Quick Hitts

Once again Big Brother is mucking around in the market, and once again the consequences are horrible.  Trade in your old gas guzzler for a new car and your Uncle will suck money out of your fellow tax payers’ pockets and stuff it in yours.

For cars a 4 MPG increase gets you the $3500 bonus, and 10MPG gets you the full $4500. If you buy a truck a 5 MPG increase gets you the full $4500 bonus.  A mere 2 MPG increase will get you $3500.

How does this suck?  Let me count the ways.

1) Buying a new car is stupid.  Nothing deprecates faster than a new car.

2) You wouldn’t visit your neighbor, stick a gun in his face, and say “I’m buying a new car.  Gimmie 4500 bucks.”  But if you take advantage of this offer you’re doing the same thing, just spreading it out across more neighbors and having the biggest bully in the world point the gun for you.

3) When you’re figuring out how much gas you’ll save with your shiny new car, be sure to figure in the energy cost of building it.  Making a new car takes the energy of about 1,000 gallons of gasoline, depending, of course, on the vehicle.  Hybrids take 1,600 gallons to build.  Do the math.  No matter how bad your gas mileage is now driving your old car for another year will do more to save the planet than replacing it.

4) Young people and poor people drive cheap cars because that’s all they can afford.  This program demands that the old cars be destroyed. The remaining older vehicles will go up in price, putting them beyond the reach of people who need a cheap car to get to a job so they can eventually afford a decent ride.  So you’re not only screwing the planet, you’re also screwing the poor.

5) Congress budgeted $1 billon for this program, but that’s already gone, so now they’re adding an additional $2 billon.  Republicans are pointing to this and saying “It’s three times the original cost.  So can you believe the Democrat’s health care numbers?”  This really pisses off the Democrats, because it’s a good point.

6) Now for the really scary part.  You won’t see this unless you fill out the online form to get your handout.  As part of the process you’ll get the terms and conditions screen, that leaglease that nobody reads before clicking the “I Accept” button.  It contains this paragraph:

This application provides access to the DoT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the US Government. Any or all uses of this system and all files may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DoT, and law enforcement personal, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign. (Emphasis added)

That’s right folks, if you take part in this program you give Big Brother the right to read, copy, monitor and inspect every single thing on your computer, and do anything they damn well please with it.  Your financial records.  That spreadsheet where you keep your passwords.  Your once private love letters.  All your e-mail.  That clip from “The Whole Nine Yards” featuring a full frontal shot of Amanda Peet naked.  Your favorite porn.  Every MP3 file (are they all legal?).  You’re giving them carte blanche to everything everywhere in your computer, and permission to use it however they like.

And if that’s not enough to keep you from the program, you’re beyond smartenization, and too stupid to be reading this blog.

Update: It turns out the onerous language was on the dealer side, not the consumer side, so it was only the dealers agreeing to let the feds grab all their data.  Furthermore, due to pressure and bad publicity, it’s been reported that they’ve modified the language somewhat.  Thanks to John, who provided the details in the fourth comment to this article.

Sometimes it takes forever for someone to get the joke.

Update: The site is down.  You can find the same thing here.

This is an absolutely brilliant plan to fix California’s economy.  After inventing a pesticide that’s good for people, she’ll have farmers food on fruit trees and vegetable trees.  It will be free, except for paying the farmers, who have to pay rent, although their land should be free. . . Confused?  Just watch this and she’ll clear it all up.

Just a reminder, in case you haven’t listened to my interview with PodioRacket, you can find it here.

Blood Witness has received a lot of attention and kudos, and this was a fun interview that got into some of the inspiration behind the book.  Check it out.

I recently received a link to the latest Nicotine Nazi handbook (PDF).  It provides detailed, step by step plan these spineless goobers can use to coerce Big Brother into to imposing their will on business owners.

I usually try to be witty and pithy in these columns, working in the clever metaphor or silly pun, but my hatred for these scumbags, the most useless and vile of all the parasites who infest our planet, requires a more direct approach. They are more disgusting than two day old hotdog water.  The only way to describe them accurately is with a copious amount of obscenity.

The best way to demonstrate their evil is to quote directly from their own document.

“Advocates new to the smokefree indoor air movement often wonder why they should bother trying to convince local elected officials to enact a strong smokefree indoor air ordinance when they could put the matter on the municipal ballot and let voters decide. The answer to this question is found in the experiences of smokefree advocates around the country, which indicate that ballot initiatives are NOT the preferred method to enact local and state smokefree laws.”

I’ve never been a fan of direct democracy, especially when it comes to voting on people’s rights.  (This is a property rights issue.  If you’ve been conned into believing it’s a health issue, please keep reading to get Smartnized.®)  But they are opposed to it, not for any philosophical reason, but because it’s not 100% successful.  There are several cases of people choosing freedom over nannyism.  That simply can’t be allowed.

