The Egalitarian eReader

After several months reviewing all the major eBook readers, I've decided to get a Nook. These are my reasons:

1. The Nook's book format is ePub, which is a commonly shared format used by lots of places. Amazon's format is completely proprietary, so you can pretty much only use them on a Kindle, and the Kindle doesn't let you get eBooks from as many places.
2. The Nook lets you loan books you've downloaded for up to 14 days. You can even share them with friends who don't have a Nook, since you can download the software to a PC, Mac, iPad, etc. {I've since read that the ability to share a book is determined by the publisher, and that not many books allow it. However, the Nook still makes it possible for those where sharing is permitted.}
   
3. Barnes & Noble lets you read books for free in their stores for an hour at a time, using their free WiFi. You also get coupons for stuff in their stores, including the coffee shop.
4. B&N has 2 million books available, compared to Amazon's approximately 700,000. They also have lots of free ones.
5. From everything I've read, the Nook does a better job of supporting PDF files, which lets you load your own documents on it. I really like this for stuff like user manuals & knitting patterns.
6. You can highlight text and add notes in all their supported formats, as far as I know. I don't know if the Kindle supports that same feature.
7. Apparently the Kindle doesn't even let you change the battery yourself. According to this review on Amazon, you have to mail your Kindle in to Amazon, and they send you back a different, "refurbished" one.
8. They never sell you a book & then take it off your device when they find out they didn't have the copyright, or when they decide it's too "erotic", like Amazon has recently.
9. Lastly, Barnes & Noble didn't publish "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure". That might not be all that pertinent to the eReader, but it's still a count against Amazon for me. Also, if they're going to start practicing mass censorship, they should just focus on things like that.

All in all, the main reasons I prefer the Nook are philosophical. The Nook & Kindle might be comparable technically, but the Nook seems to be the more egalitarian choice.

The problem with polls...

I am still on the topic of the new TSA security procedures. One of the things I keep hearing mentioned is this poll that said 4 out of 5 Americans are in favor of using the full body scanners at airports. What I kept wondering was, who did they ask? Did they ask people who actually fly, or who are going to in the near future?

Not surprisingly, the answer is "no". I tracked down the actual poll, which was conducted by CBS News. According to the poll, which is shown below, "This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,137 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone November 7-10, 2010. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones."

Nothing in the published part of this poll had anything to do with whether or not these people do or will fly. So, while they may have said they were for it, they didn't say whether they would submit to it themselves.

Another thing lacking from the CBS poll was whether people would approve of invasive, full-body searches that include feeling the crotch, buttocks and breasts. From what I'm hearing, most people who actually have to go through this process are NOT in favor of it.

CBSNewsPoll_airportsecurity_111510

Fear of Flying

This new security process is making me terrified to fly, but I really have no viable options. My elderly parents live 3000 miles away, and that is too far, and too expensive, to take a train.

Some people have implied that we shouldn't complain, because this was publicized beforehand. I don't know when or how the "enhanced pat-down" was publicized, but I just heard about it in the past few days. I'm flying within a week, and it's too late to change those plans.

Others have also implied that the search isn't that invasive, or isn't any different than what was performed before. From everything I've read and seen in the news, that is also not correct. I've had a pat-down before, but no one has previously touched my genitals, or ran their hand between my buttocks or under my breasts. I just don't think I can take that. Being an older, overweight woman, I have a lot of folds & crevices that might make TSA feel they need to inspect me more thoroughly.

I am also an abuse survivor, and disabled. I cannot stand to be touched - not just because of the abuse, but also because of nerve damage and pain from multiple surgeries. I have not had anyone touch me in the areas being described in over 11 years, and no, I'm not looking forward to it.

One of my fears is that I will not be able to stand up in the body scanner, and therefore be forced to submit to the pat-down. I have to use a rolling walker to get through the airport, but of course I have to go through security without it, or my cane. I also wear pads for bladder control problems, and I'm afraid that I'll be subject to the pat-down for that, too.

