Memejack!

Alright, jacked from Sigboy's blog: What song would you be, if you could be a song?



Fire and Fury, from the Starcraft soundtrack. Ohhhhhhhh yeah.

Des

Cratering

I've been writing a lot more recently, but instead of writing in a straight line, I've been using a technique called 'cratering'. You pick a major plot point, or series of them. Expand them a bit, then fill in the space. It's turning out to be much easier to write something that you've had a recent idea about than try to force it.


Well, it's working for me. I hope m story doesn't come out, for a lack of a better word, soupy.

Des

To License, or Not to License?

So, I know I've been absent. I did a brief foray into the world of security work again, and it sucked. So, there I was, catching up on my blogs, when I saw Lawdog's series of gun control posts. I looked over the suggestions in his Background Checks post. As I did so, I thought to myself...this sounds a lot like a basic licensing program. It functions to separate those who can and can't own a firearm. Of course, it shouldn't tell you what kind you should have, but that's a different subject. So, back to the licensing idea, the people the state declares unfit fall into roughly two categories:

1. Criminals who have committed crimes sufficient for them to be barred the basic human right of self defense.

2. Those deemed mentally deficient by the state.

Some people wonder why those in category one are still alive or out of prison. What happens if they were simply deemed 'negligent with a firearm' or something similar? I mean, not like 'popping off rounds in suburbia for teh lulz', but how about something like 'I accidentally carried into a post office'. That might be grounds for other sanctions, but is it the sort of thing that should remove a person's right to firearms forever? I endorse it in cases of 'terminal stupidity', such as the case of people shooting friends while they wear bulletproof vests. That kind of idiocy should merit the penalty for both parties, should they survive.

Now, the second part is where things get tricky. People will scream bloody murder about suicide rates among gun owners, as if they couldn't be trusted. I read somewhere that almost everyone goes through a 'severe depressive episode' at least once in life. Really, it's understandable. Heartbreak, loss of a parent...but if you seek help for it, does this mean you should have your guns taken away? I don't think so. I mean, I had a real rough time in August once I got dumped. Spending ten days with Sigboy and getting my recoil therapy on was something that helped me a lot. But, back to the question, does being depressed at some point mean that you no longer have the right to self-defense? I definitely think people on the Mental Health Express (schizophrenics, etc who do the six months out of the hospital, six months in) shouldn't have access to firearms. But where do you draw the line? Does someone with a long term, chronic depression problem not have the right to self-defense?

In Canada, the recent dealbreaker on the death of the long gun registry was the fact that the brother of one of the MP's voting killed himself with a rifle two days before the vote. How do people expect to use a licensing system or the registry to prevent that? Sometimes, it just happens. Even if you roundly violate someone's right to medical privacy, sometimes you just can't prevent it. Case in point- a couple of years ago, a buddy of mine from the army got a medical discharge from the army. He's living free, fat stack from the government. Two weeks later, word comes back that one day, he walked into the back yard, and blew his brains out with his shotgun. No warning. No history of substance abuse or depression. Just walked outside and offed himself. No note, nothing. I'm not sure how common that is, but still. How in the name of God would this have been prevented by even the most invasive legislature?

Since I've mostly come up with a fistful of questions, I'm going to propose something of a solution that will, no doubt, be attacked as unconstitutional. Do a basic license, a lot like a driver's license. Hell, attach it to the driver's license, as a little 'G for gun-safe!' symbol on the back. You renew it whenever you renew your driver's license. Basic check: Violent criminal or deemed mentally unfit? No? Alright, go buy some guns! Declared unfit? Turn over your driver's license, because if I don't want you to have something that makes little pieces of metal go fast, I certainly don't want you to have something that makes a tonne of metal go fast. As far as faking a driver's license goes, have potential purchasers show two pieces of ID.

How's that for a slice of fried gold?

Des

On Cop Hate, or Des Shits on Some Douche in a Systematic Manner

Why Some Douche Hates Cops

Let us break this shit down henceforth:

1. I hate cops because they don't do anything for me, and have a slim chance of doing so!

Well, that nice, Fat Douchebag Hipster. It's likely that most crimes against you wil be minor, or that you will be one of the lucky few who go their lives without being victimized by the criminal element. It's also likely you're not poor, so you don't live in a high crime area, so your crib don't get broke into every other month. You lack a vagina, so your likelihood outside of jail of being raped is almost nil. You are, in fact, one of the least likely persons to be victimized in society. What about everyone else? Or can you not comprehend the concept of 'good for people who aren't you'?

2. Cops jacked my weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed! I done bought it fair and square!

It's weed. Your misuse of your money is not their concern. Two points: Caveat Emptor, and Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

3. Ignorance is no excuse for criminal activity!

That's right, it's not. Be a responsible citizen, how's about?


4. The cops are the private army of the Establishment, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Firstly, the Establishment is not out to get you. Secondly, it is not the police's job to be your personal advocate in whatever opinion you happen to hold. They aren't the arbiter of your personal beliefs. If you have a bone to pick with the Establishment...well, welcome to humanity. No one likes the way things are. Get your cope on. And another thing! Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Don't bust up yo hood, and your protest won't get cracked down on.


5. The Poh works for the government, which is corrupt, which means THEY'RE corrupt!

Welcome to the real world, douche fag. There's graft in everything you do. Nothing's fair. Time to look beyond yourself and to the greater good. You don't like it? Then vote. Vote with your wallet and the ballot. Don't bitch on youtube because the cops jacked yo weed. Suck it up like a man, and carry on. Or, don't do stupid shit. Police are a fact of life, they're not going away. So limit the stupid shit you do, you self-entitled asshat.

Des

Why the Ground Zero Mosque is a Bad Idea

How did anyone ever think this was a good idea? Seriously, I wonder about the soft heart (and headed) liberals some days. Let's go over this once again:

1) You are building a soft target in what some can arguably call an insulting place.

While everyone loves tolerance, I don't see a huge rush to put up a Serb embassy in Srebrenica. Or a statue of Stalin in Katyn. People are understandably upset about the murder of their loved ones. So, can someone please explain to me how putting up a symbol of the cause that butchered them next to the site of the massacre can be construed as anything but insulting or submissive?

2. You are building a soft target in a nest of very angry people.

As previously mentioned, this mosque is not only an affront to the memory of the people who died, but placed in the middle full of their friends and family. Do you really think that's a bright idea? Don't you get the concept that your parishioners and property will likely be subject to daily harassment and abuse?

3. You have made your mosque a very clear target for extremists.

Every Cletus, Jim Bob and Billy Bob Thorton in the continental US will want to see this mosque destroyed. It will be under constant threat. This may, of course, be what higher leadership wants, but the fact remains that peaceful Muslim Americans are still both civilians and Americans. Lack of sense aside, they deserve the same protections everyone else is afforded.

All in all, I oppose the mosque based on common sense- it'll be a punching bag for the city, will worsen relations between Muslims and New Yorkers, and quite frankly the downtown doesn't really need another crater.

