Protest rant

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Protesting about something in a rally may look good on TV, but gets nothing accomplished. In fact, such rallies are often "hijacked" by extremists / anarchists who are just looking for excuses to destroy something.

When "outraged" Oakland residents rallied to protest death of Oscar Grant III, the man shot to death by a BART police officer, some anarchists use the event to vandalize downtown Oakland. Dozens of businesses were vandalized, front windows broken, and many were looted.

And Oakland Police are NOT EVEN RELATED to BART Police except they have a bit of overlap in jurisdiction in Oakland.

And the protesters are NOT DONE. They are planning more and more rallies, forcing Oakland Police Department to deploy ever more police officers to head off any such violent confrontations. While nobody rampaged through downtown the last few attempts, several police cars were damaged, leaving the department short on patrol vehicles.

Enforcement and patrols in other neighborhoods are curtailed as more officers were moved to monitor the protests, leading to a rise in crimes.

Overtime costs for Oakland Police has already exceeded this year's "contingency funds".

And what has been done so far? Nothing beyond the usual. BART board decided to have an external law firm to conduct the investigation, and that's about it.

Another video has surfaced, this time depicting ANOTHER officer may have been beating Oscar Grant III just before the fatal shooting. The video was judged to be genuine, and more of these "civil activists" are calling for charging this other officer as accessory to murder, among other crimes.

It doesn't help that the victim is black, and the shooting officer(s) are white.

But what has the protests accomplished? Absolutely ZILCH, in my opinion, and may have contributed to spending millions of dollars in tax money, which comes from taxpayers like you and me.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Riots erupt after slain father laid to rest (cnn.com)

Pre-Valentine Rant

Image via Wikipedia

So Valentine's Day is supposed to be between two sweethearts... so why is it so heavily commercialized? There's bazillion candies, flowers, valentine cards, bears, and so on. You can find a WHOLE AISLE of stuff in most pharmacies for them. Argh!

Up to one BILLION cards are sent for Valentine's Day, 2nd most after Christmas.

Valentine's Day was NOT associated with love until Geoffrey Chaucer added the association. Before Chaucer, Valentine's Day were named after two Christian Martyrs of the same name.

And Belarus have a bit grimmer tale... Sait Valentine, after learning rejection of his love, cut out his beating heart and have it sent to her. Now people send heart-shaped cards and candy to atone for hurting the ones you love.

Are people really THIS STUPID?!?!?!

Image via CrunchBaseI participate in Yahoo! Answers, where members post questions to be answered by other members. And some of the questions are real "howlers". here's one:

Where Can i Download A free Legal Keygen or serial number?

For those who are not familiar with software, most software will NOT work unless you enter a serial number when you install it. A "keygen" is a program written by hackers that can generate such serial numbers randomly. As you can imagine, such programs cannot be legal, as it cheats the software maker out of their money.

Which makes the question above beyond ridiculous and into totally moronic scale.

However, that's not the worst offender. Here's one better.

Will someone please help me hack someone else's Yahoo! Mail password?

No, I'm not making this up. This person claims to be helping a female friend who suspect her husband is seeing some other woman and using Yahoo! mail as contact. Does this person not even THINK that 1) this is illegal 2) Yahoo's use policy specifically forbids any sort of this behavior, and 3) Yahoo! Answers may NOT be the best place to ASK such questions?

Will the REAL Miwok Indians please stand up?

Image via WikipediaNow that Red Hawk Casino is open by "Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians", another Miwok Indian is getting sued by this band... With a casino feeding their coffers, they can afford to.

So what's the suit about? This man, a Mr. Caballero who CAN trace his ancestry back for 100 years in El Dorado county as a Miwok Indian, through BIA and other records, claims to be the tribal historian of SSBoMI. The SSBoMI, on the other hand, don't want him to use the name SSBoMI and claims "copyright infringement". They claim that they don't doubt that he is Miwok, but he's NOT "Shingle Springs Miwok". Though he claims he is, and he represents 400 other Miwoks in the county.

However, now that a bigger issue has been raised... That perhaps SSBoMI are NOT Miwok Indians at all.

