30.12.11

28.12.11

It is MY cliff

What the hell is this web log even about? Why did I use the root instead of saying "blog?" Not all of these questions will be answered, but tonight I am going to metablog... I think.

In reality I would like to chat about what this blog is about. I am pretty sure blogs started as some sort of sick and perveted vanity journal. People scribbled in their journals by candlelight ages ago, longing for the world to read their thoughts. "If only more people knew what I think, then they would understand." Previously I would have said that nobody cares about what you think, but here we are, in a day and age where people make a damn living commenting on the world around them. Not like that is new in any sense, critics have been doing that for years. In todays world though, we no longer have a need of newspapers, review shows. Reviews are posted online, in text and video format. I honestly wonder what that volume of data generated every day is. I also wonder how much of that is total crap.

What sets MY blog apart? What makes my little cliff different as a dangle my feet over the edge and ponder the world?

In a nutshell? Nothing. I am just another guy. Words describe me, and the same words describe a bunch of other people. I am sure I am different, but the niceties of my personality become apparent in the nuances of my enunciation.

Should I give this blog a topic? A general theme? Yeah, ME. This is MY blog, these are MY words, this is MY cliff, This is my little area where I get to be myself and talk about the crap that I care about. So what do I care about? Oh, a lot of things. Let me make you a convenient list.

  • Guns - I am a soldier, I like em, deal.
  • Politics - I like to be involved and educated on the wiles of the nobles.
  • Parenting - I want to be a father one day, A GOOD ONE, so I think about it a lot.
  • Religion - Or the lack there of. I am an atheist personally, I try not to be a dick about it.
  • Video games - Love em, maybe ill review one someday. I guess this includes all entertainment, like video and text/narrative.
Yeah, those are some of the things I like, U guess ill be talking about that kind of stuff. I reserve the right to change crap and talk about whatever, it is MY cliff...

26.12.11

The American people practically designed Russia's next rifle

Took a trip out to the Larch Mountain shooting pits. It was a horribly planned trip, we were supposed to meet at a certain time, but everyone was late, but not late in a way that synced up in any way, cards were de-magnetized, ammo was purchased, the map was lost and forged anew en route, trucks gasped for fumes as we chugged through the clouds up a mountain...

GOOD

MEN

DIED!

But in the end we made it up, less Jim... Jim always dies. We shot off a nice sum of ammunition, and checked out some of the other rifles the people had up there. That's what it is you know, a social hobby. You know? Meeting new people with similar interests? Take a friend who has never been shooting, shooting, and meet new friends at the range. For the love of god though, don't forget some good earplugs.

When I got home from my adventure, which for those who weren't there for some reason, involved a mall and a Kalashnikov, I began to peruse the news. After a moment I happened across this story about Japan. All it really says is that Japan can now export military equipment, and I assume contracts (as it talks about them getting some F-35s). One of the first things I thought of when I saw it was "So can I buy surplus Japanese gear now?" After I mulled over that thought for a good 1/18th of a second I realised that selling surplus military equipment is quite possibly the best thing a nation can do!

You see, soldiers are trained to not complain, it's the first of many things you learn not to do! :D And beside the fact we do it anyway, we don't do it a lot. Now civilians on the other hand, they can do what they want. Take a look at the M16 line of weapons (to include the M4), it had a rocky start as a piece of equipment, and grew over time (mostly because that start was REALLY rocky...) and then kind of petered off. But in one of the latest Requests for Proposals (RFP) the military essentally took a look at what the civilians had souped up the rifle to be and said "I want what they're having."

Now this does not just go for rifles, many [avoid weasel words] airsofters use old military equipment for their military simulation gameplay, and while shooting plastic BBs at each other hardly qualifies as combat use, they don't mess around. When you have people using equipment free from regulations they begin to change it to suit their needs, and if they are using it in a similar capacity to how the military would (like having pouches hold magazines, or radios) the innovations and changes made in that field affect the other, improving the equipment the military uses.

But why stop there? Governments subzidize all kinds of things, so why not military equipment? Which got me to thinking...