Des

Long Gun Registry Madness

The Tories are, apparently, hiding the 'facts' on the gun registry. Well, not really. The Liberals are claiming that the Conservatives aren't releasing any 'positive' reports on the Long Gun Registry. This is a horrible symptom of mind poisoning- they assume that such reports exist. They are taking their opinions, and trying to make the facts fit them.

A major House of Commons vote to scrap the long gun registry is coming up close, and the Liberal Media is attempting to whip the legions of douchebag hipsters, bleeding hearts and greens in and effort to stop it. For instance, the Liberal Party recently secured the endorsement of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians to keep the registry, claiming that "As front-line physicians in emergency departments, we regularly witness the horrific injuries and deaths that result from firearms." So, is there an epidemic of rifle fights across the country? Did I miss something? Did Winnipeg suddenly become Fallujah Far North? Perhaps, while I wasn't looking, these physicians have become professionals in justice and common sense as well as medicine. They claim that "We treat patients on a regular basis who are suicidal and who are victims of domestic assault. We know that a long gun in the home puts both types of patients at a significantly higher risk of being killed" and that three quarters of spousal murders were committed with rifles and shotguns.

We'll pause a second and look at this before I continue. I'll put the obvious point out there: if you have a domestic violence charge, you are unable to obtain a firearms license. You get a domestic violence charge, your license should be revoked in theory. Apparently, this doesn't always happen. Point the second: if you are sufficiently enraged with your spouse that you go, unlock your gun cabinet, unlock your ammo cabinet, load and make ready your weapon and go shoot him/her/it to death, odds are you were sufficiently enraged to grab a knife from the kitchen, a bat from the den, or simply use your fists to get your murder on. Hell, grabbing the knife or bat would take about half the time. The tool used for murder should be immaterial. Which brings me to point the third: how can a doctor tell the difference between a shot fired from a non-restricted rifle from a restricted rifle? There are restricted rifles, like what few ARs we're allowed, and restricted shotguns. Do these ER docs have some sort of magic ray which determines which is which? And even if it does, how does a registry prevent some asshole from the criminal use of a legitimately owned and obtained firearm?

Fact is, it doesn't.

This is all straight up bullshit. As it is, we don't see too many bolt-action drive-bies. Registering a firearm does not magically prevent it from being used in crime. A registry doesn't affect the fact that we share the biggest unprotected border in the world with the country with one of (if not the highest) percentage of privately owned firearms in the world. No, I am not blaming America for being awesome. What I am saying is that illegal firearms are basically impossible to stop from getting into the country. Illegal firearms are available, and quite a cash cow for criminal groups.

If a criminal will act in a criminal manner, no registry will stop this.

Deschain

Family History

Alas, brigands to a man, I am decended from. It's not quite surprising, though. My father's generation on both sides of teh family has made gret efforts to unravel the secrets, and here is what we know so far:

The Polish side of my family, through my dad's father, left Poland rather abruptly midway through the Russian Civil War. Apparently, they had made quite a profit helping smuggle Jews, intelligensia, and anyone else targetted by the NKVD or its predesessor from their side of the Russian border into Poland proper, and on to Europe proper. Obviously, this was not looked kindly upon by some of the worst torturers and butchers that the world has ever known. So, when a neighbor knocked in a panic one night, they rushed to the door. He explained as quickly as he could that said parties has politely questioned him at gunpoint as to his whereabouts. He had sent them two farms in the wrong direction, but they didn't have much time. They grabbed their ill gotten gains, the children, and loaded up the car. They dashed to the nearest port, and took off for the first place they saw: America. Now, between the ruination the Great Patriotic War brought and whatever means my great-grandfather used to dodge the secret police, the facts are shrouded in time. My dad grew up in Long Beach, CA, speaking Polish as a second language.

The French side of my family, through my mother's mother, was kicking it in the New World since the 1760's, maybe earlier. Parish records indicate that the first member of my family we can trace our lineage back to came over as a soldier in the service of the monarch. Essentially, from then up to the 1920s, my family was dirt-poor. As in, literally barely owning the dirt they lived in. However, all this rather abruptly changed in 1920s. My great-aunts and uncles recall tales of a 'Forbidden Barn' that smelt funny. My great-grandfather suddenly received a job in the local automobile licensing bureau, run by the local Liberal party member. Now, this may not seem odd...but it should, knowing the town numbered 200 odd souls. Suddenly, of a family of seventeen, all the girls under thirteen could afford to go to school. A few others were married off to an Irish family that shall remain nameless...and also basically runs the Montreal underground. My great-uncle Florian and a few others still repeat a a phrase that makes no sense without context whenever someone loses a game of cinq cent , the local version of bridge: "Awh, t'en va tu a CHICAGO!" For those of us who don't speak French, 'Looks like you're going to Chicago!'. Now, why would a hick from a place you can't find on a map say something like that? I mean, sure, they made regular trips down the St Lawrence weekly. And the year that Prohibition ended, somehow the local licensing place closed down.

Interesting the little facts that add up, isn't it?

Des

In Exile

After having my heart broken again, I find myself in self-imposed exile in Northern Quebec. Hard labour around the ancient family estate brings perspective, I find. It helps. I am, of course, headed to Texas in eleven days. Texas is my home away from home, filled with persons attempting to lure me to settle in such a place. It may, insh'Allah, one day become my home. I'm trying to track down jobs in Corrections there, and I hope I can get a work visa to turn into a green card there.

Des

Finally, a G20 Aftermath

After everything is said and done, I have only the following words to describe it: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

And now, MTV is making heroes of these idiots. People bitching that they were marked as 'medics' and got arrested. Really? So, which organization were you with, Anarchists United Against Everything? Maybe EcoTerrorists Against Human Existence? Everyone on the show is either a scapegoat or professional protester. Hell, I have no problem with peaceful protesters. I have problems with people who support the violent ones.

People are complaining that they got arrested for 'nothing'. Really? Why were you at a riot?

One person actually said that staying home and having no one show up, or having a lot less lookey-lous, would prove that the massive police protest would be pointless. It's true. And then she got booed offstage, because people seem to thin that standing around waving signs that say 'shame' or yelling at police is a better way to get their message across.

Before I repost some of my forum spiels, I'm going to give people a piece of wage advice: If you don't want an ass kicking and an arrest on your jacket, DON'T GO TO A RIOT. Don't go to a G-series summit or any other places where there is a reasonable expectation of a riot. Don't go where people are being arrested with cars full of Molotov cocktails.

And here we go:

"It started out that the majority of police on the protests were actually 52, 31, Halton and Durham cops. For those outside the area, Halton and Durham are smaller suburbs of Toronto, 31 Division is the Finch Corridor, and 52 is Metro Toronto. It's pretty rare to hear anything besides the usual 'all cops are pigs and need to die' shit that you hear at most protests about them. They were the bike cops you saw early on, guiding the peaceful protesters along and stuff.