Read the comments section and make up your own mind.

BART Police Rant

Image via WikipediaBy now the whole nation has heard... How a BART Police officer, arresting some rowdy folks New Year's Eve, ended up shooting a young man who's already on the ground and being restrained, in the back. The man later died in the hospital. The whole thing was caught by multiple cellphone cameras and witnesses.

Now the officer has resigned from BART Police so he cannot be compelled to testify against himself.

One theory is that he mistaken his regular duty pistol for the taser, though how can one be mistaken for the other boggles the mind.

A truly WTF situation.

Related articles by Zemanta

• BART Officer Quits

Pre-Christmas Rant

Image via WikipediaIt's but a few days before Christmas, and I was at my favorite Starbucks (actually, I take that back, I don't have a favorite, just a most often visited, as they are open 24 hours, almost always have a seat, and have plugs for my laptop AND WiFi). When I realized the door was nearly blocked by some protesters. Upon closer look apparently these folks are carpenters, claiming that Starbucks had used contractors who didn't pay the "San Francisco wages".

What's really ironic is one of those "carpenters" is wearing a union carpenter jacket from... Kansas City.

There are a few problems... 1) They are on PRIVATE PROPERTY, as this Starbucks is co-located with a gas station, and 2) I personally thinks that any sort of "minimum pricing" or "minimum wage" is counter-productive to the market, and runs counter to capitalism.

Think about it... If the job don't pay enough to support someone, then that theoretical someone will NOT work that job, right? Unless he has some other jobs as well, but it's HIS call whether he wants to work cheap or not. Why legislate the minimum? Unless you think the individual is TOO STUPID to decide how cheap (or expensive) he wants to work for, and needs the government to help him?

Apparently, our "progressive" city of San Francisco thinks so. San Francisco's "minimum wage" is at $9.79 per hour, starting 1/1/2009. All employees who work in San Francisco more than two hours per week, including part-time and temporary workers, are entitled to the San Francisco minimum wage. And this has been going on for several years.

Apparently, they came up with this figure as a "living wage" in San Francisco... i.e. you need to earn this much for a full-time worker to live in the city.

And who have they prosecuted so far? Just a couple restaurants.

Post-Black Friday Rant

Image via WikipediaThis year's Black Friday is a real bust, not much good electronics and gadgets for sale at all. I bought myself a refurb Jawbone 1.0 for $54, and that's via online, even BEFORE black friday.

Which brings me to a rant on Bluetooth headsets.

I don't believe I have very strange ears, so why is it that very few BT headset fits me well? They don't fit comfortably, or they have lousy volume, or they have lousy battery life... The list goes on, and on.

Tried cheap ones, expensive ones, just not super-premium ones yet.

Tried Jabra for a while. Had like three different Jabras. BT125 keeps losing connection to my phone, so did a BT2020. Even that one that uses batteries didn't work that well. One of my friends had it literally smoking (too hot to hold in hand).

Tried third-party. Plugs are never universal, and the fit to ear is usually horrible. Argh! Tried two or three different ones from various sources.

Motorola at least standardized on one plug, but the older models are huge (and still don't fit the ears that well), and a mid-level model (about $40 retail) I got lost half of its volume, making it nearly useless.

Decided to try something a bit higher... Tried a Plantronics "rugged" model... Worked well enough for a week. Then the plastic cover no longer fits. Argh, and neither does the charge port cover.

So when I saw the Jawbone 1 refurb for sale, I decided to try it. New, they got for about $80-$100. 2nd gen Jawbone goes for $130 in stores. The refurb is $55.

First thing I saw is 4 different ear pads and 4 different ear hooks. Wow! And the earhook is metal, but with a rubber stretchy-section. 2nd, it has USB charge cable. In fact, the "home charger" is a 120V to 5V USB adapter. That's usually extra cost item but here it's free. Third, the packaging is very distinct, a clear plastic box with the accessories in black boxes encased below. I'll have to include a picture soon.

So far, it seems to drop connection a bit, but calls are coming in and going out clear, so not too much complaints so far. There's always wish for the smaller model. :D