A new senator from Iowa, eager to make America a better place to live, is shocked to find out that everyone on Capital Hill is bored out of their minds, and no one pays attention to anything!

Well, I paraphrased a little.  He was embarrassed when some kids came to see how our nation’s laws were made, and found out it involves many games of Solitaire.  The most interesting (shocking? sad?) part is a quote at the end of the article:

Senate Minority Leader Mary Lundby, R-Marion, a 21-year Statehouse veteran and occasional video gamer, shrugged off Heckroth’s advice.

“Freshmen are always shocked by what goes on. Next year he won’t even mention it. He’ll probably be playing games,” Lundby said.

I guess this is what a 90% incumbency rate will do.

Does it make me a terrible person if I feel almost no sympathy for this guy, who was sent to prison for getting three DUI’s, getting raped in prison? (SFW, unless the words “rape” or “sodomy” get flagged by a filter or something.  In which case, I guess this page is NSFW).  I know it’s not how I should feel, as a Christian or as a civilized person or as a nice guy or for whatever reason.  But I mean, really, three DUI’s?  That should carry at least the same prison sentence as attempted murder, since that’s pretty much what it is.  Anyone who’s been to middle school has heard what goes on in prisons.  If this guy were imprisoned for something basically victimless, I would feel bad.  If he were falsely convicted of something, I would feel bad.  And sure, I don’t think it’s good that this happens in prisons.  But as for feeling sorry for this guy?  He is where he is as a result of his own actions and choices, and if he did not have an idea of what he was in for that is more than just ignorance.  The Human Rights Watch should have used someone else’s letter to make me feel sympathy.  In fact, the only part of that whole article that really made me feel sympathetic was the statement that he probably has AIDS now.

Go directly to jail.  Do not pass Go.  Do not collect $200.

What does etiquette dictate that one do when someone uses the n-word in conversation?  When we were at the police station recently, the other couple there was present when the guys were brought in, and they mentioned to us more than once that the guys were a bunch of “stupid niggers.”  Another time a coworker (at another job) was talking about when he was in the Marines going after some “sand niggers.”  It surprises me that some people still think and talk this way, so I don’t know how to react.  I imagine most people wouldn’t say anything but would feel extremely uneasy..  At least, that’s how I what I did.  Is there a more appropriate reaction?

Jim: What did you just call me?
Huck Griffin: I thought that was your name.
Jim: That is our word! You have no right to use it!
Huck Griffin: Hey hey hey, I’m cool, I’m cool, no problem!
...
Huck Griffin: So, could you pass me the oar, n-word Jim?
Jim: Thank you.

--The Family Guy

I don’t consider yesterday’s post to be a real post, just a few questions for the world.  Feel free to keep responding to it, but I’m going to go on with a more typical post.

So my grandfather does not wear a seat belt in a vehicle.  This is something that drives me crazy.  When my dad was driving the van from Oak Island down to Myrtle Beach one day during our vacation, my grandfather was in the passenger seat with no seat belt, while we were going down Highway 17 at 60+ miles per hour.  I’m not sure why he does this.  I’ve been told something about needing to be able to get out of the car if there is an accident.  I’m not really sure if that’s true or not though.  But then I got to thinking—why is it illegal to not wear a seat belt?  I mean, the government can require that cars have seat belts, and it can make sure that people are educated about them.  Buy why is it the government’s responsibility to make sure that we use them?  If I don’t use a seat belt, I am not harming anyone else.  I mean, there is no law requiring that I eat three servings of fruits and vegetables a day, although that probably has a similar statistical effect on my life expectancy.  All that being said, I still don’t understand why anyone would opt to not use a seat belt, and I would probably use much harsher words to describe such a person were I not closely related to one.

I just learned something about human behavior while exploring this topic:  there is a phenomenon called risk compensation, which was “discovered” when researchers were trying to figure out why laws requiring seat belts to be worn didn’t reduce the injury or fatality rates from traffic accidents.  It seems that if you give people a safety feature—say, seat belts, air bags, or anti-lock breaks—they will drive more recklessly, so that the level of risk stays more or less the same.  So my grandfather being in the passenger seat without a seat belt may have made the rest of my family safer, by causing my dad to drive more cautiously.  And it may actually be true that you drive better after one or two beers, because you are being extra careful.  However, I wouldn’t recommend explaining that to a police officer.

Stick shifts and safety belts, bucket seats have all got to go
When I’m driving in my car, it makes my baby seem so far

I’ve been saying it for years, and CBS finally listened:  tribes in the next season of Survivor will be divided by race.  They got the ball rolling when they cast a family of black people with the last name “Black” in The Amazing Race two seasons ago, giving us the great “black family, you’ve been eliminated” line.  Now there really is going to be a black team.  Watch and see if your race wins!