Altogether, I've already started having nightmares and losing sleep over this. Traveling is difficult enough with my other disabilities, without being subjected to emotional trauma and humiliation on top of it.

I just don't understand how people can say that the wars we're fighting are to ensure our freedom, when it's obvious that our freedom is being rescinded. If we're doing this to fight terrorism, why do I feel like I am being terrorized?

I'd like to encourage anyone else who's concerned about this to check out the site Fly With Dignity.

Major Malfunction?

I am a bad, bad blogger. The last time I edited this blog, I left it in the middle of fiddling with some HTML in a widget. I never saved it - I just closed the browser. Now I see that my header is all wonky & totally FUBAR. Perhaps it tried to commit blog suicide. I don't know if I can fix it, or if I should even bother.

The good news is... The Freethinker Daily! I replaced the lame, half-finished widget at the top left with this very cool little widget that I created in paper.li. If I could, I would just replace my whole stupid blog with it.

I may or may not try to fix my header. I'll think about it. In the meantime, PLEASE click on the widget and go look at my Freethinkers paper. It's pretty awesome.

Bible, Schmible

I usually find that I am more familiar with what the bible actually says than most Chrisians I've talked to. In fact, most of them don't seem to care. I've come to the conclusion that Christianity is really a verbal tradition, just as primitive cultures passed on their cultural traditions through storytelling. It seems that most Christians learn their religion from what they are taught by their families, and later by their pastors and other church members. That is why it is usually so futile to try to argue biblical theology with the average Christian. What is actually in the bible has very little to do with their beliefs, which are strongly tied to family tradition and social culture.

The Last Abortion Doctor

This article is long, but should be read by everyone who cares about a woman's right to choose. Here's an excerpt:

Only fourteen, she came with her mother. What brings you here? he asked. I have to have an abortion. Why? I'm not old enough to have a baby. But you told the counselor we should all be killed? Yes, you should all be killed. Why? Because you do abortions. Me too? Yes, you should be killed too. Do you want me killed before or after I do your abortion? Before.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/abortion-doctor-warren-hern-0909

Where I lose the dog and freak out

I just popped 2 Xanax, and I'm chasing them with a wine cooler. Hopefully they'll kick in before I have an anxiety-induced heart attack. I almost lost my dog, Michoud, at 4:30 this morning.

Michoud & Jasmine needed to go out, and a thunderstorm was just passing, so I took them out in the carport on their leashes. There's an area where they can pee in the weeds under the overhang of the roof. There are also saplings coming up there, and Michoud keeps going around them so that I can't get her back without letting go of the handle of the retractable leash & pulling it around the tree. The other night this worked okay. This morning it didn't. As soon as I let go of the handle of the leash, she took off.

Here you need some background. First, I'm disabled. I have to walk with a cane, a slow walk is my fastest speed, and I can easily fall down. If I fall down away from something to grab onto, I might not be able to get back up.

Second, I live two houses from the corner of a busy, four-lane street. Also, Michoud is not traffic-savy. There would be no reason for her not to run straight out in front of a car.

Third, and this is the lucky part, I guess, I live directly across the street from an elementary school, and the grounds are mostly fenced. The few times that Michoud has dashed off, that's where she's always gone. This time was the same.

If I hadn't panicked, I might have thought to grab a few doggy treats & my car keys, but instead I just pushed Jasmine inside the door and took off after Michoud. This was incredibly stupid, but there it is.

I mostly kept her in sight as she ran all around the school, but I had to take my shoes off & wade through lots of ankle-deep puddles. The school is also being worked on, and the grounds are full of big parked semi trailors, so I had to thread my way around those.

I followed Michoud about 2/3 of the way around the school, whistling and calling, before I realized she was heading around to an area that's too rough for me to follow. I gave up at that point, and used my head. I started back for the house to get treats, the car, and my walker. Yes, I need a wheeled walker to walk very far or very fast, and to keep from tripping over stuff & falling down.

