Brutality

This is why when people try to argue that movies or video games make people more violent I say they're full of BS. Mankind has a long history of violence that goes back long before any visual media. We were killing witches right here during this country's infancy. We sold human beings into indentured servitude and then we participated in the international slave trade. And two thousand years ago the Romans were nailing criminals to crosses and watching wild animals rip people apart in the Coliseum. Yet I'm to believe that it's Grand Theft Auto and Marilyn Manson that create a culture of violence?!

I saw this story this morning and all of my good feelings and hope about today's election evaporated. This 13 year old Somalian girl was gang raped by three men, and instead of going after the rapists, the local authorities murdered HER. She was stoned to death by 50 men while over a thousand people watched. When several witnesses attempted to intercede on her behalf, claiming that the punishment violated Sharia law, the armed officials started shooting, killing one boy.

I don't merely lay this at the feet of Islam. Human beings of all colors and creeds have been using religion as a tool to oppress and seize power for centuries. It's a very old routine and Christians are not innocent of this tactic themselves. I'm just sickened and angry at the world right now.

Sanitarium Hill

Yesterday Jezebel posted a thread about real-life ghost stories, and it got me thinking about the only "ghostly" experience I've ever had. I don't believe in specters that walk about of their own volition, carrying the memories and experiences they had in life, but I do believe that certain places can have a "bad vibe" that lingers in the air, especially if particularly upsetting things have happened there. Now, this might be explained by the theory of confirmation bias. Humans are hard-wired to seek patterns and to categorize our perceptions, which is a useful skill but also one that tends to cause problems for us as we fall back on stereotypes, etc.

Back when I worked for this auditing company just out of college, we had to visit the Dept of Human Services building for a few days to look over the case files of several foster kids to determine whether the state could ask for federal funding to help cover expenses for their care. The building sits on Sanitarium Hill, a name that I did not learn about until after my experience there. It's found on Northport Drive, which is near Warner Park. The hill is a popular sledding area, and also a prime location for spectators of the Rhythm and Booms 4th of July fireworks display.

For most of our work we merely sat in a conference room near the entrance of the building. It wasn't until we had to venture up through the other floors to obtain the files that I started feeling a little odd. I felt like the air had suddenly gotten heavier. At first I chalked it up to the claustrophobic and rickety old elevator. But as we walked through the narrow hallways I started feeling sick to my stomach, and seriously had the urge to run the hell out of there. I didn't see anything or hear anything odd, I just felt bad. For the remainder of the time that we worked there, I made my co-workers go up to get the files that we were reviewing and refused to go back up into the main building again. They thought I was nuts of course.

Turns out that this current state building used to be a sanitarium where tuberculosis patients lived out the ends of their lives quarantined away from the rest of the city's population. For thirty years people with a then incurable disease sat there until they died. We never ventured back into the woods behind the building, but when I researched the place after my experience there I found out that they supposedly burned the bodies of the dead out back, and there is a cemetery out there as well.

It's probably silly to think that a building holds the memories of what happened there years before, but I'd never heard anything about the history of this place until after I went there. My mom works for the state and she knew about it, so there is a chance she may have mentioned something to me when I was a kid and I just don't remember it. But it is a creepy, creepy place. And I would never be able to work there full-time.

More photos

Edit: Found some interior photos from the 30's.

Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

So this dude Roy Den Hollander used to work in Russia, got himself a nice wife out there, and then brought her back to the states with him. Then he was completely shocked when she dumped him the moment she got her green card. Instead of being angry at her for using him, he decided that this turn of events was the fault of feminists, and as a lawyer has since gone on a crusade to rid the world of this evil "religion."

His first order of business was to make the night life safe for men again by seeking to stop the pernicious practice of offering cheap drinks to women so that the bars and clubs are filled with a fine assortment of hotties for men to choose from (this guy is one beer short of a six pack, I tell ya). That lawsuit was laughed out of court, as Hollander puts it on his website, "by a lady judge."

Next up, it's time to stick it to those uppity women in academia. He's suing Columbia University for having a women's studies program. Columbia is a funny choice, considering that up until the 1980's female undergraduates were ostracized to Barnard. As the linked columnist and Columbia alum puts it, "how did an institution that kept its undergraduate women in a separate college across the street (Barnard) until 1983 manage to become a "bastion of bigotry against men" in such a short time?" The university has since filed a motion to dismiss the case, calling it a "parody."

In case you think I'm being too cruel to poor Hollander, have a look at this quote from him:

“Women’s studies [programs] aid and abet murder,” Hollander said. “Where do you think all those lunatic female syndromes come from for excusing murdering incipient human beings, boiling babies, drowning their children, and killing their boyfriends or husbands?”

