Sex Toys for the Faithful

Until now, I did not know that sex toys could be considered sacred. Book22 sells to Christians. KosherSexToys sells to Orthodox Jews. And El Asira sells to Muslims.

That's a bunch of dirty minded religous people.

I am a skeptic.

I do not believe in ghosts or spirits. I do not believe in invisible people in the sky who control our destiny. I do not believe in Bigfoot, Yeti, chupacabra, mok'ele-mbembe, Nessie or Champ. (Google 'em.) I do not believe that John Edwards, Sylvia Browne, or Derek Acora actually communicate with spirits. I do not believe in astral projection or ESP.

Oddly, I find myself watching Ghost Hunters and Monster Quest every time they are on.

The other day, a friend told me this story: While driving from Houston to Seguin on IH-10 to her in-laws' home with her three kids the car broke down. She pulled over to the side of the road, and began to panic. Her oldest kid was six, the youngest was two. She looked in her rear view mirror, and a white tow truck had pulled up behind her. Two men in white jumpsuits climbed out of the cab of the truck and got her car fixed so she could get to Seguin. When she told one of the men they were angels for helping her, he didn't respond. She got back in her car, told her kids to turn around and wave to the nice men. She looked in the rear view mirror to see them wave and noticed that the tow truck was gone and was nowhere to be seen. She believes that they were, indeed, actual angels.

I don't doubt her story. But, I don't believe they were angels.

However, I would like to believe in all this stuff. So I am an open minded skeptic.

George Carlin - 1937-2008

"Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying . . . lobbying, to get what they want . . . Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want . . . they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that . . . that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin' years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers . . . Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it . . . they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in The big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people . . . white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means . . . continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you . . . they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all . . . at all . . . at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it . . .”

I have written repeatedly that raising excise taxes to regulate behavior is a bad idea. You can use those taxes as a revenue stream or you can use those taxes to stop the behavior. You can't do both things.

Recently, the State of Texas raised excise taxes on cigarettes to $1 a pack to help fund education. The state reported that cigarette sales didn't decline as quickly as anti-smoking advocates had hoped, and had generated $244 million more than predicted.

What do the neo-prohibitionists say? The cigarette tax is a solid revenue stream and some of the income should fund cessation programs.

That the solid revenue stream should be pared down? Eventually, there will only be one or two smokers in the world, and they will be expected to fund education, smoking cessation programs, and children's health insurance. That way, no one else has to pay for it.

The only way that kind of tax will work to fund every desirable government program is if the government requires that everyone use cigarettes. And if you want to criminalize tobacco and legalize marijuana, you are an idiot. It's not about the health risk. It's about someone else's morality.

I've been thinking about life, TV, the Internet and I have a question: When, exactly, did I agree to be bombarded with advertising?

There are billboards along the highways. But they have become so much a part of the background that we ignore them. So advertisers have developed video billboards. Oh, that'll make driving more interesting. Everyone can watch a video while they are screaming down the freeway. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

There are commercials in our newspapers. When I studied journalism, the goal was to keep ads off the front page, so that no one could assume the paper was biased. Now, not only are there ads on the front page on many papers, they are often above the fold, and the news is below.

There are commercials on TV. With the popularity of video, we could watch TV shows on video without commercials. Except the forty minutes of previews at the beginning. And the commercials on DVDs are the worst. Sometimes, you can't even fast forward through the ad for the movie you didn't want to see in theaters and you certainly don't want to watch at home! Tivo promised that we could fast forward through the ads. Until advertisers put ads on the bottom of the screen we see when we fast forward through the ads.

There are ads in my mail. People I have never met send me letters to sell me shit I don't want. And the Post Office charges them less per piece than they charge me to send in my credit card payment. The same credit card I ran up buying the shit that was advertised. Wanna make me happy, Mr. Postmaster? Charge me bulk mail rates when I pay my bills!

There are ads in my email. In my email! I get ads for penis enlargement, breast reduction, and the latest toy I have never heard of. Spam filters catch a lot of it, but Spammers are devious.

