Forced Opinions

If I'm not forced to have an opinion, I may or may not have one about said thing. (apathy)
If I AM forced to have an opinion about something, probability is that I won't side with whatever agency (person, group, whatever) forced me to have an opinion.(antipathy)
If I am forced to have an opinion about something, and government says I'm supposed to be tolerant of it, I'm more likely to go the Jefferson way and choose to oppose it.  There is some slush to this in that I'm more likely to accept local recommendations than state recommendations and accept state recommendations over federal recommendations. (fairly aggressive antipathy)

Some gays (male or female) are very tolerable.  I tolerate them.  I actively like many.  Easy. (apathy and/or friendship)
Some people tell me that I'm using the wrong pronoun set for certain people.  I care not.  Until that person comes to me and asks me to use a different pronoun set for them when discussing them with other people, I have no reason to not call that person by what I perceive of their physical makeup.

You want me to not care about you.  This is apathy.  If you force me to care about you and whatever you think you are, then you've forced me to care about what you are.  This is antipathy.  This is a lesser form of hate.  If you want me to not hate you, don't make me care about you.  Making me care about you, by force, ends badly, If I care about you organically, I may care, or not.  That's better than the hate.

Some folks better learn... and fast.

Unintentional taunting

Some places so forcibly project positivity that there is little question given to the inherent negativity that may be present.  The key concept here is projection of positivity. While at the location, any negativity perceived by a customer (no, they are not a guest) is jarring and potentially a reason to summon a manager.

One place this is notable is environmental music of the location.  Often this is done by some clueless person tasked with music selection to match some generic venue-style, approved by some moron tasked with approving such things.

The obvious idiocy and failure of corporate bureaucracy deserves little note but no positive otherwise.

Someone chose these things to be something that would probably be comforting to consumers at the location.  This is all well and good.  But, to a person that is seasoned in the location that is no longer a fan of the location, some songs become more of a taunt.

"Put on a happy face" (not sure of title or artist)
No. My happy face is miles from here.  I might be able to fake a veneer.

Taxes profitmongering

I recently filed my taxes.  Meh.

Federal government owed me money. No surprise.
Indiana wanted more money, on the order of about 66% of what I was getting back in Federal refund.  Seemed excessive, but whatever.

Filed the taxes anyway.  To pay State, was sent to some mostly non-descript site for paying all manner of "government" payments, and as a not-logged-in person, it didn't ask who or what I was paying for.
For a $315 bill, it wanted to charge me a nearly $8 (7.8?) fee to use a card.

I'm sorry, but I'm not.  If this is the payment system you have, it can go unmentionable itself.  Bill me.  I'll send a money order at a cost of maybe a couple dollars, but I will not pay your "convenience" fee.

I hope I'm not the only person to have this annoyance and choose to skip the "convenience" provider, putting said provider out of business.

I'm tired of being treated like a money-source.  EVERY state should be "retired" at this point, with enough money in the bank and investments to support itself without needing ANY taxpayers. States and the federal government were stupid and didn't do this.  That's on them.

Music Video wisdom

Love conquers all

Love means nothing

Annoying Bahamut ends badly
   (Final Fantasy series in general)

Annoying Alexander, especially if you're Bahamut, ends exceedingly badly
    (Final Fantasy 9.  Castle spirit summoned to itself being annoyed, ends badly for the aggressor.)

Wearing big flags on your back makes you look really cool
  (Master Blaster... one of those videos... hard to nail down)

Time compression is not noticed at the time, and possibly never.

How are you doing?

So many people ask the question, "How are you doing?" that any thinking person has a number of canned retorts to respond to this.

One of my standard retorts is, "I think I'll live." which may be followed up, depending on receiver with, "I'm not sure how to feel about that." (or very similar)

The purpose of this interaction with people is twofold.  I am dark. This is probably immutable.  In spite of this, I can and do humor humor.


Big afterthought:
I was going to add parenthetical things to clarify points. I chose not to because people that could be confused by my minor points or wit would be confused in general.  Even trying to help them find the general direction of "up" would be a challenge.  So, I left my thoughts mostly as-is.

Nepotism

In general, nepotism seems to be loathed. The reasoning for this used to be logical. But after additional scrutiny, there does seem to be some very good reasons for nepotism to occur.

You'd be amazed at how many unloyal people there are within your family. You should also be amazed at how many unloyal people there are outside of your family.

What should really disturb people is how many people think that government owns your business because government owns everything and thus knows you owe them a job. Never mind that they are unloyal to friends, family, and father big government... Or mother, or whatever.

Permanent stupidity

Stephen Crowder said something like this in one of his clips.  I take no credit for the original thoughts from which I went even moreso.