Japan is renowned for shitty military arms, and what better way to fix that than selling semiautomatic versions to the American consumer for a dirt cheap price? Sure the market will scoff "Pah, it's just a shitty Japanese rifle!" they will proclaim loudly! But after their friends leave the store they will pick up a rifle for $300, and a few boxes of ammo. Soon everyone will have one, they will joke, say they got it as a conversation piece, or as a "social rifle." But give them time. Just like those maniacs who would soup up a VW Beetle, so too will the garage gunsmith fine tune Japan's rifle. Aftermarket parts will come out, at first to replace the parts that most often break, after that, to make them stronger, faster. Accuracy a problem? Not anymore, Jim figured out that if you just do this... BOOM, about as good as a sniper rifle on a bad day. Doing this would not only be good, it would make Japan money!

How do I know that would happen? Why, it already did. With all the accessories for AK type rifles being produced for the American consumer market, the American people practically designed Russia's next rifle.

23.12.11

Merry Christmas

Christmas is coming, it is going to be amazing. Now, I am not a Christian, but my family traditionally celibates it together. We do need to see each other once a year, how else will be beg each other for money? Lol, no we just meet together and exchange the greatest currency of all.

Sexual Innuendo.

Merry Christmas.

21.12.11

What a debacle

Late again, sigh. the trip home was... eventful to say the least. Just a few hours into our journey we t-boned a car on the highway. With the amazing combination of fog and ice I am honestly suprised that nobody was seriously hurt. Myself and my two friends in the car emerged unscathed, thigh my laptop did not fare so well... The worst injuries were in the other car. One guy about 20 was walking around saying he had a concussion, but the fact that he was walking around saying he had a concussion, with no swelling on his head, was a clear indicator that he was just a little bitch. His baby on the other hand... had a MASSIVE bump on his forehead. But it was not red swollen, and honestly the kid was the calmest of everyone there. It got better from there. They were traveling in a convoy and piled in their other car and were on their way. We, on the other hand. Stood outside for about 4 hours trying to fix the car, but to no avail. It was a pretty low speed collision, and their car ran still... we had hope. Eventually we got towed and dropped off at a diner. After a bit a friend's dad came and drove us to the Seattle area, and from there I got a ride with a friend down to Vancouver. What a debacle.

18.12.11

Late blog, apologies

I apologize for being late. I left town and got into a car accident. Ill resume my schedule... on the day of the moon.

14.12.11

On a rocket powered wheelchair

ADD is a common topic in todays world, as are the drugs that are prescribed to counter it. Like several other people I wonder how many kids actually need treatment, and how many just need some better guidance. Mind you I don't just want to talk about ADD, there are a bunch of other things that can effect learning! Brain chemistry is remarkably complex, and often people refuse to acknowledge that we are so much a machine as to be manipulated by a little pill.

My experience with ADD is somewhat firsthand. I was diagnosed and treated with something, a learning disability ("retardation" is the English word for that, FYI), I don't remember what it was exactly, I was young and did not make it a habit to record my medical history. I remember I took Citalopram, which apparently is used to treat depression and anxiety.

Growing up in the US' education system there were a lot of ways to get ahead. I remember in middle school I had a special plan, or status in the schools records that permitted me to take longer on stuff, or dictate assignments that would be written, and a myriad of other considerations designed to help me perform better in school. It was quite nice of them.

The story for both... is the same, and oddly grounded in a realization I had in World of Warcraft. Yes, the MMORPG.

Lets start with a simple saying, probably from the Media. I suppose I should also tell you that everything I say gets echoed in my head several times, and often several times under my breath.

"Drugs are bad, drugs make you someone you are not, they make you someone else."

Playing World of Warcraft (WOW) I was a priest, a healer, and I had the ability to make a wide variety of potions that would boost my abilities. One day I was dueling someone and I used my self made potions, and won. After the fight the other person said I cheated and that using potions in a duel was akin to steroids in sports. Then it hit me, this is exactly how I felt in reality.

Years before, in middle school I had looked at my special plan and seen a set of roller blades, that I got to wear in the footrace because I was slow. Regardless of what it was in reality, that is how I felt, so it was real to me, using the plan made me feel dirty, it made me look at the special education class and thing "that is where I really belong, I am retarded." So, I did not use it, I got rid of it, and it cost me.

Years before that, in elementary school I got prescribed Citalopram, I used it for awhile. I was probably too young to notice the effects on myself, and my mother noticed this. She noticed a difference in my skin sensitivity and demonstrated that when off the drug i was so sensitive to stimuli that I could feel a single hair on my forearm, and that when off the drug I was less sensitive to stimuli, and therefore less prone to distraction. But in my mind the thoughts I had internalized rang clear.

"Drugs are bad, drugs make you someone you are not, they make you someone else."

