Every time I start to do better, she seems to want to throw a boulder into my calm pond. I’m at a breaking point here, or rather the relationship is.

So, yeah… When is enough enough? Because where I’m sitting right now:

Spent the Day in the Vault!

The VADER’S VAULT that is!

Yes, that’s right, THE Vader’s Vault; home of some of the best custom made lightsabers on the planet.

So, cool background story… We had to run into Georgia today to take care of some other business. I’d also been gawking longingly at more lightsabers online, and found out that Vader’s Vault “store” (shop really) was only 27 miles away from where we had to go. I talked the spouse into a quick ride with the idea of checking out whatever kind of showroom Vader’s Vault had and asking a few questions.

In short, I wanted to try to get a handle on whether or not Vader’s Vault sabers are actually worth the money. Also get a look at a few sabers as well, I’d hoped. 😁

What I got was completely unexpected. Instead of a quick look and a few questions answered, we got… the grand tour!

We talked to somebody up front, and they went and got the boss (owner). He came out, gave us a quick run down of the stuff in the showroom and then asked if we’d like a tour.

The showroom included this case full of sabers and saber cases from their history:

That saber up at the top is one of only EIGHT real world copies of the “Twisted Fang” lightsaber available in the Star Wars: The Old Republic game.

A couple of other highlights from the showroom:

Their case of manufactured helmets.

More sabers, emitters and some toys on the bottom shelf. That’s a “mouse” droid in the lower right corner also.

That, unfortunately is all the pictures I got. The rear area of the shop had rooms for wiring work, CNC machining equipment, 3D printers, etc… I didn’t snap any pictures back there though because the owner was lamenting how any time he puts something online, there’s a cheap Chinese knock-off for sale a day or two later. They were also working on one completely new model and some tweaks to existing models (relocated power switches and a few other minor things). I have a sneaking suspicion that we MIGHT see that new model for a May the 4th sale too.

For any readers who may be wondering, I asked about the limited availability of sabers right now. It’s the usual supply chain issues. However, they expect to have a few models back in stock in the next few weeks. I did see them working on a batch of “Revancrist” sabers (Darth Revan’s lightsaber):

Those are one of the few sabers still currently “in stock” also.

One question led to a highlight of the tour also. I asked if their special made sabers with crystal chambers were duel worthy. The big guy brought out a Starkiller and explained in detail:

The cliff notes version is that the hilt itself is strong enough for it. The bracing rods on the chamber are full on steel. HOWEVER, their crystals are a piece of clear quartz which could break or break loose in heavy sparring. So, he advised against using such a saber for more than light to moderate horseplay.

Why quartz? Disney has “cool” 🙄 colored epoxy chunks that they sell for ONLY $30, you say? Well Vader’s Vault sabers have the ability to change blade colors, and the Starkiller will actually shine the same color as the blade into the quartz to make it look like that color Kyber Crystal. It will always match the blade no matter the color.

More importantly (lol) for a couple of moments, I got to hold a $2600 Vader’s Vault masterworks Starkiller in my hand. 😁 Well, minus it’s outer cover anyway.

We briefly talked about the differences in blades also. Plecter Pixel blades are just as combat worthy as the old LED tubes. Both are polycarbonate, and will eventually break at some point while dueling. The Pixel blade gives a much better and even light quality and is capable of producing effects that an LED “flashlight” type design can’t. All this at a higher price point, of course.

Personally, I’d probably save the Plecter Pixel blade for “show” sabers and use an LED one for dueling. We’re talking $30 vs $130 for a replacement when it finally breaks.

Bottom Line:

Are they worth the price and increased wait time?

I went in a little wary. Half of me was looking to rationalize buying elsewhere. They really are absolutely worth it in my opinion though. Here’s why:

Better Grip, Weight and Balance: The balance on every saber I got to handle was extraordinary. My two black series sabers (Dooku and Mace) and my Ultrasabers “Fallen” saber:

are just plain stout. They’re like wrapping your hands around an old “D Cell” battery Maglite police flashlight. The Count Dooku saber is majorly off balance as well. I got to hold a Vader’s Vault copy of that same saber. The hilt is slimmer, more in line with what a real sword might have, the finish was brighter too. The machining was done so well that it was hard to see where the parts of the hilt actually connected together.

Better Sound Quality: I’ve heard people complain about Ultrasabers and Saberforge being bad in poor quality or muffled sound. My Black Series sabers are fair in this regard. Not great, but fair. Every Vader’s Vault saber I heard sounded like I’d just stepped into one of the movies. Crystal clear quality with sound effects for everything from swings, blade clashes and defected blaster bolts (all of which a plexer pixel blade’s light will respond to also).