I would pity men like Hollander if he wasn't such a pompous prick. People of both sexes use each other. He got used by one woman. He's turned that experience into a reason to hate ALL women. That's seriously messed up.

I was telling a male coworker about this guy because he asked me why I was laughing in my cubicle. I started telling him a bit of Hollander's history and when I mentioned the fact that Columbia had separate men's and women's colleges up until the 1980's, this other male coworker pipes up about how there are "no men's colleges" anymore because they "aren't allowed."

Because he's the office conservative douchenozzle, I knew what he was going for with that comment. So I did a quick Wiki search and determined that yes, there are still several men's only colleges in this country, five of which are NOT religious. Otherwise the majority of them seem to be Jewish colleges, which I guess is probably because most rabbis are still men. I'm so proud of myself for not losing my temper, though. I just calmly smacked him down and he shut up. HA!

At the end of the day, if Hollander was sincere about his request for parity in gender studies at Columbia, he would move towards creating a men's studies program, which many other colleges across this country already have. But he's not. This is about putting women in their place. It's the arrogant posturing of a bitter, small-minded man.

Infuriating

Via Consumerist, the NYT reports that Chase aims to use the billions of dollars it has received from the bailout plan for acquisitions rather than to make new loans -- that's right, instead of using the money for its intended purpose, they plan on using it to buy up other banks and thereby line their own pockets.

This is why I was against this damned bailout. We actually expected these money-grubbing corporations who screwed us to begin with to suddenly be "scared straight" and deal with this handout in an honorable manner? Several of these companies have already used bailout funds to send their executives on fancy retreats and spa treatments.

Conservatives have cleverly duped us into buying the image of welfare recipients as lazy and unwilling to work. Reagan railed against the mythical "welfare queens" who drove around in Cadillacs. And it's far easier for your average American to turn their anger against the poor in their midst than the faceless CEO at the top of the heap. Corporations have been sucking at the teat of the taxpayer for decades, and taking far more money than your average food stamp recipient could in a thousand lifetimes. This bailout is a bonanza for them, and companies like Chase are gleefully abusing these new funds without any shame. It sickens me.

Mortal Enemies

Ugh, this article in our local paper gives me horrible memories. Like the time I was nearly hit by a dump truck driver who pretended he didn't see me waiting to cross the street and who barreled around the corner in his right turn just as I attempted to cross with the crossing signal. Then the car behind him raced through as well, and as I put up my arms to shrug in the universal "WTF?" gesture, the jackass had the gall to point at the crossing signal, which had just turned orange because my five second time to cross the street had lapsed as I avoided getting creamed by the dump truck.

Look, I see pedestrians acting dumb all over the downtown area. They're plunging headlong into the street without looking, chatting on their cell phones and not paying attention to their surroundings, or even reading books as they walk along! However, the fact remains that it's the driver who is going to kill someone when he acts like a jerk and doesn't yield to pedestrians. And I cannot count the number of times I've missed a crossing signal because so many people have run their red light that it times out on me. Drivers in Madison are assholes. Period.

There was a case several years back in which a German couple visiting the states were crossing the intersection of West Wash and Fairchild and a woman driving without a license illegally turned right on red and ran them over, dragging the female tourist more than a block before she even realized that she'd hit anyone. Yeah, that's an extreme example but I see the potential for this happening a dozen times a day. I've almost been hit by cars turning into parkinglots as I cross the driveway on the sidewalk. The jerks don't even pause.

What ticks me off the most are the asshats in the comments section for this article. Here's a choice one:

Growing up I was taught to look both ways and make sure the road is clear before crossing. I rarely yield to pedestrians for that very fact. This red flag stuff is inane. I wouldn't trust my life to a stupid piece of plastic attatched to a wooden stick. Bikers are the biggest problem. Once I start seeing them actually obey traffic signals I might be nice and share the road. The one I love best is the spot on Glenway where autos yield to bikers on the bike path who have a freaking stop sign. Drivers- they do not have the right of way in that situation. Autos do rule the road. They are bigger, faster, and contribute more money into the economy than bikers and pedestrians.How much money do bikers and pedestrians contribute to gas taxes which help fix and maintain our roadways. You are not 'special' because you choose to bike or walk to work. Big friggin deal.

Let me guess, "The Rat," you're a McCain voter, aren't you? Look at him twist the subject so he can make it into a rant against people who choose not to drive. But the halfwit seems to think that drivers contribute more to the economy merely by using the roads. Pedestrians pay taxes, dipshit. And there are no toll roads in Madison, so what the hell are you going on about? He must think that consuming gas makes him morally superior. Yeah, the high gas prices have boosted our economy so wonderfully.