I was young, I was determined to be independent, to be strong, to be myself, and these drugs made me someone else, someone more. If I could not succeed as myself, what was the point? Everyone else does these things, I am not inferior to them... I am a genius! I am strong, I can do this, I can beat them, by myself, the way I was meant to be! I will, work, harder!

So I poured my pills down the sink,
and it cost me.

It cost me school, and in my mind at the time it cost me a wonderful girlfriend, so it was real to me...

Eventually I dropped out and joined the army, which honestly was a good decision (I say as I enjoy free college at the age of 22), but I feel like I could have done better at life as a whole. My time in the army was good, but the whole time felt like a deployment. I never "settled in" to the military life, never made it completely my own. No matter where I was, I was waiting to go back home to see my friends. I was so eager to see all my friends that I planned and scheduled out every hour of my leave, it felt more like work than my work at a military hospital. I digress...

Talking about "performance enhancing drugs" for studying... I was dumb when I was a child, and I still don't like to take drugs. Ill be in quite amount of pain before I even think of ibuprofen for my hip, but maybe it is time to rethink my personal policy. I am not talking about drug abuse, I am talking about doing whatever the rules of life let you do to win. I am talking about entering into that race, the race of life, on a rocket powered wheelchair.

12.12.11

Why just spoken languages anyway?

I try to make it a habbit to peruse the TED talks, new ideas being shared, makes me happy. I happened across this one by the guy who helped make the captcha, now he is focusing his efforts on a new endeavor, and I find it quite noble.



Being bilingual is a personal goal of mine, and his "duolingo" idea is quite novel. It accomplishes something good, and helps people learn another language. I really hope they have this in Russian :)

Talking about the education system again, in the US we start teaching languages far too late. We should introduce kids to a wide variety of different languages before they are 10. I would be happy if I could have a conversation like this with my 7 year old:

"What classes do you have now?" I said to my child.
"French, multiplication, and python."

Why just spoken languages anyway?

10.12.11

Self-educating children.

Shut up! I have not slept yet, so it's still Friday to me! >.<

But in all honesty I did make a commitment to update every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday... and I fucked it up on day two. I could spin some excuse based on the various things that happened today, but honestly I played "Call of Duty: Black Ops" for about 45 minutes, so I have no valid excuse.

I did have a great time with all that other stuff that occupied my time though... ^.^

Anyways, something entertaining... I don't have any followers right now, so honestly I am only entertaining myself, and if someone finds what I do here entertaining I guess they are cool enough to stay. So...

Ill just talk about the education system.

It's fucked.

There are many different styles of learning, and many different styles of teaching, why cant we try and sync that up? And I am talking about just the U.S. here, I don't have any experience with other schools.

I know one of the big issues is pay, but in all honesty, I don't see how that is a problem. If you cannot make ends meet on $54k a year you are doing something wrong. Not to mention that sweet summer vacation you get...

One of the largest problems I can think of with the educational system is not even a part of the educational system, it's the parents. I may be critical of their pay, but I will in NO WAY deny the stress of dealing with kids all day. Sure it can be rewarding, but I am sure it can be equally punishing. But the parents seem to offload their responsibilities as parents onto the school district, and blame the school district for problems in their children. How many parents have taught their kids how to learn? Did your parents make you a deck of flash cards for your addition tables? If the parents don't take responsibility for teaching their own children how to learn, or how to study, what the hell good is a classroom environment going to do?

When I have children (which seems to be a trend of this blog) I will sit down with them after school and transcribe their notes into flash cards. At first it may be a pain, I remember being asked "what did you learn today?" by my mother, and replying "I don't know," but being able to recite a general lesson, or point out the parts of the textbook we read would have aided in my long term retention ability. Anyway- After school every day, flash cards. Every weekend, we go over the weeks flash cards, every month, ill have a game... Ill take the whole, sizable deck, and go through the whole thing. For every one correct they will get +1 reward (I have no idea what would be of value at the time), and for every wrong one, -2. I don't intend for the cards to be incredibly difficult, but they would be available. Hopefully this will have the effect of causing my kids to study by themselves, so they can earn more on their monthly exam. Of course this would guide them in a direction of only doing things for reward, not for personal gain, but if my childhood is anything like theirs, ill just need to turn on the history channel, and when they ask me a question, ill show them Wikipedia... once they learn how to check sources.

It is all part of my master plan you see,
Self-educating children.

7.12.11

Something I believe they call honor

Resolutions, goals, the things we strive for.