Massive Customization: Vader’s Vault has features that Ultrasabers and Saberforge don’t even offer; hilt lighting and illuminated power buttons for starters. Some of their options they don’t advertise on their site. I suspect that has to do with variable costs involved. I saw sabers that were mirror polished, powder coated, weathered, acid etching engraved, inlaid with wood, leather wrapped… you name it.

THIS, I found out today, was done in the owner’s garage when it was just him and his wife. Imagine what they can do now!

Good Company Working Environment and Customer Service: Why is that important? Because even if you don’t care about the workers’ conditions, a happy staff is highly motivated to excel at their job. That means you get a defect free product.

Customer service should be self-explanatory in importance. If you have any doubts about Vader’s Vault though… Keep in mind they COULD have just run me off, or spent a couple minutes answering a few questions and then politely said they had to get back to work. Instead we got treated to an almost hour long tour with Q&A, looks at all their work areas, a demonstration of all a plexer pixel blade can do, peeks at several models in various stages of manufacture or remodel, and even a sneak peek at a pre-production prototype of an upcoming release.

How often do you see that nowadays in ANY sort of business?

Bottom line, you’re going to get a better saber made of higher quality materials and machined to tighter tolerances, better electronics, more bells and whistles, made almost any way you want, and better customer service.

What you’ll get elsewhere is poorly fit together sabers that can’t even hold up to a Disney toy:

How to Fix Social Media

A review of Parler on Renard’s website got me thinking about the mess that is social media

Image via SocialMediaExplorer.com

The bias, cliques and general toxic nature of it all has made me walk away from it entirely years ago. I’m still not sure a blog counts as social media, but this is it for me. 🙂

The reality though is that all social media platforms are EASY to fix. Easy in the sense that the solution is straight forward, but it does require work. What’s the answer? Simple:

Ages ago, back when the closest thing to social media was .vbb (virtual bulletin board – similar in form to reddit, although a little more primitive) discussion sites, I helped moderate one of the biggest ones out there. The code of conduct there was pretty straight forward. The biggest rule that we used to define Trolling and abusive behavior was:

You can debate the idea, but DO NOT attack the person making the post.

Examples (of somewhat obvious concepts):

Debate the Idea: “Tax cuts for the rich doesn’t result in them creating more jobs via reinvestment, they just horde wealth.” Controversial enough to be an example here.

Attack the Post Maker: “What kind of idiot believes that tax cuts actually help the economy?”

Do I even have to point out how one keeps the debate more focused and civil, while the other degenerates it into ad hominid personal attacks and childish name calling?

Why isn’t it done? Simple. None of the owners of these sites want to pay for moderators, and bots aren’t sophisticated enough to differentiate yet. They also avoid dealing with tantrums claiming bias if a human moderator shuts down a troll and their followers.

Yes, there’s political and (mostly) economic bias guiding these decisions also. They don’t want to take what will inevitably be a very large hit to their user bases via this rule. Personal experience has taught me that this is fairly short term though. People LOVE having the spotlight. Take it away from them, and they’ll rant and pout, but then come back and play within the rules MOST of the time because they want their stage and audience back.

The habitual rule breakers and one who will try to skirt the rules constantly… They’ll always be there, and will act even worse without that kind of rule in place.

Of course, there’s the other issue that has to be dealt with, and that takes a cultural shift: Back then, the common sense belief was that free speech and the ability to freely debate ideas was paramount.

Nowadays everybody wants to live in an echo chamber:

The biggest step to straightening out the internet and social media specifically is that the other side has a right to speak.

I’ll be blunt, if you have to resort to silencing dissenting voices via name calling, applying labels, trolling, attempting to get people banned or blocked, etc… In short, if your ideas can’t stand the light of open honest discussion, chances are you don’t understand them yourself.

Change that and implement the above rule along with a few other common sense ones (ie no advocating violence), and social media would change fairly quickly.

Debunking a Conspiracy… Maybe Two

Famous SNL skit turned into meme fodder on the internet

I’m back after sorting out several things that may or may not get blog posts of their own. Right now however, I want to revisit the idea of conspiracy theories. I lost at least one (apparently unhinged) reader when I refused to embrace the idea that the Nashville Christmas bombing was actually a government missile attack… or a government space based particle beam weapon if you’re REALLY REALLY out there.

Christmas morning picture of the bombing aftermath in Nashville

I had some FUN with that attack in the post linked to above, but it was only fun. These people seriously believe that the government used a cruise missile to damage an AT&T facility because said facility was supposedly investigating the voting machines and election fraud. This based on an out of focus picture from a different angle than the original pictures and video. Said picture supposedly shows a fragment of a vapor trail “from a missile”:

Yes, it apparently started out as it was “an NSA spy hub” that was hardened, but still somehow damaged by a missile that couldn’t even completely destroy the cars on the right hand side of the street (first pic). Yes, this is the start of applying Occam’s Razor to this idiocy.

