"We're on a Mission From God."

If you’ve seen The Blues Brothers, it makes sense that this story would come from a Chicago newspaper.  As reported in the Chicago Tribune, Detroit's Cardinal Adam Maida is rooting for the Steelers.  He even has a plaque commemorating The Immaculate Reception.

Quote of the moment

From Ronald Regan’s First Inaugural Speech:

“From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.”

Scan for Spyware Scams

Media.fastclick.net = spam
My observations indicate that fastclick.net is the main peddler of the “scan for spyware” scams.  If you have a router, and you should if you have broadband, block them. If you don’t know how, ask me. If I manage your network and I you get popups from them, let me know and I’ll block them.  If you represent fastclick, cleanup your act and let the world know about it.  Otherwise my opinion remains. Fastclick =Spam and spyware.

Land of Confusion

Sometimes I wonder how our society got to the point we are at today.  To follow me on this you might have to put your political or religious beliefs aside just for the sake of argument.  

All successful societies have laws against killing its members.  In most societies killing someone intentionally has some of the harshest punishments the society in question allows.  In ours we would rather a doctor kill someone than give them a plant that was outlawed primarily due to racial and ethnic bigotry.  From a logical standpoint you cannot argue for allowing a doctor to prescribe a substance that is designed to cause death and argue against allowing a doctor to prescribe a substance that may or may not help or harm the patient but is unlikely to cause death.  I’m not arguing for or against assisted suicide.  I’m not arguing for or against medical marijuana.  I just can’t see the logic in federal drug laws superceding state laws in the case of medical marijuana, but not in the case of assisted suicide. Suicide is deadly.  If a doctor decided to try to assist the suicide by prescribing marijuana, would that be ok because the objective is death?   Granted, that’s not a likely scenario since medical science doesn’t consider marijuana a deadly drug.  But what if the joint was laced with a deadly poison?  Is that ok?  When prescribing drugs for assisted suicide, is it only acceptable to use drugs the government does not consider dangerous?  How non-dangerous can a drug be if it is being prescribed to kill someone?  Essentially the Supreme Court has placed the value of civil obedience above the lives of the citizens.  This in a country that was founded by civil disobedience, and whose constitution begins with “We the people”.

The other recent news item that makes me believe that our society has stopped placing value on human life is the lawsuit the City of Los Angeles has filed against the makers of the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas".  If you haven’t played the game or any of its predecessors, the goal of the game is to steal cars, motorcycles and helicopters and to kill people for money, weapons, cars, motorcycles, helicopters, or just for fun.  If you shoot them in head just right the head explodes and blood squirts vertically out the neck like a fountain.  Oddly enough the City of Los Angeles is ok with that part.  They have a problem with the nudity.  Let me get this strait. It’s ok to kill someone. It’s not okay to have sex. In that case I demand that all politicians who are not virgins resign immediately. If they are a virgin and a murderer, that’s ok.  Again, I’m not arguing for or against sex or violence in video games.  I just want to see people actually think about things.  I’ve played the game and I like it.  That is why I’m amazed that people are upset about the sex part.  Since when is sex worse than murder?

We desperately need to rethink our priorities

Recipes

I added a recipe section.  The URL is http://www.iozzi.net/recipes. It’s also in the links section.

I added some recipes that I had on the old site and one more.  If there’s a recipe you want posted, let me know.

Thank You Mario

My all-time favorite hockey player retired today.  Not only did Mario give Penguins fans years great hockey on the ice, when the team was about to be sold he organized a group of investors to buy it and keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh. Thanks for the great hockey, thanks for keeping the Penguins in Pittsburgh, and enjoy your retirement Mario.

Too many users, not enough ways to reword it.

One of the downfalls of your site being linked to by a popular site like Fark.com, is you can use up a lot of bandwidth.  I recently clicked on a link on Fark, and received HTTP 403.9 – Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected.  If you’re not familiar with this error the first line says “The page cannot be displayed”.  The second line says “There are too many people accessing the Web site at this time.”  Most people probably get the idea by the second line. Microsoft wasn’t so sure so they decided to make it a little more obvious.  There’s a section at the bottom that says:

Technical Information (for support personnel)

    * Background:
      This error can occur if the Web server is busy and cannot process your request due to heavy traffic.

    * More information:
      Microsoft Support

Apparently Microsoft doesn’t believe that support personnel are capable of understanding plain English.  I figured out what they meant on the second line.  Midway down the page they also state, “Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected.”  That confirmed my suspicion they were trying to tell me that there are too many people, users, spiders, dogs, fish, llamas, or something, trying to go to that web site at that time.  I’ve lived in the L.A. area so I’m familiar with the concept of a traffic jam. Maybe people in Redmond aren’t as familiar with the concept.

Why Metallica sucks

A group of posers once sang "Fuck'm all and fucking no regrets" Of course that group of lame ass posers is now spending more time suing former fans than making music. And they wonder why thier fans don't like them anymore. Here's a clue, don't pretend to speak for the common man and then sue him because you were too stupid to adjust to the marketplace. It makes us hate you. It proves that you are simply a group of lame posers who can't even remember your roots much less realize why we now hate you. Yes, I was once a Metallica fan. Now I wouldn't go to thier concert if you paid me. They suck. They are anti-metal. They are the incarnation of everything that rock & roll is against. They are an embarasement to thier genre, thier country and the bay area. David Bowie is a bigger man than the entire group combined. As a former fan I have this to say to Metallica, "Fuck you. I regret your existance. I destroyed all the CD's I bought of yours and downloaded the MP3s. I won't listen to them because it's bullshit poser noise created by a bunch af losers. You suck, I hate you. If you come to my town and play a free concert I won't attend. The only good thing I can think of about you is your bodies would make good fertiliser for plants. Those plants would make better rock stars than you. You are worth less than my shit." Of course most people now say "Metallica? Who's that?" The bell has tolled.

Sell music, not BS

With all the BS about the money the recoding industry is losing because of people downloading music on the Internet it surprises me that CD sales have dropped at a rate that is easily offset by the increase in sales, much less profits, from download sales.  Maybe we should do as the recording industry once suggested and eliminate all forms of downloadable music. That 10% increase of sales is somehow detrimental to their profits.  What they haven’t seemed to realize is the fact that the market has changed.  It really doesn’t matter anymore whether or not the industry wants to accept the change.  The change has happened. Adapt or die. As consumers, we don’t care.  Apple, a company whose marketing strategy is suspect at best (with less than 10% of their primary market), schooled the recording industry on how to sell music.  If I was in marketing at a major record company, I would be embarrassed.  A company in a different field smacked your lame ass upside the head and made more money doing so than you did getting your ass kicked. Get a fucking clue and go back to your core business of selling music. Americans don’t want to hear about billionaires losing money to twelve year olds and old ladies. Adapt or die.  Intelligent Design has no credibility in science, it has less power in the marketplace. Adapt, or die.  The marketplace will welcome anyone who adheres to this creed. If you choose to ignore these facts, I have no sympathy for you.  You did whatever you could do to screw artists out of “intellectual property” rights, the fact it is happening to you because you are too stupid to adjust to the market is karma. Adapt or die. It truly is your choice.