In my previous post I wrote about getting into a mindset, or habit of finishing what you start. Now I have had a million new years resolutions, and this was going to be one, but I thought to myself "No, this shit is always going to be something I do. I'm always going to go to the gym, just, you know... later." It became readily apparent that I was acting out (quite well in fact) the evils I had previously discussed. And you know what, I am going to do something about it, not later, not soon, not right after this thing I should totally go do, right fucking now.

I have seen several youtube serials, and read a few blogs. None of them are really that amazing, but they are successful. I was thinking to myself, "what makes them successful?" After some thought, and correcting for video channels that exist solely because their patron is an attractive female or some other outlier like that, I realized all these decently successful channels have a few things (mostly) in common.
1- Production value.
Not so much as a team of editors, rather they take a minute to set up lights so the camera can see them, and maybe jot down a few notes to guide their rant. Some of the best even proofread their blogs, for spelling errors, and sometimes even fact checking! Crazy I know, but the attention to detail, editing out of dead space, or splicing in a relevant photo as opposed to staring at a face or hands makes the video take less time and deliver more information, which I guess is what people are going for these days.
2- Consistency.
Seemingly more important than a little work into your product is delivering SOMETHING on time, and on a schedule. Not all the blogs or channels are great, but they are good, and they are there on time. No matter what crap goes on in my life I can count on Penny-Arcade and Xkcd to have something new on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And places that don't have an official schedule usually are updating even more frequently. Either way, the point is they are constantly putting out new things for their followers to enjoy, consistently.

That said, I don't need to go into any more kind of detail, but it shall be known, that I will do my best to have Kale's Cliff update every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I have never been too good with schedules, I wish myself luck. Though I suppose doing what I say I am going to do should be an integral part of my being, something I believe they call honor.

15.11.11

Now if only I had follow-through.

-- So, I had trouble in high-school. Well, middle-school too... ok, all school. And to help prevent any such trouble for any possible future children of mine, I am looking back on problems I had, and thinking of ways to raise the theoretical children where the problems I had will be nonexistent.
-- Looking back at myself I see a few problems that I had, and some that still linger with me, hindering my, quite expensive, college experience. I had trouble concentrating (which I know is quite normal), serious short term memory problems, difficulty completing individual assignments, and when I was in an academic hole I would easily lose hope and shut down. Now that was not amazingly descriptive, but Ill delve into more detail and some possible solutions to my problems.

-- Trouble concentrating is... everywhere, and difficult to combat. In our world of ADD and ADHD we like to treat everything away. I myself was diagnosed with ADHD or some equivalent (it was long ago, and I was young) and was proscribed some meds for it, which I am told helped. Unfortunately I felt like it was a crutch and threw my pills away, much to the dismay of my mother- apparently they were expensive or something. But in my quest to compete with the rest of humanity from the same start point I eventually found a workaround solution that at the time I called "hyper-threading."
-- Now, hyper-threading from what I understand was a computer buzzword that meant the processor switched between tasks at incredible speed or something, it made sense at the time and what it is called is largely irrelevant. So, the problem I found, with my mind at least, is that the more I isolated myself and my senses, the more my mind would wander. If I secluded myself in my room where all there was to do was the assignment, anything would peak my interest and draw me away. Now I am sure some of you KNOW this already, I know lots of people who study with music on in the background, or with something on the TV. But it was rather groundbreaking at the time for me. Up until then the answer was "you are easily distracted, we should remove all distractions," and I feel this is incorrect. The mind of the distractable, is going to be distracted. So the key lies in working with this urge and using it to cause the attention to bound back to the task at hand. Don't play new songs or TV shows, play old songs (not dance tunes, for the love of god not the dance tunes) or some old reruns on the TV that you have seen a million times. While focusing on your work, when your mind gets distracted, which for me was several times a second, your attention flows to the obviously entertaining medium assaulting your senses, but it being a boring old rerun your minds curiosity is fulfilled and you can immediately switch back to working on the assignment at hand. An additional key feature of using old songs or reruns that you know lies in the subconscious dialogue. When you get distracted by something you already know the questions is not as it would be for something new and exciting: "What is going on now?" it is instead "What part are they at now?" If you noticed, the second question evokes the process of memory, specifically the long term stuff. By using your long term memory as a whole during studying or working on assignments you strengthen that part of your mind as a whole, making it easier to recall later. Also if you have seen the episode a million times and know what happens, it's less likely to hold your attention for long.
-- So in short, train yourself to switch your focus quickly, and place yourself in situations where everything around you is rather known, so you can switch focus back to what you want to do rather easily.