They show their true colors in the Dealbreakers section, which outlines why any compromise must be avoided.   The first item is ventilation.  Ventilation units are available that can make the air inside a bar full of smokers cleaner than the air outside, but they continue to lie about this, proving it’s not a health issue.  If it were, they’d be demanding ventilation instead of fighting it.

They work through a long list of compromises, rejecting every one with idiotic rationalizations.  They never mention their actual reason: the compromises are reasonable and allow choice, two things they simply won’t tolerate.

They come down particularly hard on “hardship exemptions,” where venues that can prove the ban has caused significant losses are allowed to go back to treating their smoking customers like human beings.  In realty, hardship exemptions are a joke.  New York’s draconian anti-smoker/anti-business law had a hardship exemption, but the Department of Health simply refused to allow them no matter how badly the venue was hurting.  They handed out less than a half dozen exemptions in the entire state.

NNs constantly harp on the idea of protecting the workers who have chosen to work in smoky environments.  These anencephalic asswipes will never admit that they’ll also protect them from the inconvenience of a steady job and a regular paycheck.

Let’s get back to their freedom abolishing how-to:

Sunset provisions:

A “sunset provision” stipulates that a law will expire on a certain date unless it is renewed, and it carries with it the inference that there is some reason to revisit the law, perhaps in order to ensure that the law is not having an adverse economic impact or other negative effects. Sunset provisions unfairly place the burden on the public health community to prove that the law is working successfully and to advocate for its renewal. Public health measures should be permanent and should not be left vulnerable to political pressures to allow these measures to expire. Advocates should not be forced to fight the same battle over and over again.

So they can apply political pressure, but no one else should be able to.  They can attack businesses year after year after year after year, forcing them to fight back year after year after year, but if they win they want it done for, forever.

Exemptions for membership associations (Private Clubs):

Membership associations (also referred to as “private clubs”) are rarely private at all. The public may be misled to believe they are “private” spaces, but in practice, they are often open to the public at certain times and may have paid employees. If an organization has employees, it should be treated like any other workplace. Smokefree laws should apply to all workplaces, regardless of ownership. The only exception to this rule may be if the membership organization is entirely closed to the public at all times and has no paid or volunteer employees. Keep in mind that membership associations routinely comply with public health and safety laws (building codes, sanitation laws, etc.) so complying with a smokefree law would not be out of the ordinary.

Here they show their complete disdain for the very concept of private property.  I suspect part of the problem is that these mega-douchebags would never be allowed in a private club, (the Whiny Little Bitch Club wasn’t a financial success) so they want everyone to be as miserable as they are.

Exemptions for tobacco retail shops, cigar bars, and hookah bars:

These exemptions, although once common, are no longer the norm. The tobacco industry and other opposition groups continue to assert that these establishments warrant exemption. In reality, these businesses are no different than any other workplace or public place. All employees, no matter where they are employed, deserve the right to breathe clean air at work.

Here’s a free clue, you miserable shitstains: Nobody works in a cigar store unless tobacco is their favorite vegetable.  Tobacconists and their employees pride themselves in their thorough knowledge of cigars and pipe tobacco.  They can tell you more about a Hoyo de Monterrey Double Corona than a wine snot can tell you about a vintage Merlot, and they gain most of that knowledge through (shudder) smoking!

Cigars from a tobacconist cost at least 2-3 times the on-line price.  There are only three reasons to by them there.

One minor reason is to sample a stick or two before deciding if you’d like to buy a box on-line.  The other minor reason is the “mercy sale,” a purchase made just to help the place out.  But the major reason, hell, the real reason, is to sit in the cigar lounge and enjoy a smoke with other cigar lovers.

We’re a very diverse bunch.  Visit any cigar lounge and you’ll meet people from every economic level, with every political viewpoint, every religious affiliation and every personality type, except for one.  You’ll never find a dickless weasel in a cigar lounge.  No wonder the nannies hate us.

Grandfather clauses:

These provisions establish separate rules for restaurants, bars, or other hospitality businesses based on the date that they obtained their operating permit. Grandfathering in establishments that have a permit as of a particular date locks in a two tier system of smoking restrictions. It is unfair to employees and customers of older establishments to deny them the health protections that apply in newer establishments. Again, smokefree laws are only effective and fair when they make all businesses in a given category smokefree. In addition, these provisions may open the door to legal challenges by business proprietors who claim that their businesses are being placed at a competitive disadvantage and point out that the provisions are not based on legitimate public health grounds. (Emphases added.)

Here they dance around the ugly truth – if most businesses are forced to go smoke free, the revenues of the few exempted venues will soar at the expense of those burdened with the nanny law.  Naturally, those affected will complain about it, and in the process expose one of the nicotine nanny’s biggest lies: bans are good for business.

