automaticable

A couple of weeks ago I had a disheartening conversation with a friend of mine. Somehow we happened upon the subject of choice and gay marriage. My friend, being a conservative Christian, said that she not only supports the ban on gay marriage, but could never, ever vote to allow gays the right to marriage, even if the marriage was simply legal, making it more along the lines of a civil union. Her reasoning was that because she was morally opposed to gay marriage, she could not support a bill overturning the current ban. She willingly admits that she is fine with gays loving each other and would never discriminate against them, but what she doesn’t realize is that she already has.

My friend, by supporting the ban on gay marriage, is not defending her morals. She has decided that her moral conviction is more “right” than the gay population’s, and thus her will must be imposed on these people. Forget the fact that gay marriage has no bearing on her life whatsoever, and that taking away the ability for people to choose to make decisions, even if they may be the “wrong” decision, is closer to a Communist regime than a loving Christian society.

Well, my friend, I have some disappointing news for you.  California, by far the most socially advanced state in the United States (see: smoking bans, highway cleanup, medical marijuana, recycling, etc) and the state which the rest of the country inevitably follows socially, has just pronounced gay marriage as legal.  Not only is gay marriage legal, but, according to Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George,

…discrimination against gays, on the basis of their sexual orientation, [is] equivalent under the California state constitution to discrimination against racial minorities.

Overturning the ban on gay marriage is pretty big, but this quote is huge.  The gay community now has legal authority to go to court over discrimination based on sexual orientation.

I hope this is a signal to the rest of the United States that times are changing.  You will no longer be allowed to impose your impractical religious views on other just because you are morally opposed to the choices people make.  The great thing about this, conservative Christian right, is that you won’t even notice the difference!  The gay community will be happier (gayer, some might say).  They may also be allowed the tax breaks that straight couples get for being married.  But guess what.  Your life will not change.  All that changes is that the will of God will not be imposed on Americans any longer.

I have been ecstatic since I heard this news.  Not because I know anyone this will directly effect, but because I am a champion of choice, and California is a source of hope for everything I believe in.  I can only hope that choice is allowed to the rest of Americans as our country matures and becomes more loving, understanding, and accepting.

Slate (via Clusterflock)

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If the 16+ years of schooling I went through taught me one thing, it was that plagiarism is as close to murder as you can get without becoming a criminal. I don’t think I’ve seen people get riled up about something as easily as a professor who catches a whiff of plagiarism. So why is it that there is such obvious, guiltless plagiarism running through the blog world?

You may not see it if you casually peruse your favorite blogs, but as a semi-addicted stumbleupon user (the first step is admitting I have a problem, I know) I see this all of the time. Every stumble-session I have invariably leads me to a page that has blatantly ripped their content from another source without citation whatsoever. I can almost forgive someone for copying content word for word as long as they give a hat tip (and link) to the original source, but generally this is not the case.

I imagine some people, especially those that repost their favorite photos from other sites, do not realize that they are stealing other people’s work. These people see something cool and just rip it into their own blog without even thinking about it. But most people who blog know exactly what they are doing, and they do it purely out of laziness and/or selfishness. People want to drive traffic to their own blogs and they either don’t want to work for it or they do not know how to come up with their own content. These are the people that infuriate me.

Not only are they stealing someone’s work, but they are creating what I like to call “internet pollution.” This internet pollution is not only morally wrong, but it is ultimately bad for the user as well for a number of reasons:

1. The obvious reason plagiarism is wrong, the original author does not get credit for their own work
2. On social sites such as Stumbleupon, this creates duplicates of content which adds no value (and I would argue, negative value) for the user, and
3. Related to #1, the work loses its original citation, which means the user will never be able to find further work produced by the creator if they find it interesting

Reason #3 is what has personally annoyed me the most. I can’t tell you how many times I have run across a set of amazing photographs, blog articles, or artwork that I wished I could have followed up on.