However, there were a number of rather hardline shops in town as well. Montreal PD, Surete de Quebec, Peel Region and the Mounties have a well-deserved reputation for getting rough when people don't listen. The SQ in particular has a bad habit of asking only once before they drop the hammer. They ask you disperse, and you don't, they won't ask again. And they're the ones who came out at Queen's Park and down Bloor.

I'm some limited way, I feel bad for the legitimate, peaceful protesters. I know that the majority of them didn't cause trouble. Onlookers and opportunists mixed into legitimate and peaceful gatherings soured a lot of them. A lot of people got upset when people got arrested for not obeying the police, and that soured more crowds, too.

You know there's going to be riot cops, riot cavalry, plainclothes, etc. When the police tell you to move, Goddamn well move!. Straight up, argue the legality of your protest in court. If you try to argue it to a nice cop, you're going to get arrested. If you argue with an SQ cop, you're going to be savagely beaten, then arrested. Once the Riot Act is on the table, GTFO. Hell, any sane person would book it in the opposite direction once you even sighted riot cavalry."

I'm not impressed with the media for portraying the professional protesters as heroes and great philanthropists, instead of zealots who use the media and the law to push their personal crusades. There's a civilian inquiry being pushed... but are they going to be told about proper riot tactics? People are complaining that the police didn't act fast enough, but then again, if they did swoop down and quash the window-smashers, it would have incited people with accusations of 'police brutality'.

Christ, they stocked the audience with more of those hyper-activist people who hate reason. Watching this is just getting me riled up.

Deschain

Day 2, first impressions and such.

Alright, so the local media is all up ins this, so I have some pretty fancy links for you now:

Organizations in Attendance. Note the wide variety of groups, from hardcore Marxists to unions to environmentalists to lunatics like the Zeitgeist Movement. hell, even Palestinian support groups are out there for some reason.

Global News Interactive Map. Shows the downtown zone. Look at how close the Eaton's Center (one of the largest malls in Canada) is to the security zone. If anything happens, police will have to fight their way there. As well, note that the area in front of Provincial Legislature (Queen's Park) is a protest zone. Not bright, folks.

Watching the news, I'm getting the impression that a lot of the protesters are young, impressionable kids. All they know is G20 R BAD, and when the bike police ride past, they scream about a police state and intimidation . I'm going to refer everyone back to my post on the subject of protesters. However, after the Battle of Seattle and the riots during the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, I am concerned. We have a lot of angry people and a bunch of colossal strategic fuckups. I really hope the riot cavalry is ready.

Deschain

G20 Briefing, Day 1

Alright, so a quick overview: As it stands, there are currently a lot of pissed off people in Toronto. The citizenry is pissed because the subway and light rail hubs are cut off, so they have to fight the traffic to get into town. The businesses are pissed because they're under threat, police had to deal with shots fired last night and angry people. The anarchists are just pissed at everything. I mean, all these 'peaceful protesters' are awful short tempered. Today, they seized Queen's Part, vandalized a war memorial, protested in the rain. Luckily, I think most of the lookey-lous and and softcore types were driven off by the shitty weather. There's plenty more of the same forecast.

Whoever planned the security zone should be fired. They didn't secure all the way to the lake, so you basically have this citadel in the middle of town that's under siege. To the northeast and northwest are universities well known for their far-left sentiments. A major shopping center -an obvious looting target- is well outside the security zone. All the thousands of security guards hired are NOT riot troops. They are luckless people offered 10$/hr to provide a visual deterrent. If things go all Seattle this week, they will turn tail or get badly beaten. This is a disaster in the makings.

Deschain

So, lately I've been expanding my social circle. It's a nice change. I don't really make new friends easily, and for the last couple of weeks I've been meeting people. It's been good. Sorry I haven't been around.

So, one of the things I've been noticing is the lack of middle ground up here on the gun issue. After a couple of drunk talks with a girl at a party, I found that she believes in comin' strapped. That is to say, she believes in the ownership and use of firearms in self defense when and where legal, which is a refreshing change from GUNZ R BAD. She had been in some rough relationships, and as a result of personal experience, she's come around. Sometimes, it's the hard lessons, unfortunately. But New Friend made her chops with me. We traded stories and drinks awhile, got to know each other. Good to meet new people with roughly the same ideals as me.

That aside, a lot of the people I met have more or less the same attitudes I did at 17. Capitalism bad, guns bad, drugs good, etc. Listening to some of that shit made me realize how spoonfed it all was. The Communists lost the economic Cold War, but they kicked the ever-loving shit out of us culturally. The shit they spouted when the G20 came up...well, needless to say about half of the people I met won't be getting no Christmas cards from me. It's all a part of the system. The education system is canted towards being liberal, and if you disagree with that viewpoint, well gee, you must not be learning because the course material says that if you don't embrace the liberal views, you must not be getting the rest fo the content either. But shit, that's how things roll. You separate the chaff from the wheat. So, new friends in. When I get a place and settle in, I'ma take her shooting. That might rub an old friend the wrong way, but shit. My new friend is a big girl, she can make her own decisions. I'm really quite glad I met her, I feel less awkward with her.

Speaking of which, turns out my old friend is all anti-gun, unreasonable fear, Brady-Campaign supportin' crazy. Which is unfortunate, because that really kills any potential for a lot of stuff. She freaked out when her brother brought home his very first target. Hell, she'd flip if I took New Friend shooting. But hey. Like I said, she's a grown woman, and Old Friend needs to cowboy the fuck up and accept that she can make decisions.

Couple of days from the G20, I'll give updates when things start going down. Keep your chins up and heads down, everyone.

Deschain

Getting Ready for a Ruckus

Well, both the G8 and G20 summits are coming to town soon. Which means a security lockdown you wouldn't believe, and a conflux of such raw capitalism that hippies from across the continent are drawn to attack it. And this year, we have the full spread. We have anarchists coming in fresh from firebombing in Ottawa , labour unions pissed off because the economy's gone to shit, Pro-Palestine activists angry because they were caught trying to beat Israeli soldiers to death...the whole gamut. There's a lot of potential for this to go wrong, but what can you do? The people have a right to protest (PEACEFULLY, may I note). But there's a lot of anger out there, and a lot of grumbling, inconvenienced people.

More to follow.

Des

Scenarios, Part Two

So we have the scenario set up in the last post. I wanted to expand on it a little more. When you have a lot of unemployed persons, especially young men, they tend to drift one of three ways when you strip any reasonable hope of employment from them:

1. Momma's basement with the Xbox.
2. Politics
3. Crime

So, between the idealogues and the sudden upsurge of crime and gangs in your hood, you have quite an array of people you have to step careful around. Not only do yo have to be wary of the gangs running protection, but the ones robbing folk and selling drugs. They'll know you, and you'll probably know them at least in passing. They'll likely know you have a job, which means you have stuff, which makes you a solid target for outright theft or 'protection fees'. You have to be careful of any sympathies to political groups, as should to have a job, whatever side you're not on may decide to take a shot at you just for being employed when they ain't. Then you gotta step careful around the cops, because when the danger skyrockets and the pay plummets, they tend to get a little more vicious.