I recently discovered that there is a classification of political ideologies that is kinda like what I believe:  South Park Republican.  Okay so the term was coined five years ago, but I had never heard it until about a month ago.  So I thought I’d share.

I got this e-mail a while back, and thought I would devote a blog post to it.  I have chosen not to present it in the 72-point format in which it was originally presented to me, and I removed mid-sentence line breaks; otherwise, none of the text has been edited except to interject my comments.  And to be clear: the bold/italic text is the e-mail, the other text is my commentary.

Think about this: If you don’t want to forward this for fear of offending someone-----YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM !!!!
Well okay, start out by judging/insulting me.  We’re off to a good start.
Grammar Math:  Lesson 1:   (all caps) + ! × 4 = I’m so pissed!  This situation is literally worse than the Holocaust!

Will we still be the Country of choice and still be America if we continue to make the changes forced on us by the people from other countries that came to live in America because it is the Country of Choice??????
I mean, people from another land coming to America and forcing changes on the locals.. that’s never happened here before, right?
Grammar Math:  Lesson 2:   ? × 6 = rhetorical question mark

Think about it!
One of us needs to.

All we have to say is, when will they do something about MY RIGHTS?
Y’all don’t know what it’s like, being male, middle class, and white.

I celebrate Christmas...........but because it isn’t celebrated by everyone.............we can no longer say Merry Christmas. Now it has to be Season’s Greetings.
Last I checked, you still have the freedom to say whatever you want in this country.
Grammar Math:  Lesson 3:   . × n = pause to speculate on wasted life (for n > 3)

It’s not Christmas vacation, it’s Winter Break. Isn’t it amazing how this winter break ALWAYS occurs over the Christmas holiday?
Get out!  Is you fo serious?!

We’ve gone so far the other way, bent over backwards to not offend anyone, that I am now being offended. But it seems that no one has a problem with that.
If you’re saying no one has a problem with people saying “season’s greetings” instead of “merry Christmas”, I believe you didn’t watch much TV last December.  But please go on describing your plight.

This says it all!

This is an editorial written by an American citizen, published in a Tampa newspaper.  He did quite a job; didn’t he? Read on, please!
You need to learn when to use a comma instead of a semicolon, especially since you will soon express strong feelings against people who don’t talk good American.

IMMIGRANTS, NOT AMERICANS, MUST ADAPT.
I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Americans. However...... the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the “politically correct!” crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others.
So you think the country is more politically correct now than it was before 9/11?  I’d argue that we’ve shifted away from the political correctness emphasis that we saw in the 90s.  But that’s another issue entirely.

I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to !America.
I think you’re about to prove yourself a liar.  Before you go on, might I suggest putting exclamation points only at the end of your sentences?  Programmers like me might think “!America” means “not America.”

Our population is almost entirely made up of descendants of immigrants.
This is true.  Good job.

However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand. This idea of America being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity.  As Americans...... we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.

We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language.
..or Sioux, Apache, Iroquois, Algonquin, Cherokee..

Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!
Wait, if they don’t know the language, how will they ever read your request that they learn it?

“In God We Trust” is our national motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan..  We adopted this motto because Christian men and women.......on Christian principles............. founded this nation..... and this is clearly documented.
“In God We Trust” didn’t start appearing on currency until the Civil War.  The founders had nothing to do with that.  It didn’t supersede “E pluribus unum” as a national motto until the 1950’s, when we wanted to separate ourselves from the officially atheistic communists.  Again, nothing to do with the founders.

As for the founders: yes, they were Christian men (can you name a single founding mother?), who were influenced by their Christian values and principles.  But that doesn’t mean they wanted a Christian government; in fact, they didn’t want the government to impose a religion upon them.  And this is clearly documented (see the first amendment, for starters).

PS: That’s called citing your source, something that’s a good idea to do after claiming that something is clearly documented.

It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools.
Where is “In God We Trust” on the walls of a school?

If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home.........because God is part of our culture.
God being part of our culture is different from God being part of our government.

If Stars and Stripes offend you, or you don’t like Uncle Sam, then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet.
Why stop there, why not move to another planet entirely?

We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don’t care how you did things where you came from.
Neither did Geronimo.

This is OUR COUNTRY, our land, and our lifestyle. Our First Amendment gives every citizen the right to express his opinion and we will allow you every opportunity to do so!  But once you are done complaining....... whining... and griping....... about our flag....... our pledge.... our national motto........or our way of life....I highly encourage you to take advantage of one other Great American Freedom.......
The right to bear arms?

THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.
We don’t want your wretched refuse anyway!

It is Time for America to Speak up
If you agree -- pass this along;
if you don’t agree -- delete it!
Is there an option for ridiculing you on my blog?

AMEN
This was a prayer?  I wasn’t even bowing my head.  You should have told me.  Now you’ve made me go and be irreverent.  Thanks a lot.