Because of my continued frustration with the online polluters and moral internet scum (yeah, it’s that bad!), I have come up with a way that I feel I can personally help clean up this mess, even if it is just a tiny bit. I’m hoping that you will use this strategy to help me combat plagiarism and internet pollution online. Here is my strategy:

If you know for a fact (as in, you’ve seen the original work published elsewhere) that the page is plagiarized, make your way down to the comments field. You will always have to put in a login/email to post a comment, but luckily these things aren’t validated. So just type in whatever you want, it doesn’t matter that much. Here comes the good part. It is a little bit rude, but I feel that if my words can drive traffic away from sites that lack common decency online then I have helped out the internet community as a whole. Anyway, I generally say something along the lines of,

I don’t know if you realize this or not, but every bit of your content is ripped from [insert source here]. You have blatantly copied this work with not even a link to the original article. By reposting this work, not only are you plagiarizing the author, but you are helping to pollute the internet with this reposted tripe. Post something original, or at the very least give credit where credit is due.

Ok, that is actually a little nicer than how I usually word it, but go ahead and add your own spin. I give you permission to take creative license with it.

The great thing about this is even if the comment is moderated out, the author will see your words and will hopefully take them to heart. I know that it sounds a bit like a personal crusade, but I am hoping that a few automaticable readers will join me in helping to clean up the clutter that is plaguing the web.

If you have any success or similar frustrations, let me know in the comments.

The trash on the ground, the gum under the desk, the empty toilet paper roll in the bathroom, and the smudges on the windows of the doors all are cleaned up or taken care of by type of person in public areas: the Janitor.  When you think of a Janitor, do you think of the guy with the raggity old clothing that has a faded name patch on the side?  Maybe the loveable gray cart with the yellow trash bag on the back?  There’s many things that come to mind when you think of a janitor, but the sad thing is, none of it is positive.  When ever someone thinks of a janitor they always think of them as a nothing, not a person.  People don’t realize that they are people too, just like you and me.  Most of the people in this position are NOT high school drop outs that took that sort of job because they have nothing going for them, or ever will.  Some of them have graduated from either a two year or four year technical school or university with a major in engineering or something of that sort, and decided that an easier job like this best sooted their needs.  Then there’s also the younger kids and young adults you see doing this job.  Most parents look at these kids as worthless individuals who wasted away their lives and have to resort to doing shit jobs because they can’t make anything of their lives.  This is false.  I currently hold position where some of my duties require me to take care of custodial tasks, and I haven’t wasted away my life, I’m not going nowhere, I haven’t dropped out of school.  I’m working my way up from the very bottom in hopes to make it to the very top, so that way I can see what it really takes to run a business where all the employees are happy and treated equally.

The workplace is no different.  You would think your fellow employees would treat you with more respect because they work with you and know how bad of a job it is, but this is entirely false.  I receive radio call after radio call from people at the front desk for the smallest little tasks that we have 5 different people on staff that could do the job, but they always call me because no one else wants to do it.  The most ridiculous call I ever got was someone had dropped a piece of paper on the floor and they wanted me to come pick it up.  Now, let me just set the scene here.  It was a Saturday afternoon, so there was a Building Supervisor, two Open Gym Supervisors, a person running Registration, a Fit Desk worker, and me working that day.  I was busy downstairs cleaning a fitness studio when I get this call, and when I go upstairs to find this piece of paper, I find it on the opposite side of the desk where the Registration lady sits, and behind the desk are the Open Gym Supervisors, and the Building supervisor, all talking, doing nothing. One of them is actually on the computer checking their facebook.  Even though these people were sitting right there, doing nothing, the registration lady thought it would be best to pull me from what I was busy doing to come pick up this piece of paper for her.

This is the type of ignorance that I’m talking about. The simple tasks that they can take two seconds out of their time to do themselves, they decide to just pawn it off onto someone else, they pawn it off to someone else, until finally it gets down to the lowest guy on the food chain who has no one to pawn it off to, so he has to do it himself.  I have multiple examples of this sort of stuff but it’d just turn into me ranting about how people become so much lazier once there’s a janitor employed at their workplace.

I want to change the stereotype of janitors, especially the ones that are younger individuals like myself.  They’re not worthless individuals, and they shouldn’t be looked over.  These people work hard and are good at what they do.  They’re the reason why when you walk into a building and you think “Wow, this place looks awesome!”  They’re the ones that make it look awesome.  Next time you see a janitor, young or old, take a look around and realize that the place they’re in charge of looks the way it does because of the hard work and commitment they put into their job.  Don’t overlook them, appreciate them.