The left and most of the media (I admit there may be significant redundancy there) seem to be constitutionally (by their constitution, for clarity) unable to get out of their own way.

Trump is not a great person.  This is obvious to anyone that is paying a shred of attention.

The left are, on the other hand, trying like hell to make him look foolish, evil, etc. In doing this, the left forcibly magnify themselves to no good end.  Instead of talking about what Trump may or may not have done or may or may not have said, the annoyance of people with the left just continues unbounded because the left just keep adding fuel to the fire instead of just SHUTTING THE FUCK UP.  But the left just doesn't comprehend it because its members can't (constitutionally unable, remember).  So instead of proper criticism of the president occurring as it should, all the hate is being directed where it should, which is to say media/"journalists"/leftists.

The empty can (the left and their ilk in media/"journalism") rattles the most.  Until said can starts to fill (wisdom/knowledge is a good start) or the can chooses to not rattle, [the rattling can] and not [the attempted message of the rattling can] will get the attention (contempt) and be ignored or hated, rightfully so.

Employment

Let me start with a trick question.

Are there currently enough jobs for everyone to be employed?  (hint: It's a trick question)

If you answer Yes or No, you've fallen for the bait and gotten it wrong.

When government, be that global, national, regional, or local, get out of the way of people to fairly trade goods and services with each other as they see fit, there don't need to be "enough jobs".

If every person expects to have some job provided for them, they are robbed of the freedom and creativity to look around and say, "Hey.  People would be better off if they could use widgets.  Maybe I should make and sell widgets." or, "Hey, that guy's lawn is thick.  Maybe he'd be interested in paying me to trim it for him." etcetera, so on, so forth.

Yes, within this analysis and creativity, there is plenty of room for someone to take the step further and say, "You know, I could hire others to do what I'm doing and we would mutually benefit. They would gain my reputation and I would get some part of the profits from their efforts."  THIS is the essence of what employment is (in the form of jobs).

When government starts "creating jobs" it is only because they are capable of extorting the money for said jobs from people that are actually producing something (a good or service). And you can bet your bottom dollar (and that's always the one the government wants, isn't it?) that the "job" they create will employ the least of the competent to do something that nobody wanted done in the first place.  

Did I recently hear about openings for dangerous furniture inspectors, or did I just nightmare that? 

Ghandi reconsidered

Once, I thought that Ghandi had screwed up the math about how to deal with the tyrannical regime with which he was dealing.

My thinking has shifted slightly and I'm thinking that he may not have been wrong.  

Some "leaders" (managers, "representatives", senators, so on) under whose authority we are currently placed are clearly oblivious to how hated they are.  This is unsurprising when it is considered from the outside and it is obvious that the mindless or misinformed followers of said "leaders" create an echo chamber where the "leaders" only hear what they want and never hear ... truth.  

This is systemic of tyrants...  I could call some out by name, but it would never get through their echo chamber or even cause them even a moment's pause if it did get to them.

In the end, I think that Ghandi's actions had little to no direct effect on the actual leaders he was trying to identify or the evils he was trying to point out.  I think his actions worked more indirectly by assisting others to realize the evils (both policy and persons) that were very wrongfully being permitted to continue.

Unrequested "corrections"

Google is great (and I say that without reservation) at pointing out possible typos or alternate spellings for things that I may have gotten wrong.

But, there are SO MANY times that I have spelled something perfectly where some stupid recommendation comes up for something else, like "to" to "too" or whatever.  But, the recommendation lingers there in spite of the correct results being listed, and there is no link or button or something for, "Yes, I typed it right.  Leave it alone."  type of button or link or whatever.

Yes. Sometimes I type things wrong.  Or things are transcribed wrong (that's also on Google if the transcribing agent is not considering context, in most cases) so the results are off.  And I will choose to click/tap/whatever the correction.  But, especially from non-mobile devices, I am not a twit and I will not type like a twit.  When I type, it is generally purposeful.  If I type and whatever algorithm thinks I made an error, recommend the fix, but also include an option for, "No, I didn't make a mistake. Adapt thyself."

Are you sure you didn't mean "too" instead of "to"?  No.  Google should know me better. (or from prolonged sneaky experience with me with and without my knowledge, Google should)  So, give me an option for "Your recommendation is a failure."

I would hope that enough "idiot links" (as I call them), unclicked would cause said links to expire eventually.  But with the quantity of idiots growing daily, I can't count on that.  I would just hope that Google can distinguish between idiots and not (if Google is not capable to the task, then the task is failed permanently) and at least offer "No. I intended what I typed." links/buttons for people that appear to have some wisdom.