I figure if we all keep passing this to our friends (and enemies) it will also, sooner or later get back to the complainers, lets all try, please!
I thought you said the complainers don’t know English?  If so, at least they won’t be able to criticize your run-on sentence.

If the subject of this post was a little too cryptic for you, it’s my pseudo-enigmatic way of saying “taxes.”  Does anyone know much about doing taxes?  I know it’s possible to do your own taxes, but... is it hard?  I mean, I got an A in three calculuses (calculi?), I should be able to handle it, right?  My parents used an accountant as far back as I remember, but my dad also owns his own business and so his taxes were a bit more complicated.  Mine should be pretty simple, I just have one income source, and the only deduction is the money I tithe to the church I guess.  Oh and I’m married, and supposedly one of the things George W. did before he started bombing the middle east was to get rid of the so-called “marriage tax.”  But I don’t know what that means or if it actually changed anything or if it was just a talking point.  I guess my biggest concern about doing it myself would be that I might do it wrong and get sent to jail for tax evasion or something when it was really just tax ignorance.  I’d also be afraid that I’m missing some refunds I could apply for or deductions I could take that would save me more money than an accountant charges.

Any comments from the audience?

In the interest of giving my loyal fans some new blogopodian content, I’d like to state, for the record, that The Colbert Report is awesome.  I would have posted this two weeks ago, but I wanted to give it a little time to see if the rest of the show would be as awesome as the first two episodes.  Well they have decreased in quality just a little bit, but they’re still really funny.  The level of arrogance is one I’ve only seen matched by Maddox.  The other night he had a segment where he said Rosa Parks was overrated.  That’s the kind of statement that you’d expect from Maddox.  Now I’ll make a little prediction about the show:  I think that eventually he’ll get rid of the “I’m going to walk to the guests instead of the other way around” thing.  Sure, it was really funny at first, but it will get old.  It’s like South Park killing Kenny each episode.  After a while it stopped being funny, and they wisely removed it from the show.  But I digress, and I need to be coding right now.

Other broadcasters read the news to you.  I promise to feel the news at you.

Well lots of blogs out there on the internet exist solely to disseminate political opinions.  I tend to stay away from them on my blog, but I’ll weigh in on one that has been on my mind recently:

National Identity Cards

Sure, this isn’t as big of a political issue as social security or Iraq.  But it’s something I feel like discussing.  In short, I think a national identity card would be a good idea.  Not because I believe that it would somehow eliminate the threat of terrorism.  More than anything, I think I driver’s license should license you to drive, and an identity card should identify you.

Most countries in the world already have a national ID card, including most of those European countries that aren’t particularly fond of us.  A few months ago at work I was talking with a guy from France who was here on business and he showed me a French driver’s license.  It was about the size of a 5x7 index card (which is to say, approximately 5 x 7 inches), and I think it is typically left in the glove compartment with the registration and proof of insurance.  It had a small photo on it, but I don’t know how often they have to get it updated, because this guy still had a photo from when he was eighteen (and he’s like thirty now).

So back to the point.  With a single national ID card, security features could be designed to be more cost effectively and more effectively.  That just makes sense.  Then it would be easier to identify fake ID’s (a Food Lion near NCSU’s campus wouldn’t take out of state ID’s for that reason--they wouldn’t know how to identify a fake Arizona ID, for example).  Not that fake ID’s won’t get made.  They’ll just be harder to make.  The use of a driver’s license as ID should eventually be phased out, and they could be cheaply made things that you only really need when you rent a car or get pulled over by a cop for speeding.

Now, about an assigned number.  People seem to have a problem with being assigned a number by the government.  As a computer scientist, I submit that your name is already a number. “KIP” is the number 4,933,968 (or 4B4950, if you prefer).  And your social security number is already being used to identify you, and it wasn’t really designed for that purpose.  Why not let your social security number be simply a number that identifies you to the social security system.  Your national ID could have a number.  If it were up to me to design the number, it would look a lot like an IPv6 address (3ffe:ffff:0100:f101:0210:a4ff:fee3:9566, for example).  And some of those numbers would exist solely as checksums, so that you couldn’t just pull a number out of thin air.  Not that this would prevent anyone from making up a valid fake number, it’d just make them have to work harder.  Plus, such a long and difficult-to-memorize number would decrease the frequency with which you are asked for that number, which would make identity theft at least a little harder.

When I was in New York last summer for the HOPE conference, I heard some whining about ID cards.  People seem to think it’s very Orwellian.  This would be true if the card were a microchip implanted in your brain.  It would be true if you were required to present your card before entering a restroom.  It would be true if stores were required to scan your card whenever you purchased something and then report what was purchased to the government.  I’m not talking about anything like that.  I’m just talking about a better solution to the problem of identification, both photographically and numerically.  Having a number with no check sum used as an identification number, and fifty different types of driving eligibility documents used for photo identification, is not the best solution.