Continued Appeasement of Dictators

Once again, North Korea has committed itself to reprehensible acts and the world is standing around like “wow, I cannna believe they done did that thar.”

I think one thing that we as a species should have figured out by now is that a bully, when left unchecked, will continued to be a bully, especially if he thinks he has a bigger stick with which to beat you. The North Korean regime continues to be a thorn in the side of the so-called “free world,” and after repeated acts of war it would seem that pretty much everyone is content to just let him carry on about his business of murder.

I hate the thought of committing the country to another war, and I do believe that, as it stands right now, we're clearly over our heads financially and probably cannot afford it, but that doesn't seem to be stopping Congress from spending on so many other programs and entitlements... so why not? Things like this are a major reason behind my opinion that a national health care system is unaffordable – it isn't simply that it will increase taxes (which it likely will), but that we need to use the money more on matters of being prepared for crazy people like Kim Jong-il to do evil things... or else we have to keep letting such people do those evil things with impunity.

Also, for the record, it shouldn't always be the United States that is compelled to “do something” about these people. To the rest of the world: What the hell is wrong with you people? Why won't anyone else do something about this bastard? We're kinda busy right now, could someone else stand up and take some of the work off our hands for a change? South Korea only puts up with it because the North does indeed seem to have a bigger stick than they do, and we (nor anyone else) is willing to support them fully.

The world really is a crappy place... if only it were so easy that we didn't have to make choices between letting evil people reign terror on others or putting people in harm's way to stop them.

Related Articles:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/11/23/skorea-nkorea-fires-artillery-island/

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/23/nkorea.skorea.military.fire/index.html?hpt=T1

Business as Usual

There are times when I seriously think that companies, particularly news companies, seem to be intentionally trying to alienate their online readers through intrusive advertising. I understand they need to make money, but this has gotten to the point of lunacy – to the point where I've been experimenting with various ways of disabling advertisements and even completely boycotting sites on which ads cannot be blocked to my satisfaction.

This got started a few days ago when Fox News hit me with a new kind of ad that takes an screen-capture of the site and then uses an animation to slide the page down (like it is lying down) so that a nearly full-window ad can be played. I don't know what the ad was for (the only thing I pay attention to is the frustration in figuring out how to close it, not the content of it). The ad's “close” button was almost exactly the same color as the ad's background, so it was nearly impossible to see. Obviously, I wasn't incredibly impressed. By the time I had closed the ad, I had decided that I didn't really need to read any articles on Fox News, and have even removed the site from my bookmarks.

So I started checking out CNN and noticed they too have started using some pretty odd tactics with their ads, although nothing quite so infuriating as the Fox News example above. Most of their banner ads will expand from a tiny bar to a half-window length billboard when the page loads completely. What this means (for me, anyway) is I'm just starting to click on the link to the article I want to read by the time that the ad enlarges, moving my link out of the way and putting the expanded ad right under my cursor (meaning, I click on the ad by accident because everything has moved).

These tactics are abhorrent and clearly illustrate either how greedy they are or how badly they are hurting financially. In either case, I have found an interestingly easy little trick to kill most of the ads (including Fox News' evil in-line ads – you know, the ones that underline seemingly random words in the articles and show you ads ever if you accidentally hover your cursor over them?).

I have set my Chrome browser to disable JavaScript except on sites where I have deemed it “safe.” This list includes sites like this blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Reason, where the ads shown are done so in a tasteful manner and which I have deemed necessary for operation (Facebook doesn't work very well without JavaScript, and Twitter won't work at all), while I leave it disabled on pretty much every other site. Amazingly, Fox News and CNN's ads have gotten a lot less distracting, and in many cases have disappeared altogether.

Do I feel bad that they are going to lose a little bit of ad revenue? No, not really, especially if it means the difference between controlling the garbage content displayed on my screen or not. Fire the assholes thinking up these advertising tactics and I'll turn my JavaScript back on.

The Life that Didn't Know it was Alive

Yesterday the official word came down from my wife's doctor that our pregnancy is over. I'm not sure how the doctor put it (because I don't have any option of leaving work for this sort of thing without attendance penalties, so I wasn't present), but it all comes down to a single word:

Miscarriage.

Okay, I guess technically speaking the miscarriage hasn't occurred yet as my wife continues to carry the poor life that once was but will never be. I guess that is supposed to be rectified today via surgical procedure... Anyway, those who know me probably understand that this sort of thing is difficult for me because of my particular views on when a human life (or really any life, I suppose) begins. Not that I blame anyone, I simply find it very depressing.

My wife seems to be dealing with it pretty well, but I have a feeling it just hasn't sunk in yet. I'm figuring that will change soon, so I guess it is good that I will have probably gotten past my own sadness on the matter. Dalton seems to be doing OK too, but insisted on writing about how the baby died for his “free writing” handwriting practice.

So a sad time in Hickersonia this week... Hopefully better news will be forthcoming...