As America heads towards a recession, or at the very least an economic slump, it is important to not only find solutions to turn the economy around, but also figure out how we got here. One of the main contributors to our current economic state is America’s irresponsibility in the housing market.

The blame for our current housing crisis can be placed all over, from big banks to small investment firms, and from our government all the way down to the individual home buyer. My negativity currently resides with the latter two, the government and the individual home buyer. I read earlier today in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (one of the larger newspapers in Atlanta) that both of the Democratic Presidential hopefuls have plans in place to help the individuals effected by the housing crisis. $30 billion were set aside to help bail out families whose houses are being foreclosed on. My questions is this: since when does our government set aside billions of dollars to help out Americans who simply made bad, uninformed mistakes?

This is where accountability comes into play. I am 100% against our government bailing out individuals who failed to realize that their sub-prime, adjustable rate mortgages could (gasp!) adjust above the level they could afford to pay. How can so many people be so ignorant? Did they all think a miracle had happened and all of a sudden they could afford their dream house on a combined $50k income? Here is a tip America: when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

If our solution to this problem is to simply bail out Americans who were too blinded by sub-prime loans to read the fine print, what is to stop this from happening again? Just as if you told your young child that every mistake they made was OK and that mommy would always be there to fix everything for them, America will lose all accountability and remain in their uninformed ways, sucking on the governmental teat. If there is no risk involved in a loan, there is no reason to worry about whether you can make the payments or not. And this is what Obama and Clinton are supporting: a program that promotes ignorance and diminishes all accountability in the American people. Mistakes will not be corrected as there is no risk of failure or punishment. This is not the America I want to live in, but a precedent is about to be set that may effect the decisions of Americans for generations.

Think before you make a decision as large as buying a home, and make sure you can afford your payments, no matter how high they may get. Instill accountability in not only your children, but the American people as a whole. Hand-holding is for toddlers, not grown US citizens.

We have all read the news stories: students kicked off of sports teams for incriminating pictures on Facebook or recent graduates not getting jobs because the employer Googled their name and found controversial discussions on message boards. These kinds of stories are generally met with frustration, but are ultimately accepted as OK since it was the individuals decision to incriminate themselves on the internet. But what happens when activities that happen often offline, such as student study groups, start moving online? According to TheStar.com (via Slashdot), Ryerson University believes these actions should end in expulsion.

I’ll give you a quick overview, but for a full understanding of the story check out the link above. One student set up a Facebook group where he and other students would ask questions and provide tips, not solutions, to homework problems. Over 100 students had joined the group and have treated it as a virtual “study group.” They even named the Facebook group the same as the popular group study hall on campus.

Because the actions of the students are nearly identical to how students have been studying in groups for decades, this issue is a slippery slope. What if the students were to bring a tape recorder to their offline study sessions so they could refer back to the conversations? What if copies of this tape were made for all the students that participated in the study group? What if this tape were then shared online for other students wishing to participate in virtual study groups? Where is the line drawn here. Because this started as an offline medium, is it ok? Or do these faculty members think students should only be working independently in the first place? I can’t imagine what college would have been like without guidance from my peers.

What this comes down to, in my mind, is a lack of understanding on the part of the faculty. If precedence is set here, then I don’t know a single student that has not “cheated” his or her way through college. Everyone relies on their peers for help, and any university that tries to quash this is in serious denial.

It’s 2008, so you know what that means. No, not the Olympics. No, not your daughter who was born on February 29th, 2000 will FINALLY turn 2. What I’m getting at is that it’s the year of the vote. This is no more fun that doing taxes, except you have to do taxes every year and only vote every four years.  Politics are like the bible, you know what’s going to happen, but you keep going back to them anyways in hopes that there’s going to be some kind of change, but inevitably there won’t be. Now, I’m not very political at all, hell, I usually vote for the guy that can be best photoshopped into a monkey (sorry bout the Bush vote, totally not my fault). Sorry, dramatization there, I do actually take the time and do some research and pick who I think will be best for the position (again, sorry for the Bush vote, totally not my fault). This year we have two front runners who basically sum up the the entire schlepper of man/woman kind. Now, I mean this figuratively of course, because who really is a schlepper now a days, other than Ralph Nader. The two candidates I’m talking about are Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. (Sorry McCain, you have to be a bench warmer for now….)