The world I see is a lot like the one in Children of Men, like I said- except with more gangs, more violence, more pollution. Anyways, thinking about it, after a certain point, the authorities won't be able to respond, or willing to in the face of a shooting war between two or more of the elements listed. And you'll probably know the parties as a fact of daily life. You'll know them either on a personal level, maybe as people to avoid. Point is, at some point when things get ugly, they'll come for you. And sure, you might be able to fight them off.

I'm just wondering if I'm wildly offbase. I'm also wondering why preppers aren't grouping up in a more practical way. It's one thing to fight off eight or ten bangers by yourself, but a couple of families of preppers on in the same complex at least gives you a decent chance of response. I mean, even if you fight them off somehow, you have to GTFO or get ready for a second wave. I don't think anyone will continuously throw bodies at you. Eventually, courage will wither.

Of course, this relies on you actually being successful on A) throwing back the gangs, and B) not dying or being crippled in the process.

So, after all that rambling, the big question I'm coming up with is...why are preppers so scattered? Why aren't we all glomming together in small knots and such?

Deschain

Scenarios, Part One

I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't like Rawles. Him and his acolytes are the kind of people who, if they found you wounded on the side of the road one day, would lean over you, bayonet extended, and ask quietly "Y'all love Jesus?" And no matter what you answer, they'd prolly bayonet you anyways for not believing in his specific version of Jesus. I mean he hates on Mormons often enough...okay. Back on topic. But yes, his ideas about an economic end to the world seem valid enough. I'll give him that.

So, my thinking has revised about the end of civilization as we know it. While flu pandemics are certainly possible, an economic collapse is certainly looking equally likely at the moment. And that shit doesn't just fall out of the sky. Alright, so the way I see it, even during an economic disaster like postwar Germany there was a part of the populace with jobs and livelihoods left. As a general rule, when things go south, the first to go are the young single males. And when you get a lot of young single males angry, unemployed, and unable to get jobs, there's often large spikes in crime. The way I see it, once they get sick of looking for jobs that aren't there, they'll turn to theft and drugs to support themselves. As things get worse, they'll form into gangs or fold into political organizations.

So, when I imagine looters now, I imagine small roving gangs taking what they want by force and not a monster, angry mob. Which means that you have more options if you find yourself in their crosshairs. I need to sleep on this one, I think.

Des

And upon this rock...

Oh, yea, for the nineties were a bleak time for music. The CD was the dominant form of media, and after many years of wild successes, once-great musicians began to exploit their fans. For Metallica, the Great Betrayers, begat the art of the Filler CD. Musicians felt no need, no drive to create, for a few good songs would cause the masses to buy their exorbitantly priced CDs. For there was no other media which could compete, and no ability for consumers to pay for what they wished alone. Yea, they gnashed their teeth and cursed the music gods!

Then, from the depths of Server, from the womb of the Machine Mother, came Napster. The people, once restrained by the music industry monopolies, shattered their fetters. Persons could obtain digital versions of songs their owned, or from bands that freely offered them on the Great Network. Many, in a great and terrible wrath, began the theft of music from those who had sold them CDs of mostly filler.

But then, the Great Betrayers reared their heads and roared. They thrashed about, screaming of their monetary losses, their livelihoods. But instead of supporting the great Napster, securing a major market share in the greatest advent in music since the radio, they struck down the blessed Napster in an act of the greatest spite. They turned on their fans, bringing upon them the litigation!

And yea, that is how Metallica set back the music industry a decade, and gave unto the people the rage and ability to steal their music. For had their wrath been turned, had they embraced the future, who would have resisted?

Deschain

Hamilton, as a whole, has a pretty shitty reputation in the Greater Toronto area. If I had to compare it to a city, I'd say it's a Canadian Philly. Not as built-up, though, but the same idea: steel town with crime issues and infrastructure that hasn't been touched since the 60's. There's two areas, essentially- Down the Mountain, and On the Mountain. The city is split in two, with the better parts of town up on the Niagara Escarpment, and the pollution and poor folk down below. My buddy just moved to Hamilton, and he did not move into the nice section.

So I spent yesterday cleaning out the basement of this low-rise that my hombre became the super of. He's doing his best to make it seem like a decent place for people to live- most of the crackheads are gone now, and there's a decent set of doors on the place. However, all the mailboxes are jimmied open and there's plenty of vandalism and old shit to deal with. He might be offering me subcontract work to help him.

So, anyways, to get to the point of this story, me and him and his woman were sitting outside the building after excavating the boiler room (who keeps 130 burnt out halogen bulbs?). She had bought some beer for us, and we were relaxing in the afternoon sun. So I'm looking around the 'hood. It's not nice...but I can see the argument for it 'just being old'. So I'm sitting there and I start looking around. Well what do you know...next building over has three apartments with the windows covered. Not blinds-covered, but cardboard and tinfoil. Then we started finding the stem pipes.

Stay classy, Hamilton. By the end of the day, we had found kitchen knives stashed all over, dime baggies, stem pipes, actual pipes, at least three Improvised Bong Mk Is, and a box of 8-tracks. I have to continue helping moving them in on Monday, but yeah. I'm starting to really wish I could carry, because it's not an area I'd want to be out after dark in. So all you Americans, give your pieces a little extra CLP tonight. Not all of us are so lucky as to be able to have tools for self defense on our persons.

Des

Atlas Shrugged (but only out of indifference)

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -seen on ZS

Honestly, I tried. I tried to like Ayn Rand. I like her ideals, but like Heinlein, she is a much better essayist than fiction author. Nothing against Heinlein, but his stories were as much oratories as anything else. It was so brutal, I just couldn't keep reading it. The closest I've come to finishing the titular book is beating Bioshock twice.

At least Bioshock is fun.

Deschain

And now what?

Well. I've been punting my resume all over, but it's like dropping it into a black hole. So I'm working out now, more than just the odd jog. I mean, I might as well get healthy, right? So I've been talking to folks, and I've gone over to the dark side.

Supplements.

No, not the illegal kind. A monster multivitamin laced with MSM and glucosamine for my joints, mostly. Like always, I'm using science to help me along. My main goal right now is to lose little baby Johnnie Walker. Yeah, I've got enough gut to warrant a name for it. And, when you think about it, all that shit around my middle is what, 30 pounds? More? That's like wearing a full-to-the-tits battle rattle everywhere. No wonder I'm so slack. So I'm chipping away at it with two runs a day and swimming every other day. I figure, might as well do something constructive with my time right now.

Deschain

Drop in the Bucket

I was reading Scumfuck in Babylon, and I was thinking...the modern household is a drop in the pollution bucket. You can live the maximum-green lifestyle, off the grid, etc. but in the end, it's not going to be the average consumer that makes a difference. Combined, even- you take every household in America, in Canada, etc. and add it all together, and their combined waste and pollution, and you have like five days of operation of China's industrial sector.

That's it.

