Fight Stupid People

I love trains.

I admit that I may be somewhat biased towards using trains for long-distance travel because I do not own a car. However, my experience riding trains in both Scotland and Korea has taught me that they can be an exceptionally beautiful way to travel, and it is for this reason I like to lend my support to the seemingly outdated mode of transportation.

Because of my affinity for rail transport, I was rather disappointed to read recently that the engineers for VIA Rail felt it necessary to go on strike. Apparently the engineers and other rail workers had been working in good faith without a contract for over 30 months (also disappointing to hear).

What disappointed me most though, were the attitudes and views of some people who chose to comment on the CBC website's article. For example, one commenter with the handle "Nampally" wrote:

In this tough economic times, the Harper govt. should have passed a bill to ban all strikes for 2 years or until we are on the road to recovery.

First of all, why are the "Train Drivers" called Engineers? Do they have a professional Engineer certification? If not they have no right to call themselves "Engineers".

Secondly It is shameful on the part of the "Engineers" to exploit the situation in such an irresponsible manner. What were they doing for the past 3 years with their negotiations? I have no sympathy for such strikers. They should be legislated back to work immediately.

Such stupendous stupidity displayed by Nampally would have normally caused me to spiral into an ever-increasing state of despair over the sorry state of humanity, but thankfully I was rescued by another poster - the one-man truth brigade known as organMike. In response to Nampally, organMike wrote:

Nampally said this:
***
In this tough economic times, the Harper govt. should have passed a bill to ban all strikes for 2 years or until we are on the road to recovery.
***

Hello?
That's COMPLETELY illegal. There's so much wrong with that idea that it's hard to begin counting the issues.
To say nothing of the fact that we weren't in "this tough economic times" two and a half years ago when the contract expired.

Note that - They have NO contract. There is no legal way to force these people to work.

***
First of all, why are the "Train Drivers" called Engineers?
***

Because they drive an engine. They've been "engineers" since the dawning of the rail era.

***
Secondly It is shameful on the part of the "Engineers" to exploit the situation in such an irresponsible manner. What were they doing for the past 3 years with their negotiations?
***

What were they doing? Working without a contract. Negotiating
Did you not read the article?

Part of capitalism is negotiation. And part of that is saying 'no.' Part of it is determining what your services are worth.
It's odd seeing such a strong anti-capitalist position from a group of people normally associated with hypercapitalism.

***
I have no sympathy for such strikers.
***

No kidding. But I find it hard to believe that you have sympathy for anyone at all.
You also haven't got much in the way of logical capacity, nor sensibility, nor legal or legislative experience.

I would like to say that reading such a response filled me with hope for the future of mankind, but sadly I would estimate that people like Nampally must outnumber the organMikes of the world 4:1 (9:1 in my town). The situation seems so grim I often wonder if there is any point in fighting the forces of stupidity (I often get told there is none by most of my friends).

Over the past few years though, I've finally matured to the point where I do not care if I am fighting a losing battle. The battle is there, and it needs to be fought, and so I might as well be the one to do it. For all of you people who feel the same way I say to you, stand up! Be proud of not being an idiot. Take the red pill and say "bah!" to anyone who criticizes you for doing so. The world can and should be a beautiful place. Don't let it be hijacked by morons.

Where's The Pro-Life Activism For Animals?

Before I start, let me preface this article by saying that I am not attacking hunters individually or as a group. In fact, many hunters have worked alongside various conservation organizations to prevent the extinction of animals. I am instead attacking the attitude of many in Alberta who act as if they think greed is a virtue of which to be proud.

For those of you who haven't the foggiest about what I'm saying, read here to enlighten yourself on the boneheaded Alberta government/University of Alberta plan to sterilize wolves, in yet another attempt to keep Alberta in the 1950s.

In 2008, the Alberta Government, with help from the University of Alberta, proposed a bone-headed plan to raise ungulate populations by sterilizing Alpha male and female members of various wolf packs, and killing their wolf pups.

Apparently, the wolves were getting out of control. Wolves were allegedly responsible for dwindling ungulate populations, despite the fact that wolves only prey on the weakest members of the herd, thereby strengthening the herd as a whole. The fact that the government's own 2005 study found that predator control would not succeed in helping ungulate populations to recover, and that the same plan had already backfired in BC seemed to conveniently escape them. Perhaps it was the sound of the cash register ringing in $100-plus Million in hunting and fishing liscence revenues.

While the idiotic plan was eventually defeated by a storm of protest from the conservation community (and thankfully so), I found it odd that I heard little from Christians or catholics on this matter. Catholics especially seem to hate any form of birth control, and I find it ironic that Alberta Catholics would miss a chance to put a bumper sticker saying something ridiculously obvious, like "Sterilizing wolves prevents baby wolves from being born," on the back of their fifteen-seater family vans.

