Doc's Place: Cynicism

US Government Protects Us From Terrorists In Dresses!

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:12:36 GMT

You people know I just can’t pass up a chance like this to sing the praises of our government agencies’ efforts to protect us from terrorism. The following is the text and links directly from the June 18 article in Boing Boing:

“US seizes Danish dress-shop's payment to Pakistan in the name of "terrorism"

Posted: 18 Jun 2008 05:23 AM CDT

Carsten sez, "The owner of a small dress shop in Maribo, Denmark, orders six dresses in Pakistan for a value of $205 and pays by bank transfer - only to find that the transfer is intercepted by the US authorities and the money seized because the seller (fashio.biz) might conceivably support 'terrorism'."

"Christa Møllgaard-Hansen, owner of Christabella's in the town of Maribo on Lolland, routinely buys women's clothing and shoes from around the world to resell in Denmark. But a recent purchase of six dresses from Pakistan for $205 was considered by the American authorities to be money going to support terrorists.
The US froze the funds four months ago and contacted Møllgaard-Hansen's bank, saying they wanted more information on the payment's recipient. Møllgaard-Hansen had put all the necessary information into the original netbank payment, but complied with her bank's request for the additional information."

Link (Thanks, Carsten!)”

No doubt the FBI, NSA, CIA, or “Somebody Else” decided to snoop around a little bit longer while the Patriot Act is still mostly in effect and the FISA Act has yet to be officially modified. You know, I don’t even feel a need to contact my state’s senator, Obama (D IL) because he will quite likely already be on the case. If not, one of the above agencies will intercept this transmission of information, or buy it from one of the large telecoms or search databases. One way or another, I’m sure they’ll know my sentiments on the matter.

Peace, Doc

“On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.” - Will Rogers

Suicidal?

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:14:45 GMT

Suicidal?

Jumped from the fifth floor?

Some of us think otherwise.

Defenestration!

Peace, Doc

"Hypocrite /n./: a man who murdered both his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan." - Ambrose Bierce.

"You can't kill me, I've got a magic... AAAARGH !" - Many a great king's last words, according to Terry Pratchett.

Can You Tell The Difference?

Wed, 07 May 2008 02:58:20 GMT

Although I hold fairly strong political views, I hardly ever mention them in this blog. Politics and religion tend to be quite important topics for most people and seem to me to be far too easy to be either misunderstood or to be understood exactly when written about. Today I bring you a simple quiz from newsletter I receive from a very neutral and politically passive group (MoveOn.Org) which determines your ability to differentiate the views and actions of President George Bush and Senator John McCain.

"Dear MoveOn member,

On Friday, we launched The Bush-McCain Challenge—a fun new online game. The reaction has been AMAZING. 300,000 people have already played, and most of them aren't even MoveOn members!

The Challenge is simple—you just have to tell the difference between Bush and McCain. It's trickier (and more fun) than you'd think! ...

Start the Bush-McCain Challenge by clicking here: http://www.Bush-McCainChallenge.com/

... McCain's close ties to Bush are his biggest liability, and the Challenge is a great way to spread the word that there's not much difference between them.

So enjoy and share!

Thanks for all you do.

–Noah, Karin, Lenore, Daniel, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008"

Be sure to stick with this lengthy quiz (five items) to get to the bonus questions.

Peace, Doc

"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it." - George W. Bush

Who Is A Failure?

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:23:37 GMT

I first saw this on February 22 and assumed it was a Googlebomb that would quickly be "repaired." I tried the same Google search again this morning, 12 days later, and the number one result remains the same. I'll keep a .pdf file in case it mysteriously goes away.

Who is a failure?

http://www.google.com/search?q=who+is+a+failure%3F&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-37,GGGL:en&aq=t

Peace, Doc

"Success builds character, failure reveals it." - Dave Checkett

Umm ... Yeah?

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:39:00 GMT

Today in a speech to a hopeful nation ...

George "The Walker" Bush

Issued a proctomation

"Everything is fine!"

Peace, Doc

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." - George W. Bush

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” - Joseph Goebbels

Required Removal of Post.