-- Short term memory problems are not all that amazing, we have all had a situation where we forget a name we just heard, what we just ate, or who we just slept with. Short term memory loss like that is not uncommon, and it is so common in a school setting that I would dare to say it is ubiquitous, but I don't remember what that means. The kind of memory problem I had goes beyond this... so far beyond that it is safe to say it was not even memory at all, but rather active thought.
-- When I was in the third grade I started doing homework, kind of late, but Oregon's dump stat was education. It started simple enough with math problems, advanced new stuff. Now, we had to submit these all hand written, with the whole problem transcribed out of the book because it was the 1870s and pencils were all the rage, not really that difficult for anyone, but for some reason it took me an hour to do 20 problems, clearly am academic problem. My teacher at the time, Mrs. Gray, thought the best solution was to pull me aside and do a problem in 3 minutes. She did it several times several different ways and then asked me why I was stupid. Great educating I know. Looking back I can remember 1, I was actually pretty bad at simple math, and 2, it took me more than half that time just to copy the damn problem out of the book.
-- Transcription is an amazing process, you look at your source, read it, know it, move to where you are going to write it, hold the pencil right, shit what was the problem again? Wait, was I on three or two? let me just check my notebook paper, ah, two, awesome, so Ill just read three, wait was I ON two or did I finish two? No, three, ok, and it's... 3+2, woah, big stuff here, ok, dont use your fingers, that is cheating, haha, I have five fingers on my hand, if only that was relevant, ok, back to problem 2... wait a minute. fuck.
-- In the course of moving my eyes from one textbook to paper, I would manage to forget what problem I was on, and then lose faith in my own memory, question myself, check again, and repeat. My memory was SO BAD I could not hold on to three characters for a split second. Clearly this made it hard to do the work, but nobody could recognize the actual problem and help me, I sure couldn't. But now I am an adult, and luckily my long term memory is good enough for some hindsight.
-- Looking back I think a good way to remedy this would be to use common memory games, or flash cards, and with my children, ill start this at about age -3 months. Specifically a kind of game where someone showed me a flashcard for a moment, hid it, and then I had to write down what I saw. Later on the time it would be shown would be reduced, and the amount of text would become larger and less intelligible. A card with a phrase on it is easier to remember than a similar sequence of random bits. I like this idea, and I look forward to doing it with my children. I think it will prevent this from ever being a problem for them, and do other things, like increase reading speed, and perhaps some other things I can't even think of.

-- Slackers are everywhere, and while I often had amazing plans and ideas on how to do the assignment, I had terrible follow-through. This of course, would lead to slacking, and missed assignments, but I will get to that later.
-- Finishing things is not only important in school, but in everyday life. We all know people with outstanding aspirations and plans, and we all know they have had them for a million years. The most important part of any plan is actually doing it, all of it. Without finishing crap it is quite meaningless. If every half baked plan or idea in the past 100 years was fully baked and then implimented to it's end, success or failure, the world would probably be a better place. Of course someone would bring up the holocaust or WW2 in general, and there I must say, that's what happens when you have follow-through, results.
-- Now, assuming any child of mine would automatically be a person that would not commit genocide, I won't feel bad about raising them with a strong capacity of follow-through, but how to do this? As I said, this is not only important in school, but in all aspects of life. When making a person, as a parent, you would need to encourage, and if all else fails, force, a child to finish things they start, or are a part of. Always play games to the end, no matter how boring they are. later in life say 4-10, help them choose a craft idea, and help them finish it. Give them a passion for seeing their own finished works, and you will have given them a truly amazing gift.