An Apple A Day II

On January 23 I wrote a post about Apple computers and why I thought they were a waste of money. Today a friend forwarded me a link to a very funny video from The Onion. I think the astute reader can make the connection for him- or herself.

Does Your Beer Taste Like Crap? That's Because It's Beer

"Everyone is special." This is a saying that bleeding hearts are fond of repeating to anyone who will listen. The truth is, it's not true. Some people are very normal and are not special at all, and this is alright. What's not alright is when people who are not special go around telling others that they are.

Molson Canadian (a popular Canadian beer company) made an advertisement some time ago that featured an angry Canadian named "Joe," standing on a stage in front of a movie screen, ranting about all the things that made him not-American. This seemingly innocuous attempt to sell beer was the start of a string of asinine ads that have since ruined Canadian television. Most notable to me was one particular ad which attempted to sum up what Canada was all aboot (I mean about) with a series of statements about Canada. One of the characteristics listed was that Canada is “a nation of beer drinkers.”

When I first heard this statement I was rather shocked. I was not shocked because we drink beer, but that drinking alcohol could be considered a characteristic of a country. To be a defining characteristic, capable of enabling others to find Canadians in a crowd of people at an airport or some other crowded place, you’d think that drinking a lot of alcohol would have to be something special and unique to people from Canada. But what about Germany? They have Oktoberfest. And Ireland? Are not the Irish known as heavy drinkers? When I visited Scotland this summer I was encouraged by the government to visit the famous whiskey distilleries, and a customs agent at the Amsterdam airport was shocked when I told him I had not drank any Scottish whiskey while I was there. The Aussies are always bragging about how much beer they can drink with one hand whilst fighting with the other, and don’t forget the Russians and their vodka. It seems that many countries claim to be heavy drinkers. Since it’s so common how can it be special?

More importantly, beer tastes like crap… literally. I’ve tasted crap before, and it doesn’t taste good. In fact, it tastes a lot like beer, but I’ve not heard anyone bragging lately about how much crap they eat. Nor have I seen anyone take a petrified piece of feces, swirl it around under his nose, nibble off a piece at the end and exclaim how great a year 1972 was for crap. So, why is everyone so excited to consume the foul tasting liver destroyer when it’s in liquid form? Since I can’t answer that question I’ll ignore the fact that alcohol in general makes me want to vomit at first smell, let alone taste. Instead, I will look more deeply into this claim of Canada as a great nation of beer drinkers.

In 2007 Forbes magazine ran an online article on the world’s heaviest alcohol consuming nations according to an independent study. Number one on the list was not Ireland, not Germany, not Canada. The hardest drinking nation on earth (defined by Litres of alcohol consumed per capita) was Luxembourg, which probably explains why you always hear about the nation of Luxembourg running its mouth and getting into fights at weddings. Second place went to those “cheese eating surrender monkeys,” the French. In fact neither Canada or America made the top-15. The only non-European nation to make the top-15 was Australia in 15th. Now I can hear what you’re thinking. You’re all thinking, “but the French drink wine, we drink beer.” Shall we look at the stats for beer then?

Before I list the results, make sure you place your final bets for the top beer drinking nation in the World. Will it be Ireland? Germany? Australia? America? Canada? The answer is… the Czech Republic. The people of the Czech Republic drink an average of 156.9 litres of beer a year! That is 25 Litres per person more than Ireland, 192% more beer than an American and 230% more beer per person than Canada. Interestingly enough, I recently watched a movie about rock climbing in the Czech Republic. One of the locals, when questioned about how much beer the Czech people consume, said “not a lot-a lot… 8 to 10 beers a day is normal.” There you have it, unlike pathetic Canadians, the people of the beer drinkingest nation on earth down play their alcohol consumption, because they know that drinking crap is nothing to be proud of.



(I Am Canadian! I just drink German beer to be ironic.)

Pass Me My Giant "We're #1" Foam Finger, Please

The ATP tennis season starts on January 3rd and does not end until December 6th this year. Presumably the 2010 season will start the first week of January again, giving the players all of one month off between seasons. While this is may be longest professional sports season in terms of total number of weeks from start to finish, at least the players get to choose which tournaments they enter (to some extent). The professional hockey season starts its preseason in September and does not end its playoffs until early June. Hockey in June? Are you kidding me? I have failed to find a professional sport which does not have a season that is far too long, but why?

The simple answer is that it allows the owners to make more from advertising revenue, but I'm not entirely satisfied with that answer. An old instructor I had once told me that when Gorbachev banned vodka he predicted it would be the end of the Soviet Union. His reasoning was that once the proletariat were no longer in a state of constant drunkenness they would start to take an interest in politics. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but the idea of a distracted voting class may explain why democracy rarely feels as though it is.