So let’s go back to the blatantly obvious based on the two pictures above:

A) That blurry line could be almost anything. If it’s a vapor trail from a missile, where is the rest of the trail? Why did nobody report seeing a missile?

B) Even the most basic amateur forensics would show that’s NOT a missile hit. There’s no crater. How did it destroy a “hardened spy facility” undreground and not even leave a crater? The blast radius wasn’t even sufficient to completely destroy the cars on the left hand side of the street. The debris pattern doesn’t even indicate a center of the street hit like many whackadoos are insisting.

On top of all that, there’s just the reality of how the government works. Trump also for that matter. ANY investigation into electronic tampering with the voting machines would have been done publicly for the sake of transparency. Trump also would have been screaming from the rooftops that the proof was coming. His whole election rigging theory hinged on it. Even after the fact, he said nothing.

The government doesn’t need an AT&T switching center in Nashville to do such investigations either. The internet was started as a US Government construct named ARPANET. The government still has it’s hands all over the internet with back door access to backbone routing systems at the heart of the internet. Any person who has spent any real length of time in the IT field knows this. Things like Operation Able Danger barely scratched the surface of what the government could do if it wanted to.

Even setting aside the cloak and dagger stuff, the FBI Cyber Division is one of the best cyber forensics teams around. They would have likely been leading any investigation into tampering with the voting machines from their headquarters. Trump had already cleaned out anybody who had opposed him at the FBI also, so one can’t simply claim bias as an excuse here.

So, NO, there was NO INVESTIGATION and NO CRUISE MISSILE ATTACK to stop it and ‘save’ Trump’s presidency.

Let’s take Occam’s Razor a bit further however…

Why would the government spend $850,000 dollars (the cost of a tomahawk cruise missile) to launch a blatant and highly messy attack when so many easier options are available IF there was something going on that needed to be covered up?

For starters, they could just “spike” the target area with a virus or malware of some sort that would take out any software based evidence and potentially damage hardware as well. Any PEOPLE that present a danger can have Clinton administration style accidents & suicides (ie Vince Foster shooting himself in the head and THEN throwing his own body in a dumpster), OR simply discredited as conspiracy nuts and Alex Jones fans.

If I wanted to put together a far more plausible conspiracy theory around the bombing, it’d be something to this effect:

The RV carried a black ops team that went in and neutralized the troublesome area. They went in unseen via a trap door in the bottom of the RV and went into the sewers before breaching the AT&T building. The gunshots heard at 4:30 and 5:30 were the team taking out security or witnesses. After the job was done, they detonated the RV to cover their tracks, escaped via the sewers to an unmarked delivery van, and drove off. Other people in the NSA immediately put out the story of this rogue AT&T contractor obsessed with 5G and coronavirus, and the public has a cover story. The broadcasted warnings from the RV about a bomb were more about drawing attention away from the black ops team’s escape than actually keeping innocents safe.

The difference between THAT and the missile strike theory? TONS of money and much more surgical level control over the operation and it’s outcome. It’s still about as likely as my Die Hard theory in the post linked above though, LOL.

5G and COVID

While we’re at it, let’s BRIEFLY tackle this one also. Let’s start with 2 seconds of background.

The whole conspiracy took flight when a holistic medicine doctor named Thomas Cowen (a few unverified sources say he was barred from practicing “real” medicine), posted a YouTube video about how 5G and the “electrification” of the Earth’s atmosphere was causing coronavirus. All it took after that was a couple of celebritards tweeting about it and BANG; the theory went wildfire level viral.

The trouble here is that none of the above people have any sort of background in radiology. For the record, I don’t either. While I *do* believe that all the radiowaves put into the air may be having some sort of negative effects, I also know something else:

Radiation (and all types of electromagnetic energy are broadly classified as radiation) exposure doesn’t cause or mimic the symptoms of contagious diseases. The effects are completely different. On one extreme, you have cancer as an effect. THAT takes strong radiation. Much further down the line, we have the vertigo and impaired thinking / brain fog and moodiness caused by directed microwave attacks on US personnel at the Cuban embassy.

So, while I’d be more accepting of the modest possibility that 5G is responsible for all the mentally addled people on the far left and right who only want to fight with others and see threats everywhere, it’s NOT responsible for COVID-19. If anything is, it’s the Wuhan Institute of Virology (which another reader has argued doesn’t exist, because their media told them so, never mind the website and ability to find it on Google Maps).