There are ads in my doctor's office. And not for her services. No, pharmaceutical companies slap their logos on calendars, pens, clipboards, and even specimen cups. And my doctor still charges me $100 a visit. But I get free pens.

And there are ads on the Internet. There are ads on this page, in fact. I use AdBlocker in Firefox to block the ads when I surf, but I don't mind letting you people see them. If you are smart enough to block them, good for you. If not, click a few of the ads on the page and send me some money.

The networks argued for years that ads on TV made the programming free. Why do I pay for cable and get ads on cable TV? Why do I pay for Internet and get ads on the Internet? Why do I pay $60 for a video game to see ads in the background? You want to send me ads on the Internet? Fine. Pay for my Internet connection. You want to send me ads on cable TV? Fine. Pay for my cable connection. If you want to send me ads in video games? Fine. Make them cheaper. If ads make things cheaper for me, I'll watch them. But I will not pay to see and ad.

And if you could click one of the ads that rhyme with "noodle". . .

Planning some holiday debauchery that will imperil your chances to get into heaven? Visit these fine folks to reserve your spot in Heaven. That's right, just like you can pay someone so you can drive your Hummer and still be green, you can pay some one and sin and still go to heaven.

Who says Capitalism has no soul?

I am a skeptic.

I do not believe in ghosts or spirits. I do not believe in invisible people in the sky who control our destiny. Similarly, I don't believe in UFOs. I do not believe in Bigfoot, Yeti, chupacabra, mok'ele-mbembe, Nessie or Champ. (Google 'em.) I do not believe that John Edwards, Sylvia Browne, or Derek Acora actually communicate with spirits.

Oddly, I find myself watching Ghost Hunters, Most Haunted, and Monster Quest. And I spent most of Thursday glued to the TV watching the SciFi Channel's marathon.

The other day, a friend told me this story: While driving from Houston to Seguin on IH-10 to her in-laws' home with her three kids (This was in the days before car seats. So if anyone reading this tries to get their kids to do the same thing, it's not my fault.) the car broke down. She pulled over to the side of the road, and began to panic. Her oldest kid was six, the youngest was two. She looked in her rear view mirror, and a white tow truck had pulled up behind her. Two men in white jumpsuits jumped out and got her car fixed so she could get to Seguin. She told one of the men they were angels and he didn't respond. She got back in her car, told her kids to turn around and wave to the nice men. (Remember: before car seats. Do not allow your children to ride unrestrained in a car until they are 87. Do not allow them to move in a car!) When the kids went to wave, the tow truck was gone.

I don't doubt her story. But, I don't believe they were angels.

I would like to believe in all this stuff. The world would be a much more interesting place. And just because we can't prove something now, doesn't mean we won't be able to prove it later.

In another blow to personal responsibility, the Oregon Supreme Court has recently found that all previous owners of a used vehicle are responsible for damages caused by that vehicle.

Here's what happened: Company A bought a truck and used if for several years before selling it to company B. Shortly thereafter, company B sold it to company C. One day, the axle failed and the truck hit a car. The car owner sued all three companies, and won.

Geez! Who can I sue because people are stupid?

I have never been particularly adventurous. There is a small child in me that still hears my parents say "what would the neighbors think?" There's a small child in me that still remembers a bit of advice my mom gave me that is best summarized by the Simpson quote "You can't win, don't try." I still remember being told to forget my dream of drawing comic books, and instead, concentrate on becoming a supervisor at the grocery store. So a lot of the "10 Steps to thinking like a LOSER" is familiar to me.

Back in 2001, Kevin Smith made a little flick called Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Because of a large number of what was perceived as anti-gay jokes, Keven Smith paid $10,000 to GLAAD, the hyper-sensitive gay advocacy group, for anti-gay comments in the film. One of them, according to the official commentary, was when Justice told the leader of the theives she was "so gay." The joke, according to the commentary was that she was, in fact, gay.