The experiences of countless campaigns show that no matter how small or isolated a community, the tobacco industry, its allies, and other organized opposition groups will go to great lengths to prevent, overturn, or undermine the enactment and implementation of a strong smokefree law.

Too bad this isn’t true.  Although there are rare exceptions, Big Tobacco usually ignores pending bans, much to the consternation of the business owners who could use a little help in their fight for freedom and property rights.

Newer advocates often swear that they have never heard from the opposition. But the industry often operates beneath the radar, since it has essentially no credibility at the community level.

The industry seldom operates at all, although anyone who opposes smoke free laws can expect to be accused of working for the tobacco industry.  On the flip side, the “health” industry is always a hidden partner of the Nicotine Nazis.  The biggest dirtbag in this scam is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the “charity” arm of Johnson & Johnson.  They funnel money to The American Cancer Society and similar organizations, which pass it on to the NNs, who may not even be aware that they’re dupes of Big Pharma.  It’s textbook astroturfing.

Smokefree laws are one of the most powerful weapons in the public health arsenal. If you pursue them strategically, drawing on the principles and lessons outlined above, you can reap major benefits for your community. In addition to protecting all people from secondhand smoke exposure, smokefree laws also help smokers quit and change norms about the social acceptability of smoking.

And there’s the bottom line folks.  Literally – it’s the bottom line of their document.  These fucktard’s real goal is to force people to quit.  They’re doing it by conning the public into considering smoking, and especially smokers, abnormal.  This is what really drives them.  I’ve been dealing with these wankers for a years, and seen hate that would make a Klansman jealous.  People driven by this much hate won’t ever stop, unless we stop them.

So far, our record sucks.

More Info:

If you’ve been duped into believing that second hand smoke is dangerous, visit The Facts and get Smartenized.

If you think it’s inapprorpate to call then Nazis, find out why it’s the perfect description.

As an amateur chief I’m always looking for new ingredients to make my meals more interesting.

For instance, one of my favorite ingredients is bulgogi sauce, a meat marinade made with Korean pear. You won’t find it in the supermarket. You’ll have to go to a store that specializes in Asian food. I don’t have any left, so don’t have the brand name handy. Look for a wide mouth jar with a red cap and red label that says “Made With Korean Pear.”

Start with an inexpensive cut of meat, like a London broil. Hammer it, then cut it into slices about 1/8 inch thick. Put the meat and sauce in a Ziplock bag and marinate it for 24 hours. Fondle the bag a couple of times during the day to mix up the marinade. Grill the meat over high heat until it gets just a little charred and crunchy. If you’re really ambitious, serve it up with a side of Corn Maquechoux.

In my never-ending quest to find new spices, spice combos, flavorings and ingredients, I came across something I will never try, and I suggest you avoid it too. I don’t care how hungry you are, or how desperate you are, never, ever, cook with this.

I’m about to start a novel that will have some complex characters and an intricate plot. After hearing writers sing the praises of Scrivener, which is a Mac only application, I’ve been looking for something that will do the same thing on a PC.

I’d like to be able to create an outline, character files, plot files, the text of various chapters, notes, random ideas, and of course the text of the novel, and have it all available on one screen. It should be easy to jump from one thing to another and if I change something – say, the position of the scene or the name of a file, everything should update automatically. I want to be able to add margin notes, like “research this” or “sounds clumsy, rewrite” and get to them quickly. All that stuff should be on a sidebar, or otherwise easily accessible. And when it’s finished I need to be able to export the manuscript to Word.

I tried Liquid Story Binder. There are a plethora of options – binders, planners, storyboards, etc – but they all look the same. Once the window is open you can’t tell what it is. I can’t figure out how to link things – nothing in the program is intuitive. The instruction manual is a joke. Even worse, the second time I loaded it, the files I started with are gone, and so is the example book that came with it. They’re listed on the file menu, but won’t come up. Since I don’t plan on writing the entire novel in one sitting, the program is useless.

Next I tried Keeper, which appears to be better, but has one fatal flaw: New pages are titled “Untitled 1,” “Untitled 2,” etc, and there’s no way to change it! It also keeps everything, including the example files. Evidently once you put something in there you’re supposed to keep it forever. Since I’m not writing about Sparta or the Greek Pantheon of Gods (the samples that came with it), I don’t need those in the sidebar. But they’re there, evidently, forever. At least until I uninstall the program, which I’ll be doing soon.

I’ve found lots of other similar software out there, but rather than spend days looking at various programs to find one that might do the trick, I’m asking you fine folks for advice. Is there any fiction writing software you’d recommend?

Two other requirements: It has to have a free trial download, and it can’t be too expensive (no more than $50 or so).