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 06:58:39 GMT

As per notification of Microsoft Customer Support, I have complied in the removal of the post of September 30, 2006, 2:26 a.m. (SRX1031539602ID) permalink number http://docblood.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D787066A3CBDDB44!6043.entry

Prior to any further demands that I remove posts, which I am sure will occur, I request that you discuss this matter with your supervisor, Mr. "KP," and also with the Microsoft Legal Department.

The deleted post contained information which did not directly pertain to the post, but rather a comment on the post by the person who is currently criminally stalking me and who is being investigated. Copies of the post and comments have been retained in archival, .mdi, and .pdf forms for their later use.

Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

Extra! Extra! New Psychologist in Town!

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 16:11:11 GMT

I was somewhat disconcerted to find that another "psychologist," one Doc Hemoglobin, has set up his practice on Spaces Live. Flatteringly, he seems to admire me so much that he has copied my site quite well. I have copies to post if it is shut down before you have a chance to see it, as was the last site to which I gave special attention. He even posted a picture of Dr. Freud and of me on it yesterday, but mine was gone when I revisited the site today. One of his slide shows still bears the name "da' psychologists" but now only has one picture of Freud. Earlier, it had a picture of me, cut from picture number 14 of 32, "Doc and Annie," in my album, "Yesterday." I guess the other Doc(s) thought better of using that particular photo. There was, however, a custom list with a dedication in the upper left corner of the space:

FRANNIE

I think Frannie died a few years back of irritable bowel syndrome,

This blog is a shrine to her memory

"DaCynicalPcychologist" seemed to like this site so much that it was copied from layout to background to column widths. It certainly makes me wonder if it was done by anyone I know. A stranger would not likely have gone to the trouble of duplicating this site so well.

One dissenting viewer, upon seeing the new site, commented, "Since you have obtained knowledge in psychology - DSM 10F 10-F19. Find yourself." I think that's a little too overinclusive for an accurate diagnosis. Really, a diagnosis of this nature (assuming one wished to submit it to an insurance company for payment,) would have to come from the International Classification of Diseases Manual (ICD 10) and would have to be much more specific, limiting the Dx submitted to something like ICD 10 v2007 F60.2 For those of you who do not wish to dig through the search engines or buy a ridiculously expensive book, I include a more simplistic but fairly accurate illustration that I found:

At least this narrows down the type of people I believe we are dealing with rather than including the whole gamut of mental illness and brain dysfunctions in our assessment. The poor old DSM IV would simply have listed it as the first of the Cluster B personality disorders. Without getting paid for this, and having neither examined nor even met the blogger, it is a matter of speculation anyway. Certainly no therapist/client relationship exists between or among us and I can only hope that he/they seek treatment elsewhere.

One final thought to conclude this announcement. I don't care if the game players play with others of like mind and who consent to the "game." You certainly have a right to do that. When the object of the game has become angering me by insulting, stalking, demeaning my friends, random comments on friends' sites, and especially the disrespect of my Annie, you may well encounter someone you are not expecting.

Peace to my Friends, Doc

A few lines from an Eagles song apply: "You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown. Got your mind in the gutter, bringin everybody down. Complain about the present and blame it on the past. I'd like to find your inner child and kick its little ass. Get over it."

Site Modifications

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:26:50 GMT

This site needs some revisions but I'm not at all certain that it is worth it. It started by serving a basket weaving function and as my introduction to the social aspect of the web. Although I had used the Internet since before Win 95 existed, it had always been to view psychological or psychophysiological sites, online searches, to organization sites, tech sites, for downloading software, and an occasional email. I had used IM chat exactly three times, once with my son and twice with my daughter. I even know what MOSAIC is/was, for that matter, and what an IBM 360 mainframe with punchcard input looks like.

When I first entered this portion of the web world, I somehow expected it to be different than the world of "real life." I promptly fell on my face socially, made naive blunders, and unintentionally became involved in my first misunderstanding that hurt anyone or became a "web war." I apologize again to those that were hurt by my ill-informed actions. I had previously never been in a chatroom, used a bulletin board, written a blog, or even posted to one. I really had very little idea what I was doing. For a few months it was a distraction and I just posted lists of mental health resources, offers to give away gmail accounts, offered a few panic control tips, and posted a few "nothing" sorts of blog entries.