Hey! I didn't buy it, either. But I also didn't agree with his fine. And just exactly when did GLAAD become an enforcement body like the RIAA? Smith said he paid a $10,000 fine. To whom? And why? To keep GLAAD from picketing his movie? So, Kevin Smith paid $10,000 to keep people from objecting to his movie in a public place? It sounds like a protection racket to me. "Give me money and nothing will happen at your premiere."

Anyway, I ran across this article and I had to stop and scratch my head. Over in the UK, the host of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson, called the Daihatsu Copen "a bit gay", adding: "It's a bit ginger beer."

Is anyone in England complaining about the word "gay"? Oh hell no! According to the Oxford dictionary, gay means "foolish, stupid and occasionally inappropriate, disapproved of and lame". They're objecting to the Cockney rhyming slang that means gay.

I shit you not.

"In this edition of Top Gear, the presenter's use of a Cockney rhyming phrase made clear he intended to give a particular meaning to use of the word 'gay'... ie not to restrict its meaning simply to foolish or stupid, but clearly linking the reference to homosexual people. This, in Ofcom's opinion, meant that the use of the word became capable of giving offence. In the context, there was no justification for using the word in this way."

So "gay" is okay in the UK. "A bit ginger beer" is cause for a jihad.

Thank the FSM we live in a tolerant society. You know: where there is something called Free Speech. Unless someone objects to what we say.

It's one thing to praise your kids. That's good. It may be bad, however, to praise them too much. In fact, if you constantly tell your kid s/he's smart, you may be causing your child to actually underestimate his /her abilities. A study was conducted in a fifth grade class. Four groups were given a task. Three of the groups were told, "Very good. You must have worked hard on this." One group was told, "Very Good. You are very smart at this." The groups were asked to pick a new task. The groups that were told they worked hard picked a more difficult taks than the first one. The group that was told they were smart picked an easier task than the first one.

Why did this happen? “When we praise children for their intelligence,” Dweck wrote in her study summary, “we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.” And that’s what the fifth-graders had done: They’d chosen to look smart and avoid the risk of being embarrassed.

Since the late 60s, schools have been eliminating competitions where some people win and some people lose because they didn't want children to label themselves as losers. Self-esteem building became the goal, and not in the sleeping with students sense popular at Now Toronto Magazine. No, "Soccer coaches stopped counting goals and handed out trophies to everyone. Teachers threw out their red pencils. Criticism was replaced with ubiquitous, even undeserved, praise," the article says.

After reviewing those 200 studies, Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn’t improve grades or career achievement. It didn’t even reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.)

In fact, these students become risk averse, and maintaining their image become their first priority, and become more competitive and engage in activities designed to tear people down. And these students turn to cheating as an avoidance strategy, which is why schools are banning iPods: kids are using them to cheat.

And what happens at work?

At most workplaces, failure to achieve a goal or complete a task isn't rewarded with a ribbon, or automatic advancement through the company. Instead, the consequences can be disastrous. My boss recently told me she saw a report on TV that said when these "Everyone-gets-a-ribbon" kids get reprimanded at work they cry. Which makes it odd that within three days, I see an article entitled "Is it Ever Acceptable to Cry at Work?" And that article's advice? Use tears sparingly. "crying, as any toddler knows, can be a lethal weapon to get what you want. Tears are sometimes a signal to our colleagues not to mess with us on that particular day or topic," but "in most cases tears still tend to look like a loss of control," so don't cry. The fact that that piece of advice (don't cry at work) has to be printed in a newspaper is a good indicator of what the "self-esteem" movement in education produces.

Hmm. That does, however, explain some of my career choices. . .

Merck & Co, an international pharmaceutical company, is the maker of Gardasil, the first cervical cancer vaccine to come to market, is launching a fundraising drive for cervical cancer called Make the Commitment. On their website, you can get a free bracelet kit, and be entered in a drawing for a necklace kt. For each entry, Merck will donate $1 for cervical cancer research.

Isn't that a bit like a fox contributing money to avian flu researcher?