17 luglio 2013

Sick of CorporateSpeak

For a while, certain terms at the office (I work in corporate America) have bothered the hell out if me. Here are some gems and why I hate them.

Onboard or On-board (stress on the first  syllable): Used as a verb. As in, "We need to establish a standard process before we onboard contributors to this project." 

While this could EASILY be replaced with normal verbs like "hire" or "involve", it's not. Why? I don't know. It's a stupid word. We don't work with boats, and "on board" should be a prepositional phrase, and NOTHING ELSE! When I hear this term I think of "waterboard" (only other verb I know of that ends with "board") and I feel really sorry for these poor contributors. They think they're getting hired for a project but in reality they're being subjected to practices which were banned at the Geneva Convention.

Leverage. Again, used as a verb. Like, "How can we leverage our existing products into new sales?" Translation: how can we reuse what we already have to pretend like it's a new product so that we can sucker people into buying something that's not actually new." My reaction when I hear this? Someone please just punch me in the face and knock me out. 

The Market. Ok, this is a legitimate noun, I just hate when it's used in the singular. As in, "the market doesn't respond well to this design" or "the market is asking for more interactive content." No. The Market is not a single person and shouldn't be spoken of as one, especially when the "market research" consists of the opinions of ten people who filled out a survey for $50.

12 luglio 2013

NakedDC.com - brilliant

I have a feeling this might be my new favorite website for all things political. NakedDC.com. The author, Emily Zanotti, sees DC for the absolute sham that it is, and wonderfully picks apart some of the ludicrous arguments used by both parties. Starting with this article:

Guys won’t have sex anymore if abortion laws pass. Or something.

 
An excerpt (emphases mine):
 
If that seems straightforward, even pro-science to you, you’re not alone: if a kid can survive outside the womb, than it’s kind of hard to make the argument that they are an inhuman parasite. But, whatever. This is abortion legislation, so the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. What matters is, we’re all like, ten Texas legislators away from starring in our own post-apocalyptic Margaret Atwood novel, where us poor folk are chained to beds and forced to have children against our will. Never mind that by the time the Texas deadline rolls around you’re more than four months pregnant, you’re an idiot who simply can’t make up her puny female mind about being a parent, and need to have available a procedure that most of the world (except Canada!) views as barbaric.... - See more at: http://nakeddc.com/2013/07/11/texas-dude-says-guys-wont-have-sex-anymore-if-abortion-laws-pass/#sthash.7iWoDRLp.dpuf

European Council Investigates France Over Abuse of Marriage Supporters



Written by Wendy Wright

http://c-fam.org/en/issues/marriage-and-family/3852-european-council-investigates-france-over-abuse-of-marriage-supporters
NEW YORK, July 12 (C-FAM) France is under scrutiny by a European council for its police abuse of peaceful pro-marriage demonstrators.

The Council of Europe is sending investigators to France to look into government violence against people who oppose a new law allowing same-sex marriage. The Council also passed a resolution reaffirming the freedom of assembly and speech, citing the violence against marriage supporters in France “including the use of tear gas on peaceful demonstrators.”

The Monitoring Committee holds Council of Europe members accountable, especially regarding human rights. It has received only 7 petitions since it was established in 1997. The process could lead to sanctions against France.

The resolution that passed on June 27 notes that pro-marriage demonstrations in Paris have involved over 2 million people.

Videos of police beating marriage supporters have circulated on the Internet. Critics accuse France of arbitrarily arresting people – even passers-by – to quash free speech.

One documentary shows police in a huddle saying, “He’s calm and quiet. Attack him from the rear. The dude won’t see it coming.” Five officers then rush and tackle a young man.

Another shows Christine Boutin, a former Cabinet minister under former French president Nicholas Sarkozy and current president of the Christian Democratic Party, knocked to the ground with tear gas.
Nicolas-Bernard Busse, a 23-year old student sentenced to four months in jail, is being held in solitary confinement while awaiting his appeal.

President Francois Hollande introduced the homosexual marriage bill in October. Hundreds of demonstrations have taken place since November, with three massive rallies in Paris. Impromptu demonstrations greet Hollande and his officials as they travel.

Small vigils have also been met with disproportion responses, according to a report by the European Center for Law and Justice (ECLJ).

When France’s minister of state visited a local college, fifteen demonstrators, mainly women and children, were confronted by a large number of police. Officers knocked a woman to the ground and beat her. A young girl who is disabled was also attacked, leaving her unable to work for ten days.

About 30 people were injured in another demonstration. One vivid testimony stated:
“A young black man is chased by police. In his course, he is completely alone, and therefore does not present a single risk, given the large number of police present. He is caught quickly. He is thrown to the ground with extreme brutality and is savagely beaten. His head seems crushed by the legs and knees of the police who surround him. He bleeds. He find the force to continue to scream, with a voice more and more weak and broken: ‘Hollande . . . Your law . . . we do not want it.’ Just until his voice stops, apparently because of the boot of a policeman who crushed his mouth. He is finally dragged to a car in which he is thrown like a common package.”

Luca Volonte, a former member of the Council of Europe, and ECLJ, who compiled testimonies from 100 victims, presented evidence to the Council. Two-dozen deputies of different parties and nationalities introduced the resolution.

Families, elderly, and single people populate the overall cheerful protests. Prominent leaders include homosexuals who emphasize that children need a mother and father.

