Unfettered Blather

I’m going to assume we’ve all seen this slogan before, its been around for decades and if there is ever a rumble in the middle-east or a protest to be had against a sitting president for any reason, this sign is seen during news footage usually accompanied by it’s companion “No blood for oil” Hell, it even shows up during relative peace during world summits (usually held up by people with bandanas around their faces or women in their 40’s, why is that?) I began to ponder the meaning of this and I have to ask:

Why not?

Seriously. What is so wrong with a wars fought over oil? I can assume many of these loons that carry these signs are doing it because they associate a war over oil as an automatic land grab by the mythical “imperialists” they often rant on about. A war over oil is a war over control of territory and thus by default, people and their way of life. The other avenue is that we are a oil “addicted” society and a war over an addiction is wrong. We should be suffering in order to force us to adopt earth friendly energy sources and as punishment for our way of life.

Frankly, oil to me is just as good of a reason to go to war as being denied any other natural resource. Wars over resources are probably some of the most clearly defined and logical as opposed to anything else. Why not go to war over oil, it seems like one of the most clear-cut and reasonable.

First let me state that we are a liquid fuel based culture. The problem is that we need to find a suitable replacement for oil in the long term and more internal oil to develop for the future. We need fuel that will power a society that runs on horsepower and electricity. Shaming society for it’s current state is not the answer. I think we should have developed internal fuel and resources a long time ago simply because they are so fundamental to the basic function of our economy and national security. To rely on others to provide the very resource that the fabric of your system depends on is foolishness in the extreme and those not involved in means to breaks us away from this dependency need to question their priorities.

With that lets examine a few basic facts. Any nation runs on natural resources. Oil for plastic and fuel, coal for power, ore to make metal and cereal grains for nourishment. Everything we create is based in a earth given material. We need and exchange these materials with others that lack certain materials they also require.

While internal development must always be essential, if you are being denied fundamental resources for the continued health of your nation then that is a legitimate reason to attack another. It is listed as an “act of war” to do so. The problem is many fail to realize that the citizens of your nation are your responsibility, not the happiness of other nations, the image you present or their wellbeing. It is all good and fine to be a good neighbor but if your continued success and stability is threatened and you cannot resolve it through negotiations then war is a perfectly acceptable and viable option.

Wars over resources are probably the most common. I know oil has been demonized but do you think people would scoff at going to war over food stuffs? Do we see “No blood for rice” signs? There is no real difference. No fuel translates in to a domino effect that damages every aspect of your society including the most basic fundamentals. No fuel means costlier food production and increased food costs meaning people buy less product to buy fuel and food at inflated prices. Cause and effect in the long and short term.

You can adopt alternatives to some commodities and buffer the impact, limiting it’s range, but fuel is so essential that there is no way to shield from it.

No fuel can literally translate in to people starving given enough time and deep enough ripples. Is going to war over your populace suffering not enough justification? What about maintaining the ability of your people to lead healthy, productive lives? You know, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Frankly the entire idea is stupid. I’m not going to debate alternatives to fuel usage or conspiracy theories. These are the usual responses to these arguments. The point is reasoning, justification and the responsibility of a government to care for it’s people where war is concerned and in these cases, the choice is clear. Many do their best to assign blame or cloud the issue, but in the end it doesn’t change the situation.

If you want to debate the actual reasons for going to war, go ahead, We can talk about what we should have done in the past to have avoided a current problem. We should lament being forced in to war over the mistakes others have made in the past, but that doesn’t change the responsibility of those in the present to remedy a crisis. We play the hand we are dealt. A good leader looks atthe short and long term, casts off the mistakes those before him has made and fixes the situation at hand. Crass moral reasoning that you are waging war over the mistakes of others is an ethical straw dog approach.

Trying to make it about a resource you have demonized as being “bad” while ignoring the basic points of why wars are fought and the importance of resources only shows your ignorance. I’m not a fan of war and it is a last resort, but if you won’t go to war over something essential, then what? Truthfully I think we as a culture have become so lazy and adverse to discomfort that we reject the notion of war based on flimsy and smug intellectual reasons that are murkier than a barrel full of crude.

Take it with a grain of salt. I know Jason is a Guitar Hero fan but my ire is focused at the rest of the world and darn it, I just can’t help but mock trends for my own amusement.