Now, here’s the first thing that sets these two people apart from every other candidate we’ve ever had; they’re different. Obama is African American, and Hillary is a female. (Is it sad that I thought of Kindergarten Cop when writing about how Hillary is a female?). ANYWAYS this is the first time that the next President of the United States will either be a woman, or an African American and frankly that scares a lot of people. Now, I’m not saying that it scares me, I think it’s a great idea! Maybe in another 4 years we can have a Disney Character in the office! I should prob stop with that part of the rant right now before I take it too far….

But anyways, back to the candidates. So Brittney Clinton, er, I mean Hillary Clinton has been bashing Obama a lot recently. The big one that comes to mind is she is releasing photos of him over in third world nations dressed in typical Muslim attire and implying that he is working with terrorists (she won’t directly state this because THAT is an outlandish statement!). So, yeah, she’s using sly tactics and is just getting bashed beyond belief….oh well!

Now, to be fair, Osama, er Obama’s (wow, slip of the tongue there) no saint either, he’s using mud slinging tactics as well, but unfortunately he’s not as bad as Hillary so therefore, no hard evidence to prove that he’s such a bad guy.

If I come off a little biased here, what ever, its a blog, you should be a work working anyways, not reading this silly thing. For now I’m gunna go eat some frozen french toast sticks with warm eggo syrup and drink a quarter gallon of milk, because I live in America, and darnit, that’s the healthy American thing to do!

By the way, Happy Birthday all the sons and daughters out there born on February 29th….I know your birthday comes only once every 4 years, but trust me, in 84 years, you’ll be able to drink legally!

I know this is my second post about beef in a month, I’ll try to limit myself in the future. But, I was just reading an article from CBS about an ongoing recall of beef distributed out of Southern California, because they used “sick, or ‘downer’ cows.” Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is a cheap jab at the “happy cows from California” ad campaign that has been ongoing– I think they’re going to have to reconsider their slogan.

But all jokes aside, this is a big deal. 143 million pounds of meat were recalled. That’s over half-a-billion quarter pounders (thank you college math) deemed unfit for consumption. That’s enough meat to feed every child at a school of 2000 kids for a little over 783 years! So this is a big deal.

And that’s just what the meat was being used for– to feed school children. According to the article, around 120,000 pounds of the meat had been distributed to schools in Tennessee. 30 school districts across the state won’t be serving meat until further notice.

The question on my mind when I read the article, was whether it was really necessary to recall all that meat, just because the cows were a little depressed. However, they mention that these ‘downer’ cows are prone to “wallow in feces,” and thus have a much higher rate of disease. Most shocking was watching this video of workers jabbing the cows with forklifts to get them into their pen, along side the CEO trying to justify the treatment.

So, here we are now with the largest beef recall in the United States as a result. I hope that the press that this generates will expose more cases like this, and ultimately shape up the industry. I suppose this is why organizations like PETA exist, and why the vegan movement exists in general.

I live with 11 roommates in a 3-story house on a college campus that’s probably about 100 years old. This is our landlord’s second year here– he’s young, excited about property ownership, lives on campus, and is very accessible.

Or at least, that’s how it seemed when we signed the lease. Since then, we’ve had nothing but problems. Our pipes froze last night, so we don’t have hot water (and thus, no washing machine or dishwasher). My roommate’s bed has bedbugs. The deadbolt on our front door is broken and the door handle is falling off. The thermostat on our water-heater is broken. Our house is half-painted in a single coat of primer. Our ceiling leaks. And our landlord never answers our calls.

So the moral of this story? Well, make sure you know the whole story before you sign the lease. Ask the previous residents if they had trouble. Make use of the tennant union on your campus. Make sure your lease is well thought out and includes any maintenance requests. Take pictures when you move in. Put everything in writing.