-- In my life, I did not have an amazing ability to finish what I start. I always sought to get a new clean slate, often seeing my life as a movement from one clean slate to the next. I would struggle from one semester to the next, always tell myself how great the next year would be. In the end I did not finish high school, I got out and got a new clean slate in the army, which I got out of three months early to go to college, and now college is taking a downturn... hopefully ill pull through, but not next semester, but right now, in this one.
-- Often in school I would work myself into a hole. I would miss an assignment, getting a 0, miss another, get a 0, and eventually I would stop trying, not seeing how I could recover from so many scores of 0. Now, I am mostly to blame here, and I acknowledge that, I messed up my life, but some things helped. The problem with me was the fact I did not understand that a shitty assignment was still half credit, and that half credit was leaps and bounds over a big fat zero. It took me a while to figure out on account of my awkward dance with math. And the problem I see in society is the fact that getting something 59% done is portrayed as being the same as getting nothing done.
-- With myself it was strange, I would put off assignments to the last minute, then not do them because I did not think I could do them well enough to matter in the sliver of time I left myself. This of course it wrong. I won't explain how averages work here, but believe me when I say jotting down a shitty assignment and getting an F is better than a 0. And for the longest time I could just not grasp that. getting out of the massive hole of 59% seemed daunting to me. Something I needed to understand from a young age is that crap is better than nothing.
-- On that note I want to talk about the grading system. We all know it, 0-59=F, 60-69=D, 70-79=C, 80-89=B, and 90-100=A. Not universal, but it is close enough. I personally like this system, it is simple to remember, simple to apply, and simple to understand. But for some reason it intimidated me away from working further on anything. It made it seem like I could get so far on something, and still fail, which is true in life, but a bad mindset to have in early education. To fix this ill probably start my kids out on a scale similar to the GPA scale. a 0-4 representing the same scale above really. Deep in the psyche though I believe it will make everything seem easier. Instead of trudging up 59 stairs just to get into the realm of "frowningly acceptable" you step from 0 to 1. It just seems much less daunting a task, even though it is really the same as going from an F to a D on the other scale. Finding a way to prevent my kids from getting into my mindset on this specific matter is on my to do list...

Now if only I had follow-through.

26.9.11

Make sure your shoulder holster points down.


Some people are confused at why russian troops do all these rolls. I believe these originated with the Spetsnaz (Elite Soviet Troops), but why would they do this? Can they actually dodge bullets? Well no... you dodge where the enemy is going to put a bullet, your center of mass...
Some of the rolls are viable. You must remember that Special Forces are not often going against the enemies best shooters, they are strategically deployed to a large forces weak spot, which is most likely weak in part because the people guarding it are not amazingly proficient. Going against less proficient combatants a quick duck or roll out of the way can improve survivability. Not a lot mind you, but we do a lot for that extra %1 to our survivability. Special Forces vs Special Forces however…
A reason it might survive in training (apart from changing your velocity relative to a potential enemy shooter), is that it scrambles your balance a bit, and forces your mind to re-take-in the situation. The mind normally takes in one image, and provides to the rest of the brain any large and noticeable changes, if you jostle the image around enough you can prevent this and get all new data from your eyes. Mind you, in an actual combat scenario the fight or flight response would automatically up your perception to it’s maximum, so this can be seen as a method of providing confusion and disorientation that is common (or if not common, common enough to warrant training to counter) in a large combat zone during training, letting the soldiers know, if just a taste, what combat is like.
Another few reasons are physical in nature. It displays the physical conditioning of the soldiers, just try rolling all over the place, exhausting! It prepares the body for quick falls and blunt impacts, the type of thing that is common in combat.
As for the flagging and waving around of the rifles, Russian and former Soviet militaries don’t really seem to care about all that. Western Forces and gun enthusiasts in general are paranoid about it, and with good reason! Perhaps because we have better statistic gathering and know how many people were lost to friendly fire in ww2 (a large source of statistical information), while they did not have such luck or time to gather data while they were beating the Nazis for us. Either way, it has not been a problem for them, so they have not fixed it. Leave it alone, and ask them nicely to not point their guns at you. Then make sure your shoulder holster points down.

21.9.11

It's the beauty of negative reinforcement.

Advocates against hitting children for discipline are not against discipline. Even the people who say not to beat your kids discipline their children. The problem is people who do nothing except feed their brood and shove them off to school without proper discipline. Rowdy kids are a problem, trust me I know! Many parents should count themselves lucky there is not a “rowdy children” hunting season. There are a few ways you can get your kids to step into line.
1- Have children smart enough to think ahead to how what they are doing could be bad.
2- Punish your children psychologically.
3- Just hit the damn kid.

Good luck getting kids smart enough to look forward before the age of dead. This method needs to be taught to the child and reinforced from a young age. Most of the people I know who had quality hands off parenting (and graduated college) had two things - siblings their age (within ten years), and video games.
While it may sound rather crazy in the light of gore filled gunfests of orgasmic recoil, those aren't all that games are about. Many games are very simple, simple enough for kids to play, and punish you for not thinking ahead. Eventually kids will be forced to think playing games, "But the fire monster is somewhere around here, so I should take this bucket of water." While it may seem rather lame causing such a simple thought early in life can do one thing, make it instinctual for your child to look before they leap. So instinctual they do not even know they are doing it.