It's Already Stolen

Greg Palast and Robert Kennedy Jr report on the massive voter blocking going on by the GOP. I knew all that huffing and puffing about the ACORN nonsense was a smoke screen to hide the real shenanigans going on in the Right (as if "Mickey Mouse" is going to appear with ID and an electric bill to try and vote in November).

This is why I can never be too hopeful about the results. Obama may be ten points ahead but we don't know how many millions of newly registered voters are going to show up to vote for him only to be turned away because they were already deemed "fraudulent" by their state.

Block the Vote

Sunrise at the Office

And Nero fiddles...

AIG is at it again. After being forced to cancel a second expensive retreat for their executives following public outcry of news that they'd spent nearly half a million dollars on their execs at a posh St. Regis retreat, the company continues to party while grabbing their portion of the taxpayer funded bailout and the economy burns to the ground around them.

As Consumerist reports, "AIG has borrowed about $123 billion from the Federal Reserve in the past month."

"Joe Sixpack" and Republican Mythology

Joe the Plumber is a Republican plant who is completely lying about being an undecided voter -- and who may actually be related to Charles Keating's son-in-law. Now talk about your questionable associations. You would think that a candidate who is so adamant that one's personal associations is very clear evidence of bad judgment would have a little more diligence in choosing his shills.

What was it that the Senate ethics committee said about John McCain during the Keating 5 scandal? Something about exercising "poor judgment?" And that scandal, it lead to the Savings and Loan collapse. That sounds so familiar, like it might be very similar to something that's in the news right now...it's on the tip of my tongue...

My uncle started his own garage several years ago. He struggled for the first couple of years as he built up a client base and now has several mechanics on his payroll. I wouldn't throw his numbers out there even if I knew them, but I'm positive he wasn't in the black that first year. Joe the Plumber apparently will buy a company and immediately net a quarter of a million dollars per year (not GROSS income before business expenditures and overhead, but NET, as he states his taxable income will be $280K). Sure, buddy. You live in a part of the country where the median income is just over $35K per year and you're well on your way to becoming a millionaire as a blue collar worker. But you're an "average American" that the McCain campaign just stumbled upon by happenstance. Oh, I see a pig flying past my window...

I'm a nerd...

Spooky

Pretty cool desktops for Halloween -- scary rather than fuzzy feel-good.

Dark Skull

Please Drink Responsibly

On the Dole

So Wisconsin's unemployment benefits fund has fallen from $1.8 billion in 2000 to just $400 million today. The GM plant in Janesville will be shutting down in November, which will obviously put another large number of taxpaying citizens in line for this service. And the folks in charge of the exorbitant Overture Center in Madison are asking surrounding communities to support them because they can't quite stay in business on their own.

After gross mismangement following years of deregulation, the banks will be taking billions of our tax dollars to protect themselves. And even after accepting billions of dollars in payouts, places like AIG had the audacity to send their financial executives on trips to expensive resorts. No wonder the Lehman CEO got punched out in the company gym. People like Fuld refuse to take any responsibility for their unethical behavior.

In the meantime, average Americans are chastised by the New York Times for not spending enough money to stimulate the economy. Those of us facing financial meltdown are simply treated to that good old fashioned American myth that all we need to do is pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and that people who are poor deserve it because they're obviously lazy and just not trying hard enough. With our financial institutions crashing and burning all around us and the American citizens being asked to foot the bill, it should be pretty clear at this point that the idea that America is a meritocracy is a big fat lie. And all I'm taking away from this bailout is that socialism for corporations is a-okay, but using tax dollars to assist average citizens is the stuff of evil commies.

Margaret and Helen

Ha, I love these two broads! (And I think Helen wouldn't mind me calling her a broad, either).

Margaret and Helen

Liberal Baloney

Heh, I adore PZ Myers. I guess Salon.com has a piece about how the shape of McCain's nostrils means...something. Needless to say, he calls this loopy. So do I.

Liberal Baloney

Make Believe Maverick

This article from the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone magazine is eye-opening. McCain's entire image has been carefully crafted by manipulating the media for the past three decades. McCain crashed three planes before going to Vietnam. Only his family connections allowed him to even keep his wings. The popular narrative concerning his refusal to give the enemies any information is also called into question. A fellow POW claims that he thinks McCain's status as a prisoner of war should DISQUALIFY him as President, because the trauma seriously messes with your head. All in all, it's a fascinating read and I'm forwarding it on to everyone I know.

Make-Believe Maverick