Seen the Yangtze lately? It looks like a post-apocalyptic nightmare! Beijing has worse air quality than Cairo. I'm not saying don't go green; I'm saying that if you're expecting serious results, what environmentalists SHOULD be doing is not buying products from companies that base production in China and India and other places where pollution laws are so lax. They should be drawing attention to ship-breaking in India, the rivers of China, things like that.

Wait, no, no one cares.

Industry is killing the planet. Maybe it's already mortally wounded. While self-reliance and stuff helps, does it help enough? Christ, I don't know. I'm still of the mindset that it's all coming to an end sometime. A new Dark Age, maybe.

Deschain

Finally!

Well, I'm done school, at last. I'll be posting more that I'm done, between working out and looking for a career (as compared to a job). If I haven't found one by September...well, I have to seriously consider going back to the army. My buddy wants to change regiments, and wants to take me with him. It honestly sounds like a decent go, but yeah.

We'll see how everything goes.

Des

Role Models

This man is brilliant. Period. You know what? I think that in addition to lack of cause, kids these days simply don't have role models. Who do they look up to? Is it Fitty, or Doc Tyson? Is it Weezy, or Rodger Young? You got no cause, you got no role models, you got a life as a cog in a corporate machine to look forwards to...well, why am I not surprised then that young people look to protest leaders and Greenpeace idiots for leadership? It's not like there's a ton of people presented to them. Ask a high school student if there's bee any Medal of Honour winners in the last ten years, and odds are the question you get back is "What's a Medal of Honour?"

Shit in, shit out.

Deschain

PS- Oi! You! Get back to work on Last Call, Last Stand! It's the best thing I've read since Neuromancer!

Kyrgyzstan In The News

Once again, Kyrgyzstan is in the news. You have to admit- when you hear about revolutionary activity, you think of the French rising up against autocrats, not people rising up over utility bills. But, apparently, that's what it's come up. Only a couple of years ago the current president rode a coup into power, and now he's being chased out again. Depending on who you believe, either the government is crumbling due to massive police casualties and the death of the Interior Minister, or there's a brutal crackdown occurring where endless waves of protesters are being mowed down in the streets. It could be both, it could be neither. Still bears watching.

Des

Further Rumination Has Revealed...

Opportunity.

Me and a classmate were considering establishing a consultant business in the Emergency Management field. Part of it is, as always, putting yourself in the right place at the right time. Certain markets are ripe for consultant work. This province is not one of them- private buildings are running to the McDonald's version of EM- security companies using students for 13$/hr, working them to the bone till they quit, or tossing them once the flow of contracts (necessitated by changes in legislation) dries up.

Like any good capitalist, the wheels are turning in my head. I mean, sure, they're helped along by an energy drink and a healthy dose of slivovitz, but the wheels are a turnin'. I can feel the Great Chain of Industry in my hands, almost.

I think anyone who reads this blog would do themselves a favour if they played Bioshock awhile. How's Mr. Ryan put it?

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

Deschain

Aneurysm in 3...2...

Did I miss something? While I was in Texas last week, my absence apparently threw the left into revolt. First, Ann Coulter got jumped at the University of Ottawa. I mean, I have no love for her. And picking a university in a liberal country to speak at certainly doesn't say anything about her ability to use common sense. But seriously? Setting off fire alarms and trying to break in? Passing ridiculous resolutions such as, and I quote:

"Whereas Ann Coulter is a hateful woman;

"Whereas she has made hateful comments against GLBTQ, Muslims, Jews and women;

"Whereas she violates an unwritten code of 'positive-space';

"Be it resolved that the SFUO express its disapproval of having Ann Coulter speak at the University of Ottawa."

Idiots. So, I laugh it off, knowing that universities only acknowledge free speech when it falls into line with their twisted views of the world. Alright. So I'm cruising Teh Interwebz when this pops up:

Professors slam scholarships for children of dead soldiers

Let me get this straight: these soldiers, the best people Canada has to offer, volunteer to go to Douchebaggistan to try and help people who don't have pots to piss in, don't have the technological base to create pots to piss in, and try to maintain a fragile peace, right? They're behaving in the same ways that the troops who fought their way up Juno beach did, the same way your precious peacekeepers have for generations...and you essentially want to punish their kids. Lord knows the military life is pretty rough. You move around a lot, lots of unstable schedules and long absences, lousy pay and mediocre benefits. The government decides to make a fund to pay for the schooling of its honoured dead's children, and you object? Why?

“We think this program is a glorification of Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan,” said Jeffrey Webber, one of 16 professors who drafted an open letter to university president Vianne Timmons.

Let's break this down. Imperialism implies that we're getting something out of this war. So, what are we getting? I haven't got a crate of heroin yet. No one's selling that shit to me. Oil? Doesn't have any, despite the idiot protester's slogans. Land? Shit, you couldn't pay the average Canadian to visit, much less colonize the damn place. No metal, no decent farmland. Control or authority? Over what, a small part of a Central Asian country where the literacy rate is 10% that exports nothing but terrorists? Oh, and if IS that, we share it with the rest of NATO.

Do these people think we invaded to dump money and lives into the country for profit? It's a monster loss just building basic infrastructure like ROADS! To call the war imperialism shows either a dangerous lack of understanding of the term, or a dangerous schism with reality.

Deschain

Reactions

So, I spent last week in Texas, home of awesome. I was in Houston near the tail end of my trip, and we were walking through a mall talking politics. Things eventually got around to knives. I said I no longer carried a pocket knife, because I've had people jump when I pulled it for a mundane task (specifically, removing packaging). My buddy Chuck suddenly pulls a knife out of his pocket, displaying it to me. It's a nice knife, to boot.

I react.

I don't react with horror. I don't react with alarm. I like Chuck. I know Chuck wouldn't cut me. What did I say?

"Shit, man."

I looked around, and I expected people to be scrambling, staring at him with horror for openly displaying a pocket knife. No one so much as spared a second glance. I expected security to lob themselves bodily at him, cops to come running. None did. I didn't fear the knife, I feared the reactions of the people around him. It came as an honest and genuine surprise to me that we didn't attract a single glance askew.

Man, that socialist shit is ingrained in me deeper than I thought.

Deschain

Decisions, Decisions

It's getting to the end of the school year, so I'm gearing up my resume to be sent off to various organizations. The vultures are circling, seeing who's prime for recruitment, and who's not. Now, due to my habit of speaking my mind, telling the truth, and being competent, I'm pretty sure that BOMA and the other corporate slugs have no interest in me. So I've been trying to penetrate the Old Boy's club and get into public sector work.

There's three attitudes however towards emergency management and preparedness, however"

1. Do the bare minimum, because the government says so.

2. Fake up to or beyond the bare minimum.

3. Drag your feet and actually get yourselves squared away.

There are exceptions to this, of course. Most companies or departments dealing with hazardous materials are pretty good about safety, emergency preparedness and such. Then there are associations who will go unnamed, as they take the least-dim-witted security guard, give him a 5$/hr raise, and put him in charge of all their programs. Now, I'm not saying security guards are all dim. I was once one, for example. But it takes a special kind of stupid to take a small raise in order to take on that amount of responsibility.