If you want to punish your kids psychologically it takes more than harsh words... sometimes. When you take away a toy, you need to take away a toy AND render it inoperable, because they WILL find it. Do NOT make them break it or burn it in front of them, psychological scars last forever and result in those kids you see smiling at you as you ask them to let you out of your burning garage.
To really work the mind angle in child rearing you need to have a knowledge of your brood. What do they value most? Now take that shit away! Xbox? Have your friend hold onto it for awhile. Books? PLUCK THEIR EYES OUT! Haha, not really, but take them away. Perhaps they are one of those kids with an imagination, what the hell do you do to them THEN! OH you got me now... No. Make them do manual labor. Take away their time... Some keys points to avoid here are making them hate things you want them to like. Don't take away their time by making them do school related things like math. Most of the good jobs of the future will require math, and a deep seeded hatred of basic arithmetic would be quite the stumbling block. No, add chores, make some up, have them rearrange the furniture or something. I don't know, you are the parent! Whatever you do, the CHILD needs to be able to DRAW A LINE connecting THE PUNISHMENT AND THE CRIME. if you EVER say "You know what you did bobby!" then you have failed. Even if they DO know, if they ask, tell them!
Never forget, go through with the punishment. If you say: "Bobby, if you watch television before you are done with your homework ill have Uncle Jim come over and take away the television until you can finish your homework reliably." DO THAT! Don't half ass your punishments, otherwise your kids will learn... that you are a pushover.

Violence is not inherently evil, and for some reason people seem to forget how effective it is. Just remember, you aren't bad for hitting your kids, you are bad if you hurt them. The problem with all punishments are that people will eventually work around them. Take away one thing, they learn to love another. While this is true of psychological things, pain has a rather... strange place in our lives. And it is a stimuli that can quickly be taken as pleasure, but ill elaborate on that later. For now, lets talk about tolerance.
When something happens, you get more used to it and desensitized to it. SO if you spank your kids, they will eventually have a higher pain tolerance, and be less responsive to the spanking. This may cause some parents to spank their kids so much they have an almost infinite pain tolerance! Which is cool if you don't remember that an enraged parent knows no fear and has the strength of the gods. You can hurt the kid. An occasional slap has it's uses, but you want more than half the effect to be that you actually hit them! Surprise and shock should be the main sensations the kids feel, not pain. If your kids look at you after you hit them with a face that says "Is that all you got?" you are probably hitting them too often...

On the “pleasure” cross over... awkward isn't it? But it is true. A great philosopher once said “There is no torture so horrible that a human won't eventually fetishize it.” And so much is true, humans are sick sick creatures. That is all I am going to say about that, i'm sure you can elaborate.
Last thing. I am sure you want good kids, smart kids, and kids who will one day not put you in a retirement home, and to raise smart kids you need to keep them thinking. Don't be predictable in your punishments, unless it is something like “Bobby you tracked mud all over the floor get in here and clean it up!” those are always the best punishments... But don't ever rely on one thing too much. Don't always take away the video games, don't always reduce allowances, don't always send them into siberia with just a knife. Change up your punishments,
It's the beauty of negative reinforcement.

14.7.11

Close the book, having enjoyed a good read.

It is the end of an era. A saga begun on text in the 90s, ending now, in film, in a new millenia. Harry was our generation's Star Wars, our Lord of the Rings, our Flash Gordon, and our Buck Rodgers. It is was will define us to nerds and geeks for this century and the next, and it is what will make us who we are in our lives to come. It has shaped our world, and truly spread literacy to forgotten corners of society. In short, it is a part of us, and through us it will make the world a better place for muggles everywhere.

4.7.11

That eve the sun never set.

The Fourth of July, fourth is capitalized because it is the name of the day... Oh wait no, It's Independence Day. Oh man, formal names... too much formality for one post.

What was the first 4th you remember? I know you can think back a little and remember playing with sparklers when you were young, but that is not what I am really talking about. When I say "4th of July" an image pops into your head, what is it? What makes it great? What makes it stick so hard to the word that it pops up in your minds eye when you hear it mentioned?

For me, it is the 4th of July in 2002, the one right after 9/11.

