Another Illinois corruption story

I find yet another reason to leave the state of Illinois. A prison warden who was caught fishing while on disability was transferred instead of fired.

http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x1722161215/State-prison-warden-transferred-after-disability-probe

Where do they get these ideas to transfer people around in order to sweep the problems under the rug?

Herd animals have morality.

I'm having one of those moments right after waking up and drinking the first cup of really strong coffee. I know there are distinct categories of values for the self-centered survivalist-oriented "Objectivist" Libertarians on Wall Street:

"You are responsible for your choices and you have the free-will to choose to learn how not to make the mistakes that keep you poor, and we (The 1%) have the right to take complete advantage of you for not doing so."

Then there are those weird conservative Republicans who tout "Family Values" and claim to be "Christian," yet behave in a way that would make proud both Ayn Rand and Niccolo Machiavelli.

It would appear that the "Moral Majority" in this case is clearly the most dangerous predator of our species, demonstrating a sociopathological value system that takes the most advantage of the least educated among us.

Most herd based animal species demonstrate morality by protecting weaker members of the herd against predators as best they can. They don't have religion.

The downfall or morality started when primates began to split into groups and fight over resources. Even individual monkeys hid food from other members of the same group.

Not too long later was born the distorted rantionale that such deception was morally acceptable because other monkeys should have been more aware of their surroundings and notices the deception in the monkey hiding the food.

What is especially disturbing is that such monkeys hiding food are not the alpha males of the group. They are using cleverness to undermine the whole group. This ultimately results in depletion of resources to the point where the entire group's survival is at risk.

The result is another group marauding through the group's territory, severing the leadership, plundering the resources and enslaving the members who are allowed to survive.

The stronger group that will overtake other groups will be the group that is honest and transparent of policy, and equitable and efficient with resources. Not the self-interested objectivist libertarians who claim they are God-fearing Republicans.

Blog apology

I would apologize for not posting here more were it not for the analogy of someone apologizing for not showing a hundred photos of their grandchildren.

I like to be concise. I'm posting all over Facebook and Google+.

Unfriending on Facebook

I was checking my privacy settings on Facebook this morning and discovered to my dismay that a very long-time personal friend was blocked. I couldn't remember why she was in my block list. Our families have been friends for two generations and we always got along. I just unblocked her, but now I'm wondering why nothing was ever said about it by anyone else when it happened. But I digress.

I accepted the friendship of a few new people. I never met them before and they weren't mutual friends with anyone else I knew on Facebook, and disturbing of all was how attractive they are. It continued to bother me. I assumed they saw something I posted at an AP article, or some other major news post on Facebook, but that I wasn't absolutely certain.

I looked at their profiles and found no mutual friends, and not really anything else either. The major dilemma I have is that once someone brand new on your list of friends gets through your privacy by becoming a friend, they then can see your family and friends, unless you further restrict your privacy settings, rendering yourself almost invisible to even your closest friends.

Facebook should have a multi-tiered friend privacy setting where if you meet someone brand new, you can keep them quarantined for a while by tagging them as an "acquaintance" or if they are friends you want to keep for reasons you don't want to share with family, you might have them in a seprate "network" you can pop in and out of without leaving Facebook.

Unfortunately for now I had to unfriend some people who might have been perfectly fine, or were planning on infiltrating my family to steal identities. I have no clue.

Internet Explorer 9 PDF Print Disaster

I printed a PDF of a recent online job notification from Illinois Skills Match, using the latest Internet Explorer 9, and this was the result.

Printing the same document using Google Chrome was successful.

Unfortunately, Chrome has only a fifty-fifty chance of finding its ass from a hole in the ground every time I try to publish a blog with it.

Hazardous driving behavior

I drive Interstate 72 to work in Jacksonville and back. I notice that every time I pass an exit ramp, either before the New Berlin exit, Ashland exit, or Jacksonville exit, someone will always accelerate and pass me right as we both approach the on-ramp that follows after those exit ramps, as if they are trying to create a dangerous situation that will cause an accident if someone is trying to merge onto the interstate from those on-ramps.

This kind of behavior happens even when taking I72 across Springfield to the east. It never fails. There is always someone in the left lane that forces someone in the right lane to slam on their brakes to slow down for merging traffic because they can't merge into the right lane.

Those people who choose to pass cars between the off-ramp and on-ramp on the Interstate need to be fined until they learn how dangerous their behavior is.

Any state police officers can post themselves on the overpass and get a good view of this hazardous behavior. State or federal legislators should find a way to designate the zone between off-ramp and on-ramp as a no-passing zone, and the areas should be well-marked, or the public made aware of this hazard.

Finally, the repeating serial ramp-zone passers who relish and exploit endangering others on the interstate should be treated as violent offenders and charged with attempted vehicular homicide. I see the same people repeating this behavior every time I go to work and come home. Is it really that difficult to hang-back and wait until after passing the on-ramp?

Which is more annoying?

Internet Explorer Pop-up blocker, or the actual pop-ups?

I had my IE pop-up blocker turned on until now. Every time I would post a comment, or type something that was about to be posted on a website, IE would flash the bar at the top of the screen asking if I want to temporarily allow pop-ups. I would be forced to click on that bar, and everything I typed up to that point, or the file I spent the last five minutes fishing around for on my hard-drive disappears, and I must do it all over again after I allow pop-ups.

So I just turned off my pop-up blocker. Now I don't have to do everything twice. I would not be surprised if that was the whole intent. It's a demonstration by Microsoft of contempt for the every-day user.