Shortly after that point, for reasons still unknown to me, MSN/MSNBC informed me by way of a comment on one of my posts that I was to be featured. WTF!!? I wrote back to confirm that this was real and suggested that I really didn't want to do it. I was featured anyway. People that were only linked to me at that time told me they got over 700 hits in one day. I got a few more than that. I have to admit that it was quite a rush to find that anyone was even remotely interested in my dog and pony show, and much more so, how many.

Being featured changed how I could use the blog. I could no longer write the things I wanted to, and had to censor myself many times. I was foolish to believe that there was any kind of privacy when one writes publicly. Anything that goes on the web is essentially there forever, stored somewhere, and ultimately retrievable by someone. I blithely went on writing for about another year, having fun, getting into minor squabbles, trying to write a few posts of some substance occasionally, making friends, and irritating someone now and then.

In the last six months or so, I have come to realize how much "web reality" mirrors the "real world." They are both forms of reality and the same socio-behavioral rules apply in much the same way, with the factors of size of community and anonymity coinciding almost perfectly with human behavior in the physical world. I grew up in a very small town (under 1000 souls) and if you tried to get away with anything you weren't supposed to do, your folks would know before you got home. When one compares that to the anonymity and consequent inability to enforce social norms on the tribe, as is possible in a huge city like Chicago, Spaces made a great deal more sense to me. I occasionally went to Chicago, as I have lived within 50 miles or so of it for virtually all of my life. Despite some of its' fine points, I hate it. The last time I went there with any enthusiasm was to Erikson's Speed Sport for engine work, clearancing, and specing on race engines. I didn't even want to go to the city when it was the testing location for my professional license. I didn't realize the similarity to spaces because I wasn't looking for it, to begin with. There were no drive by shootings in Hebron, only an occasional drive by pumpkining around Halloween. Altogether much more like Mayberry than CSI Miami.

During the time I worked in a state mental hospital, one always had an unlisted telephone number, never gave direct answers to where one lived, used white-out on the address portion of one's professional license that had to be displayed, and generally didn't take chances on the "one in a hundred" clients that might use that information to one's detriment or to endanger one's family. That is also why I detested the forced move that occurred when I had to leave the general admissions portion of the hospital to work with the forensic population. The ratio of "untrustworthy" persons being evaluated or treated dropped from the 1/100 guess on the civil side to somewhere around 1/2 or less on the forensic units. Yes, I did enough enough diagnostic work on those units to be certain about the labels and recommendations sent back in report form to the courts that had initially "referred" those persons to us. I hated working there. More, even, than I hated going to Chicago.

In the past six months or so, Spaces feels more and more like working on a forensic unit at 26th and California (Cook County Jail in Chicago) than it has previously. I don't believe that being "mini-featured" again helped the situation. I was not even informed it was to happen this time. I just found a large increase in traffic coming from the spaces.live site and went there to unexpectedly encounter me.

I've rolled my snake eyes now and there is clearly a need of some change. I don't exactly know what that will involve. At very least it will be seen in changes to the site. I don't like it here anymore, the way things currently stand. I see my friends passing through in my stats, but apparently fearing to comment lest they become covered with the shit that is being thrown by the fans. I don't blame them in the slightest. I have put the RSS feed module back such that anyone that wonders what sort of fool I'm making of myself at the moment may do so without worry. I have begun to pare down some of the lists and, after I archive them, may well do so with very old posts. There will be other, much less obvious changes, and some glaring attempts to make a buck by filling out the book list with some of the works that have been influential in my life. Don't expect to see anything on the last 20 years' best sellers lists.

And so it goes.