While I was headed back around the opposite side of the school from where she hopefully was, a big garbage truck pulled in on that side and emptied the dumpster. I didn't hear her bark, I was almost back to the street as it headed back to the main street, but I didn't see her following it.

I finally got back to the house without falling down, grabbed my keys and stuffed some treats in the pocket of my housedress. I threw my walker in the back seat and drove around to the school's back drive, where the dumpster is. I got lucky again, because the gate was open, so I could drive down next to the school. I rolled all the windows down & whistled several times. About halfway down the length of the school, I finally saw her. I called, "Michoud! You wanna go for a ride?" and she ran right over, wagging her damned tail. I gave her a treat and put her filthy, muddy ass in the back seat.

Right now she's in the doggy time-out room (the storage room that lets onto the back yard). I figure I might be able to look at her in the morning without strangling her. Especially if these damned Xanax ever kick in.

Oh, for some reason, the gecko that lives in my carport apparently decided to jump onto the back window of the car and go along for the ride. I didn't notice him until I was pulling back down my driveway. This is a terrible picture, but here he is:

What a fabulous & concise commentary on religion. Be sure to read the whole post at http://tinyurl.com/n4wmcn.

I was lucky to never really have been indoctrinated into religion, except as much as it’s simply ubiquitous in our culture. Even so, I went through my own awakening as a result of being in a relationship with someone who was involved in AA’s 12-step program.

I also became involved in Al-Anon, and therefore started really thinking about the question of a higher power. I just could never resolve that satisfactorily, and I couldn’t get around it, so I left Al-Anon and continued my searching and analysis of religion in general.

It’s become a subject I’m endlessly fascinated by, but purely from a psychological, sociological, and historical perspective. Basically, the more I find out about the major religions, the more horrified I am that people continue to propagate these archaic & delusional beliefs.

It really encourages me to see that people can overcome this kind of indoctrination and begin to think for themselves. Maybe there’s hope for the world, after all.

clipped from thebeattitude.com the BEattitude Happy are those who ask questions. Losing my religion. Why I recently walked away from Christianity. I was planning to write up a detailed story about my Christian life and the recent rejection of my faith. But my goal is not to build a case to prove I believed in God or to demonstrate how good of a Christian I was. I did truly believe in God for most of my life and worshiped and prayed to him daily. I believed he was at work in my life at all times and using me to touch other people’s lives. So you might be wondering what changed. The change was a culmination of things that I could no longer ignore. Faith is belief in the unseen and unprovable, but still requires a foundation for that faith. With the countless religions of the world, I began to question why the god of the Bible is more believable than all other gods worshiped on earth. With the mountain of evidence staring me in the face, my faith began to die.

Fag Fear

Let's abolish Don't Ask, Don't Tell. If the U.S. military isn't afraid of anything else, why should they be so afraid of The Gay?

Baby Hoarding

Someone commented on CNN that if Nadya Suleman (the octomom) wanted to be loved, she should have bought a puppy. The sad thing is that if they were puppies, the Humane Society would have stepped in and taken them away from her for placement in better homes. There's a term for this where it concerns animals - it's called "hoarding." I think Nadya has proven that we need to broaden the definition for that disorder to include people who obsessively have numerous babies beyond their capacity to care for them.

Civil Rights Beggar

Apparently in Siberia, even little old crippled Bolshevik women must walk the streets with their peddler carts, begging for civil rights.

MISSING: Freedom of Speech

Some lowlife scum suckers stole the Obama sign out of my front yard this past Sunday morning. Probably one of my neighbors on their way home from church. So, I did this:

Yeah, my carport is junky. Whatsit to ya?

A Step Back

I've been watching this week's economic catastrophe with quite a bit of anxiety. I've worried about something like this happening for about seven months, ever since the Bear Stearns collapse. So, when I heard about the proposed seven BILLION dollar bailout, my first thought was that it was something that needed to be passed immediately. But then I began to slow down and think.