02 luglio 2013

An Open Letter to Wendy Davis, from TheMattWalshBlog

How Wendy Davis is being praised as a hero absolutely sickens me. This article from Matt Walsh hits the nail on the head:

(from: http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/06/29/an-open-letter-to-wendy-davis/)

An Open Letter to Wendy Davis

Dear Senator Wendy Davis,
Congrats! I know this is a bit belated, but I wanted to write a message of salutations and congratulations after that abortion rights filibuster you pulled off in the Texas senate this past week. The media tells me it was “historic” and “game changing” and “epic,” and I know it must have been because they only use those terms to describe, like, ten or twenty different events every day.
What a heroic performance it was. You were like Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa and Harriet Tubman, all rolled into one. Except they stood for courage, righteousness, truth, peace, and love, while you stood for the billion dollar abortion industry. They protected and defended life, while you protected and defended your right to destroy life. They faced grave danger, you face the adulation, admiration and campaign donations of the media, Hollywood, the president, pop culture, the abortion lobby and millions of Americans. The parallels are striking.
That’s why I’m writing to say “job well done.” In the midst of literally no adversity, you rose up and voiced an opinion that was sure to make you popular amongst the most powerful people in the country. How did you ever muster the courage? And let us not forget the content of your profoundly important message: That abortion clinics should not be regulated and the health and safety of its patients should not be ensured! Amen! Huzzah! So a few women die here and there due to extreme negligence and profit driven exploitation, big deal. We care about your reproductive rights, not your right to not be mutilated, injured, infected, or killed by quacks who flunked out of all legitimate medical fields and decided to perform abortions instead. This bill would have brought abortion enterprises up to snuff with every other facet of the medical industry, and required clinics to match the same standards that all other outpatient medical facilities are forced to adhere to — and that is just unacceptable. Certainly an orthodontist or a podiatrist must meet many health, safety and disclosure standards, that’s just logical. But an abortion clinic? Come on. Remember, Gosnell was unfairly and unjustly persecuted for killing hundreds of infants and at least two women, along with running a grotesquely unsanitary facility where patients were operated on with dirty medical tools and given lethal doses of drugs by untrained and unlicensed 15 year olds, while the body parts of dead babies piled up in the refrigerator and women sat on blood stained couches before being ushered into the bathroom to give birth into toilets, like these are “crimes” or something. This was all made possible for thirty years because of a total lack of regulatory oversight. Everyone in government was either too ideologically invested in abortion, or too afraid of the people who are, to do anything about these so called “horrific atrocities.” And that’s how it should be. Now, reports have circulated about Gosnell-ish clinics all across the country, including one right down there in Houston, and so we MUST make sure that there are NO laws or policies enforcing any standards of safety, hygiene and general human decency on abortion clinics — that is a burden they simply can’t be saddled with.
I mean, when women-haters babble on about imposing basic health and safety codes on abortion clinics, it makes me almost as mad as when they insist that the clinics should be forced to offer ultrasounds to their patients. What barbarians! Why should an abortion facility be required to provide information to women before taking their money and killing their kid? Ignorance and darkness, that’s the only proper environment in which to run a reputable abortion business. Again, literally all other medical fields are required by law to offer all available information to patients before performing surgical procedures, but abortionists must stay exempt from this otherwise reasonable policy!
Oh, but I mustn’t forget the most important message in your filibuster: Unborn children are expendable pieces of insignificant trash and we must never hinder society’s ability to exterminate as many of them as possible! Hell, they aren’t even “children,” they’re fetuses. Which means “offspring” in Latin, so it’s, like, totally a different thing. Hey, how did you explain to your own child that she was utterly worthless while she was in your womb? That must have been a really special moment when you had that talk with her. I know anytime my children point to a woman’s pregnant tummy and say “Look daddy, she has a baby,” I’ll make sure to correct them. “No, honey, she has a parasite that she can, and probably should, have extracted and thrown in the garbage.” The Texas bill would outlaw abortions after 20 weeks. At 20 weeks, the fetus has things like a brain, a nervous system, a heart, lungs, fingers, toes, the ability to hear his mother’s voice, the ability to dream, the ability to feel pain. But anyone who wants to protect these indisputably human creatures and stop them from being brutally butchered is clearly driven by a hatred for women or poor people or minorities or something! (Even though females, blacks, and the poor are exactly the demographics most often killed through abortions, but we are more focused on protecting their sex habits, not their very existence). During your filibuster you said, while arguing for the violent destruction of fully formed children, that you are speaking for those who have been “silenced.” Then, a crowd of fans erupted in uproarious applause. What a moment that was — a crowd of people stomping their feet and screaming for baby killing. How inspiring. It was like a scene from the Walking Dead, and I mean that in a good way, of course.
One more thing: You keep making the point that men have no right to have an opinion about abortion, and they certainly ought to have no say in whether their children live or die. Thanks for this. Please, keep trying to drive that wedge between men and women and men and their children. If there’s one thing our society needs to do, it’s stop men from caring about their families. There is just TOO much paternal involvement in society and it’s really becoming a problem. I mean, what good is it to simply turn women against their own children if we aren’t also turning them against their husbands, and disconnecting their husbands from their children? Let the message ring out: Men shouldn’t give a crap about kids! Hooray! Freedom!
Anyway, well Governor Perry will be reintroducing the bill you derailed. Stupid son of a gun just won’t get off his “we shouldn’t murder sentient human children” bandwagon. I hope you stand again and do whatever you can to stop him. Congratulations. If you are successful, more children will die as a direct result of your actions. You must be so proud.
Sincerely,
Matt Walsh