Peace, Doc

"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck you' right under your nose." - J. D. Salinger

"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel (blog?) is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae." - Kurt Vonnegut

Ooh, Bad Review

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 15:39:17 GMT

Well, Dear Me! I must say that life has its ups and downs. Last week I was featured by Spaces Live and this week I have received a less than flattering review by Scoop O'Malley, the Hippie Investigator of Spaces. Scoop has appeared here before as "Rick," "Dr. Rick," "The Coffee Guy," "No Name," and various other aliases. He admits on another Space that this is his 23rd site. I think he got one part of the review right. I probably would have gotten a glass of water and scavenged for free peanuts or other staples of life. Go on over and see what he has to say about me. After you do, PLEASE realize that if any of you have messages from this person, in any of his various guises, they are aimed at ME, and not at you. He does not comment on my Space any longer because I will simply delete them so he has taken to leaving undesirable comments on my friends' sites.

Take comfort in the knowledge that Scoop has just bitten off more than he can chew.

Peace to my Friends, Doc

"Great, irresistible fun. (Scoop) is hardly the first to compile a 'lexicon of invective' but (he's) done it better than anyone in quite a while..."—Buffalo News, November 2002 (Author Unknown.)

And We Will All Be Blown Away

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:49:36 GMT

When I was growing up in the 1950's, we practiced saving ourselves from the nuclear holocaust, which we believed was as likely as a tornado, by hiding under our little grade school desks. At the time it concerned me that I was leaving a portion of my anatomy unprotected, but our teachers pretended to know differently so that we wouldn't be too afraid. Not as afraid as they were, at least.

In January, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that the hands of Doomsday Clock were moved ahead another two minutes to five minutes till midnight. The closest it has ever been was two minutes till midnight when the United States tested the first Hydrogen Bomb and the US/USSR arms race escalated in 1953. The farthest it has been from midnight was in 1991 at 17 minutes, as the Cold War was officially over and the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty was put in place. More recently (by some,) the deterioration of the ozone layer, climatic changes, and the like have been factored into the equation that predicts this Armageddon

This time, it really doesn't seem to have been a necessary danger, supported by a national policy or need; only to a refusal to change direction by an egotistical, vainglorious decider that can't (won't?) even correctly pronounce the word that will ultimately kill us all if he stays on the current course. I think we all know what will happen when we eventually leave Afghanistan and Iraq. They will quickly revert to autocratic theocracies. To me, it has appeared from the beginning of the Iraq war that there was a more covert but obvious motivation; that the US have a pretense for having a large military force in the Gulf Region. Having one carrier group there was necessary to the Iraq action. We now have two. A third carrier group is now sailing to the Gulf. I bet they aren't armed only with "conventional" explosive weapons. * sigh *

An interesting notion I learned in undergraduate school was that of "super-threat." It was really just a different manner of explaining defense mechanisms. Simply stated, when anything threatens us too much for us to bear, we will find a way to lessen that threat rather than dealing with it directly. We suppress, repress, intellectualize, make jokes, engage in calming cognitive-behavioral actions, etc. I remembered a song that was "popular" during the height of the Cold War but after searching various sites using various methods, I cannot determine who sang it (The Kingston Trio? The Smothers Brothers?) but I do have the lyrics. It illustrates the principle perfectly, many years after it was needed to relieve the tension of the times. Let's all sing together now:

They're rioting in Africa,

They're starving in Spain,

There's hurricane's in Florida,

And Texas needs rain

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls,

The French hate the Germans,

The Germans hate the Poles,

Italians hate the Yugoslavs,

And I don't like anybody very much.

But we may be thankful and tranquil and proud,

That man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud,

And we know for certain, that some lucky day

Someone will set the spark off

And we will be blown away.

They're rioting in Africa,

There's strife in Iran.

What nature doesn't do to us,

Will be done by our fellow man.

Peace (Please,) Doc

Many quotations are appropriate here. I'll try to limit myself.

"...And these atomic bombs which science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men who used them." - H. G. Wells, 1914

"...I am become death, destroyer of worlds." J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Manhattan Project on the occasion of the success of Project Trinity. (He actually used this quote from the Bhagavad Gita shortly after. His initial response to the first atom bomb was, "It worked!")

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it." - John Lennon