At any rate, I'm preparing my shabby-seeming resume for applications to the Canadian federal government, provincial emergency management authority, and to FEMA and the Public Safety departments of both Washington and Texas. While I sort of want to move to someplace where I can defend myself without being charged with manslaughter, or someplace where I can own a firearm without everyone looking at me like I'm wearing a necklace of human eyes, ears, and fingers, I'm pretty nerved up about the idea. I have friends and family here. I like the snow. And quite frankly, living someplace new scares the ever-living fuck out of me. Anyone ever moved cross-country or anything like that? Any advice?

Deschain

Twisted

So, I'm bumming around the local doctor's because my girlfriend has the pneumonia, right? There's not a ton to read, so I reach for the Toronto Star. I just about had a fucking aneurysm.

Toronto Star Article on Guns in America

By the time I finished the article, my blood pressure was through the roof. Here are some of the more interesting quotes:

"As a senior instructor with the grassroots, three-year-old U.S. rifle instruction program The Appleseed Project, Bries teaches shooting techniques usually encountered only in the police or military. He isn't paid for his trouble, but he doesn't care."

The tone suggests that it's bad to shoot like a soldier or cop. Why the hell is that? Clearly, this person has never been shooting. Shooting fundamentals are shooting fundamentals. It doesn't matter whether a hunter tucks the stock of his rifle deep, or a commando does it. The articles goes on to disparage people who have the audacity to DARE to prepare for disasters, and twist the words of Massad Ayoob.

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to head south. The best part- that wasn't in the opinions or editorials section of the newspaper. It's put forwards as something Canadians should be alarmed about.

Burns my fucking hash.

Deschain

Children of Men, and Liberia

I was talking Sigboy, and I brought up Children of Men. He hadn't seen it. Fair enough- it's a bit obscure. I showed him the trailer, and I said to him:

"This is how I see the world in twenty years. Maybe not the infertility thing, maybe not Britain Stands Alone, but the world moving on. The world looking polluted, filthy and bleak."

It's a great flick, even with the ridiculous political subtexts. And it's not hard to see the world headed that way, either: the setting is two parts East Germany, one part Israel during the Intifada. Broad economic depression, despair, radicalization. Police brutality the norm, pollution out of control, terrorist acts a fact of life. Endless bureaucracy and random violence.

And then I came on this gem:

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-vice-guide-to-liberia-1-of-8

Most definitely not safe for work. It's an eight part documentary on Liberia. Some people view it as a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It's not. It's hell on earth. I have to wonder...what sort of people could let this happen? What sort of people would do that to others, and why?

You have to wonder, sometimes, what kind of animal hides beneath the face of your next-door neighbor and stuff. People are capable of damn near anything.

Deschain

Ezra Levant is the New Trudeau

It doesn't start getting good until about 2:10. Basically, this dude got called before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the old Mohamed cartoons in 2006. At the time of this interview, he was still being accosted by the government, over 800 days later.

Political correctness is a euphemism for censorship. So why do people want to enshrine it in law?

Deschain

Nuts, Bolts and Nuts

My last semester of this Goddamn program is almost done, so I'm starting to gear up to look for work in the field. So far, by and large, it's been a top-down sort of experience. Lots of focus on the field as a whole, lots of focus on things from the top.

I'm not so good at that.

I don't play well with bureaucrats. I understand the need for them, but I have an objection to being buried in red tape. I have a firm belief that no one who's been elected to a position should be involved in disaster relief. Why? It's simple. Elected officials didn't get that way by a regime of clean living and honest dealings. Who do you think is going to get the majority of the dollars, people, etc if a mayor is running an emergency response? Their voters, the districts that didn't vote for them, or the slums? Too much graft in politics.

This, of course, does not go over well with local despots.

I like the nuts and bolts of this course: looking for vulnerabilities, potential disasters. I like planning a response to a flood or whatever. I like looking at current doctrine, and saying 'what's the next evolution?'. Here's an example: lockdowns. I understand it's the most effective response to an active shooter situation RIGHT NOW, but do you honestly think that potential spree shooters aren't seeing it? Hell, there's probably a whack growing up with the lockdown drills as a part of school life this instant. Do you think that won't factor into the plans of the next Harris and Klebold? So I was ignoring a discussion about how to mooch off of Uncle Sugar and thinking about this, right? And what I came up with was that if I was the devious, evil mofucker that would shoot up a school, I'd have noticed the lockdown placards everywhere. If I was the type to go postal, I'd have noticed the same thing at some workplaces. And I would ask myself, how can I break this? How can I exploit this? And then, how can I counter that?

The world is moving on, folks. If you think that this sort of thing won't happen, you're an idiot. School shooting have been going on forever. Hell, Canada's been documenting them since 1902. There's at least one a year- and I'm not talking about bangers blowing each other away at school. I'm talking about spree shooters. One a year, at least, at a school, every year. This doesn't take into account places like army bases, office places...

Can you see where I'm going? This is just an example. Everything up here is reactive, which grates. And people just aren't security conscious up here.

Well. Enough bitchin'. Back to my resume.

Des

On Open Carry

I like any sort of carry. It's better than the alternative. I encourage people to carry in the home, around town, out in the wild. There's one thing I just don't get- urban open carry. I can understand open carry around the house. On your property, if you're out away from the burbs or the city. But what the hell do you expect the urban sheeple to do when they see you with a piece? Man, they will FLIP THEY SHIT. The Law doesn't appreciate it either, and I can understand that. You're scaring the herd, and if they're getting calls like "ZOMG MAN WIF GUNZ OMFG!" every fifty feet you walk, then of course you're opening yourself up to harassment.

And another thing...what's up with UOC? I mean...sure, it's an improvement over not carrying, but it's mostly in the city. In the city, it'll cause you a metric shit ton of problems, and since it's unloaded...yeah, limited help.

I can understand wanting to carry. But urban, unloaded open carry? You're asking for trouble.

Deschain

Only Slightly Better than Furries

There are things you can't describe. You can't describe the utter shittiness of something. 'Infinite Twilight, Except Much Gayer' seems to be a good start, though. And no, I'm not hating on gays by saying that. Wait, let me back it up.

I associate with persons online who, while good people, have dark sides. They stare into the abyss daily. One recently linked me to...Fanfiction. Let me explain this to you: take a series, a book, comic, or more often movie or TV show. Now, take the worst, most juvenile writers in existence, and turn them loose on it.

No, that's not even close.

Think, the 4chan of writing. A site of such infinitely powerful shit, that it becomes a shit singularity. A shit black hole, from which nothing can escape. An alternate world of utter, incredible shittiness- one with its own rules, its own language. 95.9% of everything related to it is approximately of the quality of Twilight. In fact, most people who are serious about writing consider Twilight fanfiction in everything but flagrant copyright violations (but it's touch and go, anyways). The vast majority of writers of fanfiction fall into the following categories:

1) The Mary Sue: Insert a perfect character into the plot line, who magically whisks away the main romantic interest. This character is basically a perfected version of the author; they are vastly more powerful, more beautiful, more...whatever than everyone, and are written to be everyone's best friend/paramour.