There is a lot of misconceptions about the creativity and unique attributes of Guitar Hero. Allow me to chart the Guitar Hero family tree for your reading pleasure:

The roots of Guitar Hero can be traced to a more or less linear progression. The history begins much like the current Guitar Hero, with a cultural fad:

Simon (1978)

Guitar Hero’s “father” as it were, Simon shares a great deal in common with it’s offspring. The original technology memory game, Simon was the cultural fad of the 80s, Guitar Hero shares this future camp status weather it acknowledges it or not. Simon used flashing buttons and memorization speed to keep the user entertained. There was a similar evolution to a hand held version strikingly similar to the guitar shape called “Bop It”

Guitar Hero’s primary difference is that it has dropped the actual memorization aspect in large part for a data stream approach that it’s primary progenitor pioneered:

Dance Dance Revolution (1998)

Probably best described as the original Guitar Hero (although many fans would scoff at the truth), DDR became popular by prompting users to “dance” on a giant d-pad while keeping track with the visual ques given on the screen. DDR is more than similar to Guitar Hero, only the method of interaction has changed in a tangible sense to something less physically demanding. The formula is essentially the same.

DDR was not without it’s flaws. The original concept was very much designed as an arcade only draw that suffered heavily in flavor as a home version (also refered to as the “Time Crisis Effect”). After the mass hysteria subsided and the cultural embrace mellowed out, the simple fact was you looked like a complete tool dancing on a DDR arcade machine. While there is still a debate on how much of a tool you look like while playing Guitar Hero or it’s competitor “Rock Band, there are certain pros and cons in it’s favor.

Please note, tool ratings are subject to change at any time.

The first is lack of public exposure. DDR as a home port stunk like a diaper bin, this meant in order to play it in proper fashion you needed to actually go in to public and jump around like a chimpanzee. Guitar Hero allows a quality home experience while avoiding public exposure. It’s popularity is possibly also tied to the lack of physical exercise required from the average gamer and from leaving the “game cave”.

Guitar Hero’s primary problem is that it is essentially“Air Guitar”. Outside of frat boys and possibly socially ostracized office coworkers, this is a dangerous activity to engage in because it surpasses even DDR in terms of sheer “tool-like” displays. Again, if done in your own home your tool rating is much lower. The upcoming Metallica edition will no doubt push Guitar Hero’s tool status beyond the level where private play can no longer be counted on to keep your tool level within accepted norms. Buyer beware.

Guitar Hero wisely profited from using licensing agreements to entertain users with current and well loved music themes, first put to good effect in “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” radio feature.

It could be worse I suppose, they could release some completely silly looking peripheral for a handheld system to allow people to play Guitar Hero in public….Oh, wait… Like these people don’t already look like complete toads constantly molesting their iPods.

Personally I’m waiting for the day when most of these players will refuse to admit they actually played the game like they did with DDR. Its coming, and I’m getting ready to savor the moment.

Starbuck’s falls on hard times

One of the problems with being an icon among the trendy crowd is that you are surrounded by pricks. I have nothing against Starbucks, I generally do have an issue with a lot of the people that frequent Starbucks for something more than a cup of coffee. I am just not a trendy guy. I am fairly stylish I suppose but trendy is an alligence to a shallow way of life that I always found empty and trite.

Note some of the following and might I point out, meaningless comments from the above article:

“Once it went corporate, it wasn’t Starbucks anymore.”

“They’ve commoditized cafe culture, which is why I don’t go”

And my personal favorite. Take note of the highlighted words:

“The company that began as innovative is now known for consistency and convenience, she said. “To me, that’s a huge step down,” she said. “You’ve built your franchise on people who are coming in because they know exactly what they want.”

These comments makes the case for exactly why I abhor people that build their lives on the “scene”. Lets look at the last comment first since it is the most relevant to the complete lack of sense these people make.

“The company that began as innovative is now known for consistency and convenience” - This is probably the most concise definition of exactly what a good business should be. You take an innovative idea, make it consistent and easy for the consumer to access. She is faulting Starbucks for having a good business model apparently.

When you go from being a local or regional concern to something national or global you have to maintain consistency of product. What creates your success is that very consistency, nobody wants to guess what your product will taste like each time they visit. Can a company with thousands of stores grow without a product that people expect to find each time they visit? It makes perfect business sense. What about producing the same product to ship to the various locations?