First, as I said, I've known we were in a serious economic crisis since mid-March. Why is this emergency bailout just now being presented? There's no way the administration's economic advisors didn't know more about what was coming than I did. Also, why is it being presented with such a short timetable for review and approval? One thing I learned in Contract Administration is that you should never negotiate from a position of fear.

The real kicker is the clause that gives unregulated power to the Treasury Department. The whole thing has started to remind me very much of how the Patriot Act got passed, and how the Iraq war got launched. Both events were pushed through in an atmosphere of panic, as "the greatest crisis ever to face our nation." I'm hearing that exact phrase from the lips of both Democrats and Republicans this week.

Finally, not to go too far out on a limb of conspiracy theories, but several months ago I was sitting around with some friends talking about the upcoming election. We were speculating that if the race started to shift in the Democrats' favor, the Republicans would manage to pull out another one of their distractions, and change the focus to their benefit. Some of my friends predicted that it would be something like an invasion of Iran. However, I predicted that it would be some kind of bogeyman, like the endless "terror threats" that went on leading up to the 2004 election.

I have no doubt that the "One Market Under God" philosophy has brought us to the brink of catastrophe. However, I also know that there is an established strategy called "Disaster Capitalism" that we must exercise extreme caution against. This administration has demonstrated several times in the past their ability to cry "Wolf" and get the nation to hand over anything they want. No matter how much the President asks us to panic, we must remember where such panic has gotten us in the past. Every one of those situations has turned out to be a huge mistake, and so far, irreversible.

I don't know what needs to be done. I am the farthest thing from an expert on the economy. I do know, though, that when some guy on an infomercial screams, "Hurry! Act now! Don't wait! Limited time offer!", I know better than to pick up the phone and give them my credit card number.

Emotiplumbing

The Homosexual Agenda

Over on Ravelry there's been a humorous thread on the so-called Gay Agenda. Several folks asked if people weren't kidding about this whole gay agenda business, or referred to it as a myth. The thing is, there actually is something that the whole idea of a "Gay Agenda" is based on. I wanted to clear that up, since I think it's important for people to be aware of what they're talking about, and especially what's being applied to them without their knowledge. This is my post to the Ravelry thread, in response to someone posting, "OMG is this ‘gay agenda’ thing for real??":

Yes, it is very much for real. In 1989, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen wrote a book called After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s. In this book, the authors proposed “a massive media campaign designed to correct stereotypes and neutralize anti-gay prejudice.” Instead of protesting for gay rights, they advocated using marketing strategies, and working from within the system to promote positive change.

This book is the basis for the homophobic religious right’s claim that there is a homosexual agenda. You really should go look at that link to see just how serious they are about it. While most people who talk about the “gay agenda” really don’t have any idea what that supposedly means, there are a lot of people who will give you a list of exactly what’s on that agenda, and that list comes directly out of that book.

If you look at the Amazon page, you’ll also see a list of 67 books that reference After the Ball, such as The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, Same sex Marriage: Putting Every Household At Risk, and The Politics of Deviance.

So to answer the question, yes, there really is a gay agenda. I’m sorry you all didn’t get the memo.

And now, for something completely different

I was trying to maintain this blog as just a place to post all the funny things I thought of. The problem is, sometimes I just can't think of anything funny. Sometimes I just want to rant on something political, social, religious, or otherwise snarky. I've actually had another blog or two where I've posted some of my more prickly thoughts. I've finally decided enough of that. I'm just going to keep this one blog of all my thoughts, rants, bitches, complaints, whining, and yes, humor. Except for my knitting & crochet blog, Knitfishy, this will be it. Oh, and the other super-secret blog that I never let anyone see. Nyah!

World Philosophy Day 2007

In honor of World Philosophy Day, I offer this for your edification:

The Philosopher's Song

(Monty Python)

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Both Schopenhauer and Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away
Half pint of whiskey every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am"
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!

Fortune Cookie

My Fortune Cookie told me: If you do not yet have a moose, take pains to acquire one. Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

"Family" Resemblance?

Yeah, right.