I was over at a friends house for the festivities, and in that regard it was normal. Foods grilled up, drinks at the ready, and clouds begging to be shot. As the sun went down it started like an orchestra. Light explosions in the distance, slowly growing louder. Before the sun even set the mortars were going off, illuminating the sky... which is normal for mortars, and went double because of the thick cloud cover reflected the light (more bang for your buck I suppose).

On this 4th, in 2002, the orchestra did not stop growing louder. The night went on, and the fire never ceased, as if the eve was Americas new foe, and we as a nation could slay him. Explosions echoed, those too strengthened by clouds. Flashes off in the distance, crackles, firecrackers, thunderous booms of even larger explosives. That night we made America into a warzone, and we fought our foe with patriotism the likes of which I have yet to see again.

It was July 4th 2002;
That eve the sun never set.

20.2.11

In this country we extort the poor, not just for war... for everything.

Todays entry will be in response to this photograph:

















The photo, from this article, states "The military preys on low income communities."

And you know what- YES! YES IT DOES! Any organization that consistently offers jobs and 100% on the job training does. And who is looking for jobs that do not
  • Require College education
  • Require High school education
  • Require A clean criminal background
  • Require high intelligence
  • Have any sort of race or gender bias for recruitment. (though they may for jobs)
And offers amazing perks like:
  • Free college
  • Free training
  • Free healthcare (WITH DENTAL! - and one free elective cosmetic surgery!)
  • Retirement after 20 years
  • Job related disability
  • Membership in nations largest gang
  • TYRANNOSAURUS REX!
-_-


"Hey, would you like amazing job security and free college for later in life? You know, a chance to save yourself from the shitter of a life you have?"
"But I'm a high school drop out meth addict with no marketable skills :("
"Get clean, and you could go to nursing school!"
-True story


But ok, I understand, "preying" on the lower class is UNACCEPTABLE, and I agree that we should implement the only possible effective solution:

The draft.

"But Kale! the draft... I mean, forcing all men 18-25 into mandatory service... that is just wrong!!!!"

Oh, I am so sorry! What was I thinking? Of course! Expand the draft to include women... and just to be safe throw in the word "hermaphrodite" - don't want any stragglers left out do we?

"Buh-t, uh... mandatory service is institutionalized slavery!"

Yup!

Now - shut up, because in this country we extort the poor, not just for war... for everything.

10.2.11

You are a terrorist.

Most of my blogs are horrible and hateful rants against the man... where I take a situation wherein I have been spited by someone or something outside of my control, and I construct a piss poor excuse for a logical defense and explanation where I am usually... well lets face it I'm awesome, so how about a happy blog post for once?

ME SO HAPPY!!! I heard today that the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. (yes, it is an acronym) act got denied its extension... and well... I may hate democracy with a thermite fire, but they done good this time.

You see, I like clear and defined rules... rules that are unbending and unyielding. When I say "Do not build on this 1x1 square foot of land" I mean do not fucking build on that damn plot of land. In no case did I say you could not build over it, stand on it, build next to it, etc. I hate ambiguity (though I use it to my advantage like a Swedish whore), and when your laws have a multi million dollar budget financing the people that just interpret the damn things... well I hate you. Anyway, that was a tangent, another thing I use like a whore. But yes, clear rules. And the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act was a horrible, horrible misuse of power and I honestly do not see any practical purpose that it served. I (the un'merican bastard that I am) see it as a bad encroachment on privacy. Not that I am all about privacy, and it may not be a right in the constitution (the inanimate paper that several Americans treat like an infaliable god) but as far as I know, our houses were ours... well... because you said so Mr. Sam!

Why was the act needed? From common knowledge (what a reliable source, I know) and passed around knowledge, it allowed warrantless searches, wiretapping, and seizures, on suspected terrorists.

If they are suspected terrorists, I assume you have evidence, you know, that shit you use to get a warrant...

Fucking dumbasses.

But man, I disapprove of the contemporary definition of terrorist as a whole. I remember sitting in class in the 8th grade... now I never really raised my hand in class, because I never really knew a damn thing, but that one day the teacher asked a question "Does anyone know the definition of 'terrorist?'"

I. RAISED. MY. HAND.

"Terrorist: One who uses fear or violence as a coercive tool to effect a political landscape."

Next time you hear an election ad, and it invokes fear - Terrorist.

Next time you see someone post a Hitler stash on a president - Terrorist

Next time you tell someone that the other candidate will destroy America...

You are a terrorist.