Conclusion:

My point with the last (Wuhan) remark and the Clinton one earlier is that there’s enough legitimately shady stuff going on in the world without having to invent wild, unsupportable shit to explain every little thing that goes bad. That’s actually my biggest gripe with conspiracy theorists and theories:

They draw attention away from legitimate wrong-doing and are used to discredit anyone who wants to hold government and big business responsible for those legitimate wrong acts.

The fact of the matter is the missile attack nuts and other fringe theories out there actually discredited any legitimate effort to look into voter fraud. And the voter fraud was definitely real. Trump didn’t gain a single vote after the polls closed and lost substantial leads in 8 states. I kept track of the numbers over that time, and what happened is a mathematical and statistical impossibility. It would mean every area left uncounted at midnight on election night voted 100% Democrat.

I don’t miss Trump one bit. He was a toxic, narcissistic bully. The areas remaining to be counted after election night all normally leaned Democrat also, so it’s possible Biden might have won regardless. I’m only concerned about making sure the process stays untainted.

OK, enough of that, I said I was done with politics. That above situation is a perfect example of how conspiracy nuts actually HURT the cause they’re trying to promote though. THAT is why I brought it up, and to point out that one can see something fishy without going to extremes to rationalize it.

Before anyone on the Left posts a comment about all the right wing idiots out there, keep in mind that the COVID thing is a universal idiocy not limited to the far right. Likewise there’s the conspiracies spun by leftists that all cops are out to murder black people and that the military is full of terrorists ready to repeat the storming of the capital and completely overthrow the government. Glass houses & stones and all that…

All y’all crazy people need to get your heads straight. And I’m done venting, LOL.

Learn From Kitty!!!

Nuff Said? Good, because teaching tired kitty out

Silk’s Civics Class – Bills and Laws

I’m going to have a little fun with some basic learning over the course of a few posts.

I’m starting with BASIC civics. The stuff I learned in elementary school about checks and balances and how a law is made. Sadly most 30 somethings and younger seem utterly clueless here. Think I’m kidding about elementary school? Here yah go; courtesy of Saturday Morning Cartoons and Schoolhouse Rock:

I wish more people would learn this stuff too. It’s utterly scary how many people I’ve seen over the past 10 years screaming for the executive branch’s role to be ignored (with both Obama and Trump).

Even worse, I’ve seen state and local government in California completely violate the entire process, even overturning lawful public votes on referendums (same idea as a Bill but the public itself gets to vote on if it becomes legal – true direct democracy), simply because it wasn’t the result they wanted. Public ignorance and apathy are death to a civilization.

The only part that disappoints me with the above video is that it doesn’t explain the role of a presidential veto as part of the system of checks and balances or how / why it can be overridden with a 2/3 majority of both houses.

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For those who actually care, the presidential veto is supposed to act as a check and balance against a corrupt majority vote in the Congress. The founding fathers realized that sometimes we might get a batch of bad apples in office or that congress might do what’s popular and expedient instead of what’s right. Gee, NEVER see that…

They also realized we could elect a bad or biased president also, so Congress was given the ability to override a veto with a 2/3 majority vote of both houses. They figured if it was an important enough law, the 2/3 majority would be there. Otherwise the bill can go back through the process again and modify it so it’s acceptable to both houses of Congress and the President.

Yes, the process was deliberately set up to make laws difficult to pass also. The founders had this silly idea (note sarcasm) that tyranny starts with excessive laws.

And the Supreme Court (Judicial Branch) was only supposed to get involved if a law was blatantly unconstitutional. Thanks to lawyers and lobbyists, that’s everything now. At any rate, they have the power to strike down a law if it is unconstitutional.

As part of the checks and balances however, the Constitution can be modified (a long and complicated process involving the states) so as to override the Supreme Court. …OR Congress and the President can go back and work on a new version that IS constitutional.

Where My Character’s “Gray” Jedi Ideals Came From

Here’s a flashback to an OLD Star Wars moment. Jolee Bindo talking to Revan about where the Jedi are incorrect regarding emotion:

I’ve ranted about the botched Jedi philosophy in the prequels a few times. It’s amazing that Bioware got it, but Lucas didn’t.

It’s one of the things, if not the main thing, that convinces me that Lucas never wrote the original trilogy. Yoda and Obi-Wan advised Luke to CONTROL his feelings, not completely tune them out. It’s just too big a switch in philosophies in the prequels

As a comment on this YouTube video also pointed out; the video shows perfectly why Anakin fell to the dark side; he was only told to turn his feelings off and sever all attachments, never to actually deal with them and keep them in perspective. Can you imagine how differently everything would have turned out if he had?

This whole scene always stuck with me in the back of my mind and shaped the development of my character Adoxia in SWTOR

Anyway, here you are: Jolee Bindo, the ex-jedi wiser than prequels Yoda.