Franchise products are built on a proven concepts with a consistent product and a quality people enjoy. How else do you become a franchise? Expectations are what keep companies like this going. Starbucks has create beverage titles that have become part of the national vocabulary. Thats an impressive feat.

This is every business owner’s dream on several key levels but to these folks, thats a bad thing

The final half plumbs the murkiest depths of sheer, obvious stupidity mixed with a heavy dose of crass:

“You’ve built your franchise on people who are coming in because they know exactly what they want.” This is probably my favorite point. She is actually faulting Starbucks for appealing to consumers on a broad level. This woman actually holds them in disdain for selling to “regular” people.

I’m actually dying to ask, how do you build a franchise on products nobody has expectations for?

The franchise comment tips the hand of the lack of intelligence, the previous ones about polluting popular culture are nebulous reasons that nobody ever seeks to demand an answer for. Can someone explain to me how popularity ruins intagibles like “attitude” and atmosphere? Why is success such a terrible thing for trendy products? I’m serious, I want real answers to this schlock because we are letting people talk in euphemisms and I cannot stand it anymore.

I can actually understand the obsessive approach of trying to look for ideas the rest of the world is not doing, but this is just being counterculture for the sheer sake of it. They can’t even enjoy a cup of sugar laden coffee unless it comes from some establishment that meets their social criteria.

The demonization is something I will never grasp. If you want to be a slave to trends, go ahead, but spare us the smug crap that flies in the face of all common sense. No business wants to be a slave to a small crowd of people as fickle as these social harpies. Eventually these jerkoffs will tire of you and when they do you better have average joes, working moms and white collar folks lined up to take their place. you will never be a success by appealing to the fringe.

Starbucks rode their wave as long as they could and now we are seeing a correction in their market. Try to think of the quantity of Starbucks merchandise available, movie tie-ins, parodies and products in your supermarket. They have been a huge hit. The problem is they overvalued their product because up until recently, people were willing to pay their prices to be a part of the experience. Nothing lasts forever and their are plenty of competing brands and off the shelf alternatives to their expensive products.

Every trend suffers a backlash and the counterculture crowd who populated them making off-color political jokes while they sat on their laptops didn’t help them either. Starbucks isn’t going anywhere they aren’t going to go away anymore than Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme did during their inflated stages. Starbucks will adapt. Will they remain a viable entity? Thats a question I don’t think we will see answered in less than a decade.

At the end of the day there are plenty of “over the counter” trendy types that will buy their morning frappuccino to keep Starbucks floating on a river of cash, but the lessons about appealing to the most fickle of consumers is self-evident.

You’re 232 today. Make the most of it!

“A new definition of what diversity means for everybody?”

I found this sitting on Yahoo’s front page recently and frankly I don’t see why.

No, just another person playing pretend.

This situation isn’t surprising. Tom Beatie is a woman, she can trick her body all she likes but why are we supposed to think this redefines anything. Because Oprah is peddling these bullpies? Testosterone and estrogen are balanced and at play in all individuals, I’m sure if I inject abnormal levels of various chemicals in my body to alter it then I haven’t fooled nature or those around me. The very fact this individual can become pregnant despite the outward changes brought on by chemical and surgical means only proves the fact that they are pretending to be what they are not.

If you are gay, thats fine, there is acceptance among gay people that they are attracted to the same sex, but this however is just patent nonsense. This is a woman just pretending to physically be a man but then opts to use her female abilites she was born with while keeping up the facade. She isn’t having her and her “wife’s” baby, they used artifical means to create a child through the natural process. This isn’t a man giving birth, its a woman following her biological abilities and trying to fool everyone.

You know, were I gay, this would be rather insulting. Gay people I know don’t pretend to actually the opposite sex, they have a culture that doesn’t place much importance on pretending to actually be male or female because to most of the gays I know, the external wasn’t the issue. In effect, most gays accept their physical and emotional differences but most accept they are genetic male or female with different attractions. I’ve met lesbians who have opted to have children but they never denied their capabilities.

This is just fantasy and pretending its a new definition of humanity is complete nonsense, this is biological make-believe.

I believe the issue of being gay and gay rights needs to stay in the realm of personal choice and the mental/emotional aspect based on science and psychology, this is just a farce that benefits nobody except those looking for a circus act.