2) The Hand Wringer: Take a perfectly good existing character- let's say, oh, Inara from Firefly- and then reduce them in emotional maturity to the level of a 13-year old girl. Angst, crying, starry-eyed infatuation. No, this is not restricted to female characters. Imagine endless stories of Jayne Cobb blubbering like a hungry, angry baby.

3) The Slasher: The less is said about this, the better. This has nothing to do with violence or torture, by the by, just astounding perversion. Imagine all the characters of Lord of the Rings, having sex with each other...and werewolves, orcs, etc...all the time. Not necessarily consensually either, and NEVER heterosexually.

These characteristics are by no means limiting. You can have a Hand Wringer with a Mary Sue who always manages to cheer up someone, and then...well, like I said. The horror. I'm lucky. I had a guide to this, someone to warn me of the many perils, sift through the shit singularity. There is an upswing to all of this endless horror. Oh, and it IS endless. Reams and reams and reams of it. As 4chan gave us 'All Your Base', Fanfiction has provided some small, marginal good. For instance, the new Battlestar had subtle acting put in it due to a piece. Watch Karl Agathon and Racetrack throughout the series. Of the remainder of Fanfiction, 1% of the remainder can actually be described as 'good'. Some people have, dare I say it, taken it upon themselves to expand on small, subtle points in series, or expand backstory, or continued series that died early like Firefly. They can fill in gaps or explain reactions or whatever.

It's not all bad. It's just 99% bad. Which still puts it just ahead of furries and 4chan.

PS- it was a fair-to-middlin' story about where Jayne's gun from Serenity came from. It was...eh. Also, I feel like I've been neglecting this blog, so here's something to make up for it.

Deschain

Healthcare 101, for the Retarded or Liberal

Let me explain something the Canadian public has learned the hard way:

Doctors go where the money is. It really IS all about the Benjamins.

It's simple. Doctors spend up to a million skrillas to get their papers. They tend to be the best and brightest, and know their worth. The government takes over healthcare, they go on the payroll, right? And what happens when the government decided to cap their salaries?

They walk.

They go back to private industry, or move someplace where they can get paid commensurate to their skills. So, what happens is the number of doctors in country drops, their quality drops, and you get fucked. Seriously, it happened here. Some stupid number of our new doctors (I want to say like 50%) turn around, and walk across the border because a hospital in St. Louis or New York will pay them two or three times what they'd make at a clinic and half again what they'd make at a hospital here. It happened here, it'll happen to you.

Deschain

Something I figured out, all jittery and coming down off a caffeine high. I'm still rushing through work, but once you get to the tail end of the buzz, you get unfocused. I was sitting there, thinking about what I might be working at. Thinking about almost everyone else I know who's gainfully employed. And I said to myself, how many people are at dead end jobs that they're miserable at? Why aren't they getting ahead?

Because they're chasing money. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not what they really want. They put it ahead of a few too many things, and as a result, they get paid to be depressed and frustrated. Nature of the game is you're going to have people suckered into being cubicle meat. Some people enjoy it. Some people won't have a choice. Like I said, nature of the game.

It all comes back to purpose.

You can have shitty, miserable, back-breaking labor. But if you feel it has purpose, you have purpose. And that will make it enjoyable, in a way. Not like playing your favourite game happy, or drinking every night happy. No, more like that burn in your arms from a good workout. Like looking at something you've built and having pride in it. Knowing you've done something right. The other (and more lucrative) option is to do something you're miserable at for more money. I know you, I've seen it enough. Been it once or twice. Sitting there, feeling like it's all a waste. Feeling underused, undervalued, a piece of a giant, faceless machine with alien aims. In the end, you end up paying. You pay with your misery, your emptiness, for all those nice pictures of dead presidents.

As my namesake put it, "To pay hell is one thing. But do you want to own it?"

Deschain

Culture Vultures

I've been absent lately, trying to finish all the work I can before the strike begins. I don't want to scramble if they go on strike and try to cram our semester's work into whatever time is left.

But I've been thinking. I know, it happens a lot. I was thinking about the future. Things are going two ways:

Firstly, there's the general decrepitude of culture. The celebrity-stalking industry in North America pulls down more money per year than most of Africa does, combined. Kids are rolling up from high school, doing essays with emoticons. Putting out games about being a serial killer makes more money than California. People refuse to think critically any more- it's all reaction, reaction. Regurgitate what you're fed, don't analyzed. Doesn't matter from where, people accept what PETA tell them, or punk rockers, or whatever.

Secondly, I've noticed a few people are taking modern technology, and actually using it for something culturally valid. Some games nowadays are coming out with -dare I say it- story lines worthy of a novel. Some come with three novels of dialogue. Most of it isn't bad. I figure sooner or later, people will make the leap, and turn games and similar media from 'pop art' to 'actual, valid art, not like that post-modern crap'.

That is, providing people stop stalking Brad Pitt long enough to notice.

Deschain

Would you change?

It's a pretty sad spiral that ends with you creeping towards the bottle of a bottle of vodka, yeh? Vodka has traditionally been the liquor of thoughtfulness, for me. It's what I reach for, when I want an accounting of what I've done. Vodka pries the truth out of you.

As a side note, I'm planning a trip to Texas. That aside, plenty of Mass Effect, a new girlfriend, and the usual drama.

Carry on.

Another Learning Experience

Strike's not on yet. I say yet, because I suspect it's more a matter of time. Later on in the semester means more pressure.

Medicine, and the practice thereof, is a reminder to people of their own weaknesses. Their phobias. Their squeamishness. I was in class today, mooching medical supplies from the Old Soldier, Reservist, and the Failed Paramedic Student. It's one part single-minded obsessiveness as a kit weasel, one part it's a good idea to get as much medical training as possible. So, I roll up on my homies, and start mooching for anything they're not using. I offer coffees, beer for kit that's not being used, old, that sort of thing. They give suggestions- old WWII style triangle bandages, triangles, that sort of thing. I ask about SAM splints, and we get into a discussion about splinting the femur. Goes something like this:

Failed Medic: Why do you want SAM splints? They suck!

Me: What? Why?

FM: You can't splint a femur, for one thing.

(about here, Fat Chick leans in and starts listening)

Me: If I have to splint a femur, I'm so fucked. I'd need Death Pants.

FM: Death Pants?

Me: Those pneumatic pants.

FM: Get a Seager splint.

Me: Those are too big and heavy, plus the femur'll prolly move around. Hell, I don't even want the pants. What's are the stats for femur fractures going compound?

Fat Chick: Compound?

Me: When the fracture separates and comes out the skin.

FM: Pretty low.

Me: What about internal lacerations?

(fat chick starts turning a little green)

FM: Not sure.