My theory is that without an excessively long professional sports season, the average voter might start wondering why he's 40 years old, living in the middle of nowhere and working himself into the ground with nothing to show for it. Said voter may start questioning his current situation and perhaps stop mindlessly filling out ballots for the incumbent candidate or, even worse, start voting. Governments in a "democracy" tend to be fairly ineffectual at creating any meaningful change for the better, and the less people think about this fact the better off the government is. Hence, you can see that the government has a large incentive to keep the voters from thinking about their lives.

All joking aside, I don't understand the value of having thousands of people sit on their asses eating popcorn and drinking beer as they watch others run around for them, while North Americans are fatter than they've ever been. Instead of using tax payer's money to build new professional sports arenas (as they are used in some cities), why not use that same money to build more outdoor, public sporting facilities that everyone can enjoy? I guess that's why I'm not a politician.



("Whoo-ee, I love my government!")

An Apple A Day

It is a rare day when I am able to walk around my campus and not find a "hip" undergrad with a Macbook (that white one, you know the one). For the life of me I cannot understand why. Universities are supposed to be institutions of higher learning, are they not? Then how have so many students "slipped through the cracks" of the education system? It is clear that young adults today have not the slightest grasp of basic mathematic inequalities.

Let's take the top of the line Apple Macbook for $1749 Canadian and compare it with a similar product like the Dell Studio XPS for $1779. Before we start though, I will list all of the components that are equal between the two laptops.

• Both have the same graphics card
• Both have a 13" LED screen
• That's it

Now comes the math homework.

1. Is a 2.4 GHz processor better than a 2.53 GHz processor? Macbook user's answer: Yes. Correct answer: No.
   
2. Is 2 GB of RAM better than 4 GB of RAM? Macbook user's answer: Yes. Correct answer: No
   
3. Is a 250 GB Hard drive larger than a 320 GB Hard drive? Macbook user's answer: Yes. Correct answer: No
   

Iam aware though, that many Macbook buyers are enamoured with their product's "user friendly" nature. However, I had a coworker who said he could not e-mail me because his Mac would not recognize my e-mail address. How is that user friendly?

Or perhaps Mac users are referring to increased security or a better operating system interface when they sing the Macbook's praises? If this is the case, then why not just install a linux based operating system like Ubuntu? You can adjust the settings to give you the same applications dock (that string of logos on the top or bottom of your screen) and looks, and Ubuntu is just about bullet proof when it comes to preventing viruses.

I'm also aware that Macs are often used by amateur movie makers who fancy themselves pros, and want to use "what Hollywood uses." If that is the case, prepare to pay an extra $199 for Final Cut Express 4, and another $189 for Aperature 2 (the photo editing software). For the Dell, one can buy the top-ranked software in terms of "user friendliness" for video editing at a fraction of the cost - Corel VideoStudio is only $70. CinePaint is free (open source) and is used by Pixar.

Since logic and math have failed to come up with a good reason for buying a Macbook, I am forced to conclude the following....

(this image was made on a Dell laptop using Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). Price of software: $0)

How Not To Wear A Scarf

Scarves have one legitimate purpose: to keep your face warm. That's it. However, within the past year or so I have noticed an alarming increase in the number of scarves worn for a different reason: people trying to look foolish.

Take a good look at the following pictures if you don't know what I mean:

A) The No-Knot Knot



This is a safety concern for a good number of reasons. For starters, the ends of the scarf could be caught up in the wheels of an oncoming bicycle. If the bike in question looks like it should have died 40 years ago, but has been restored for purposes of making its rider look like a wanker, then this would be alright. However, there is the distinct possibility that the scarf may get caught up in the wheels of an important bike, like a ten-speed (these are often used for legitimate transportation purposes). This would be a tragedy since the scarf would not be in a position to choke the wearer.

B) The Tumor Knot


(This knot is not discriminatory. It looks equally ugly on both men and women.)

I call this one the Tumor Knot because it looks like the wearer has a giant cancerous growth coming out of his/her neck. Enough said.

C) The Hacker Knot



Believe it or not, that name is not a joke. Apparently this really is called a hacker knot. I prefer to call it the Fat Neck Knot, because that's what it makes you appear to possess. This is a great knot for attaching your baggage claim ticket to your luggage when you are traveling on the bus or a plane. But I fear the most you'll receive for using it to attach your scarf to your neck is a punch in the face.

Perhaps some of you are now confused. You've only ever seen people wear scarves in a manner similar to those pictured above. You may now be thinking, "but DFM, how then should I wear my scarf?" Good question. I'm glad you asked. Here is how to wear your scarf:



Yes, that is Randy Parker from A Christmas Story. This is the only known time in the history of modern cinema when a scarf was worn appropriately. After carefully scrutinizing the picture you may think, "but if I wear a scarf like this, I'll get too hot when it's not cold enough for a scarf but I still want everyone to know how hip I am." I guess you've got me there.