Me: What about causing internal lacerations?

FM: Oh, good point.

Me: Me, I figure that if you end up with a broke femur, you're all kinds of fucked. Like, need an ER yesterday kinda fucked. Too many big arteries and nerves near that bitch.

FM: What do you expect to cause the break?

Me: Hey, I was good working with simple extremity breaks. I got a lot of hemorrhage stuff, and I wanna learn more before I start working the airways.

Fat Chick: Why do you want to learn about this stuff?

Me: Because some day, it might be someone I care about all lain out or perforated or something. And I'd rather do something to help than stand around and wring my hands.

FC: But you're not a doctor! I wouldn't trust you to help me.

Me: You're not in NASCAR, and somehow they let you on the road. I wouldn't trust you to drive.

About then, she just shook her head, rolled her eyes and turned away, and I asked whether or not there were spare Nasalpharangeal Airway Tubes lying around, because that's about all I know how to do. I woke up this morning, and I thought about it. This person is an emergency manager, or hopes to be. She is overweight, undermotivated, disinterested and sarcastic in far greater amounts than even I. She has no interest in saving lives. She is the person you are relying on to funnel beans, band-aids and bodies to you in a disaster. Remember that.

And make sure everyone you care about is prepared.

Deschain

Purpose.

Purpose is the cornerstone of discipline. I'm pretty sure that a lack of purpose is why my generation is so absolutely fucked. A liberal upbringing has taught that working with your hands is something akin to slavery, and the purpose of warriors is to oppress or be expended in brushfire wars in Godforsaken countries that should, for all intents, be allowed to wallow in hellish conditions. We're brought up to chase cars, whores, materialism instead of purpose. Self-gratification over self-fulfillment. So what's left for most people? Hocking shit, or being a cog in some giant corporate machine? Hell, that's something to give your third-best at!

When I joined the military, life became simple. Enjoyable? Maybe not in a conventional sense, but I felt I had a purpose. I was the Smart Guy. I had a role in my platoon. I had buddies who I would fight and kill for. Die for, if need be. My purpose was clear- give advice, and overall help those I could. If that meant killing bad guys, all the better. Now, I'm out in the world, going to school to learn how to deal with whiny and spineless politicians, beg for money in a budget, and deal with a media whose primary purpose is to entertain, not inform. I look around and all I see is wasted potential. One of my best buddies is lead vocal in an above-average metal band. He's not all that bright, but I suspect that has a lot to do with extensive weed abuse and quite a few blows to the head. I mean, the guy is a talented singer, decent lyricist. Better than decent, from what I can hear.

He bounces at night and drives a school bus by day. He's fucking Otto from the Simpsons.

If there was something worth working towards for him, he probably would have done it. He can run a warehouse (and more or less did at times, before he got owned at the beginning of the recession) without too much trouble. Problem is, there's no jobs for him and he doesn't see much point in looking. There a hundred dozen people with more experience and better records fighting him for a job that's more work at half the pay. I can see why he gives up before he even starts. And that's what it largely comes down to, across the board. People my age and bitter and purposeless. There's not a whole hell of a lot of jobs that don't involve paper hats for them. They're competing against older returning students for spots in colleges and universities.

I know the general attitude is 'sink or swim, bitches!' across the board. Hell, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the people who give up and slink back into mama's basement with the Xbox. I'm thinking, though, that once you get a certain concentration of disaffected youth, society as a whole starts to suffer. Once people lose purpose, discipline goes. Then goes drive, and so forth. People go from asking 'what the hell am I doing with my life?' to 'who the hell's fault is all this shit?'. And that's shitty all around.

Deschain

Drama for the loss.

So, personal drama aside, I'm talking about something that really pisses me off: my college is striking. The numbers I got were as follows:

76% voting attendance
57% overall support for the strike
67% at my college specifically supporting the strike

Thank you for fucking your students, who are largely young (and therefore unemployable in the current market, with more than a third of people my age unemployed last time I checked). And thank you for fucking the older students who have been downsized out of the current economy. Both those groups are relying on their teachers and education to ensure their careers don't begin and end with 'Would you like fries with that?', and you're using them as bargaining chips against a province that is already out of money. They have none more to give. They're 25 billion dollars in debt already. We're the fucking California of Canada.

Great.

Well, good news, blog people. At least I'll be able to post more.

A Whiff of the Grapeshot

It occurs to me that the children of the west are so spoiled with liberty, that they've perverted it. The word has traditionally meant 'freedoms and associated duties', but now apparently means 'I do what I want, when I want, and if you don't like it, or believe how I believe, you're a fascist!'

Little history lesson: Until about 1920, riots and other public disturbance were met with gunfire. And horsemen with truncheons, who would brain you. Hell, you could be singing 'God Save the Tsar' and asking for bread and they'd gun you down. Hell, they'd send men with sabers after you. Here in the West, we've broken away from the murder model of riot control, and there are still complaints. Let me break it down for you:

1. 'Freedom of speech' does not equate to 'burning down a Starbucks'. As soon as you start assaulting people or busting up property, your freedom of speech is revoked, because you forgot about the duty part of your civic liberties.

2. You do have the right to peaceful assembly. Emphasis on the 'peaceful'. As a general rule, the police could care less about peaceful protests. Hell, I once came across a marijuana legalization sit in. There were cops standing around, a bunch of very high people sitting there, and no problems. Hell, I even watched one hippie light a fat joint and OFFER IT TO A NEARBY OFFICER. Know what happened? The cop just smiled and said "No thank you, ma'am." She shrugged, smoked her joint. The cop stood there and watched and didn't care.

3. In just about any other place in the world, the cops would run you over (Iran), use machetes and riot shields (Africa), or burn down your slum (South America). You're complaining about having more freedom and less consequences for abusing it, because you want to smash up a store or knock down hydro towers? How selfish and spoiled are you, exactly?

I mean, in Napoleon's day he was considered a humanitarian for firing grapeshot over the heads of angry mobs, as compared to into them. It just boggles my mind when I see people saying we're not free, or calling the police Gestapo, or shit like that. We have more freedom than anyone, ever. You want change? Why not, umm, do something a reasonable and rational person won't call a riot?

Deschain

Arg, my lungs

So, New Year's Day I saw my girlfriend's Cop Dad. We all went out, had Chinese buffet food, enjoyed ourselves. Her mother even restrained her glaring. We all had a good time, and by the time I got homes, I wasn't feeling great. By the time the ball dropped, I was too drunk to care, but the next couple of days had me coughing up a lung. So far, this year has started off nothing short of horrible. I've got the bronchitis, and oh, I forgot to mention, some asshole comprimised the local Wal-Mart and took all the money out of my chequings and savings. I mean, it wasn't much, but Goddamn it, I needed it! So, now you know why I've been a little...absent. Well, more so than usual. It's balls. Tomorrow, I head to the doctor and pay out some money for meds and hope that the bank refunds me the money in the next couple of weeks.

Happy shitty new year, folks.

Des