Reform conference.

It's been a year since Liz died, but it's still as painful as ever. I could spend all day cursing the drug war, or even the police, but even if it ended, it would still bring me no comfort. Ending the drug war wouldn't bring her back to us. But that's the closest thing to justice we'll ever get.

Which is why I think it's important to spread the word about the reform conference being held between the days of November 2nd-5th. The articles I've read about it say this event's going to be huge, and people from all walks of life will be there. As for me, only time will tell if I can make it there... Maybe I could make it to one of the community events? Perhaps if they had one near Fort Meyers...

More information can be found about it here.

This one's for Elizabeth...

The Butterfly Effect.

Recently I came into contact with a net buddy of mine who I hadn't talked to for a good while. He was wondering where I have been, and I told him how I had been so depressed and have become... Somewhat... I want to say withdrawn because of what happened a year ago. But I ended up hearing about his relationship problems. See, he has this girl that he's in love with, and they're about to have kids, but some time ago they weren't on talking terms. Well, I remember how excited he was about her and she about him, and it made me even more depressed to think that that spark had weakened in their relationship, because I looked at it in terms of my own life, and I remember Liz had wanted me to move into her apartment, and I was enthusiastic about that. I didn't want to think that things could possibly go wrong.

What this is leading up to is this; After talking for a bit, he recommended to me a movie called The Butterfly Effect. The movie is about a man, played by (I think) Ashton Kutcher, and he's had these black-outs ever since he was a kid. The weird thing is that when he gets older and studies psychology his memories that were blacked out start coming back to him, and each time he does this the world changes, and he's living in an alternate reality where things happened differently than they did in his actual life. All to save a girl named Kaylee. Well, this happens more than once, each time with increasing frequency, until he's eventually at the point where the journal entries he's been using to keep track of these memories don't exist anymore. So in a last ditch effort to save her he looks at some home movies from when he was a kid, and tells off Kaylee to save her (and his) life.

But that has just made me even more depressed. I think I hate life now. We live in such a hellhole in such a way that bad things happen to good people, and trying to make the world worth living in is a futile effort. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I know from personal experience...

I think maybe it's time to change the name of this blog. (again)

... Otherwise I'm about to be eating my foot here. So, I play this game called eRepublik, and as far as browser games go, it's actually kinda fun, and it's free to play. It doesn't require a large time commitment, but thing is, some of the missions require that you get people to join under you. Same as some of these PTC sites, except it's a game, not a way to make extra cash. So, thing is, in this game, you get gold for leveling up, or getting certain trophies (such as reaching a certain number of subscribers, getting a certain amount of Strength, working a certain number of days, etc.), and if you have an upline, they earn bonus gold if you earn gold (don't worry, they don't take away from your own gold, so you're fine.) So yeah, there's lot of advantages to building a downline in this game.

Well, one of my friends in the game had this great idea. He turned me on to this "referral circle", and the idea is that anyone who joins this circle gets a special link, and when they use it to tell their friends about the game, they join the circle, and everyone gets referrals from just being a member, so in this way everyone wins, even if they can't get new referrals themselves. Well, I decided to join this circle, since I have had trouble promoting the link, and since I've been added, I figure I should promote the link to this circle since I don't want to feel like I'm just leeching off the more successful players. So, if I've piqued your interest in eRepublik, then here's the link to the referral circle: http://www.yourwinoffice.net/rotator.php?u=eRepublik.

This needs to be seen.

Maybe all the drug-user haters will change their minds after they see this!

If not, then we have nothing to say to each-other. You are my enemy. People like you are the reason Liz's life was so hard, and I'm blaming YOU for what happened to her!

TV keeps getting worse and worse...

I've found a number of things on TV lately that I just could not laugh at, or which I found to be in poor taste. There are a couple that come to mind here...

- I was watching SNL this week. Remember when they used to be funny? It seems like SNL has fallen a long way from what it used to be. Yes, it's still political humor, and maybe some sex jokes, but it has gotten less tasteful lately. There was one skit that made my jaw drop in disbelief this week. They jumped on the Wienergate bandwagon, by making fun of his "dick pic". I could not laugh at that. I found it stupid in the first place that people are up in arms over this sorry excuse for a scandal. There's loads better things to be talking about. But let me be clear about this; I am not for adultery. I am not for anything which brings harm to another being, and he does his wife a great injustice by cheating on her. But that doesn't mean that the media should make a big stink out of it and jeopardize his career over small shit like this. It's dumb. That's the only way I could describe it.
- The other thing I wanted to talk about was these ads I'm seeing for this show called "Dance Moms". There is something which does not sit right with me about this show. Here we have these kids that look like they're barely in their teens, and they're wearing THE skimpiest outfits I've seen a 12 year old kid wear! (maybe younger, I'm not a good judge of age...) This is a point where most kids are just entering puberty, they aren't even aware of their own sexuality at this age, and they're already wearing over-sexualized clothing like those leotards you're seeing on the commercials. Yeah, young people do date. I had a friend like that when I was 7 or 8, so there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, that's too early an age to think about wearing something that a GROWN ADULT would be sexually attracted to. But that's not the only thing. In some ways I think this show is child abuse! They're YELLING AT THEIR CHILDREN! And it's not discipline either, it's for the purpose of RATINGS! They just want to act like drama whores so people will pay attention to their show.

Speaking of shows, I'm going to play the devil's advocate here... I think all the negative press surrounding the show "Skins" is largely unwarranted, and has more to do with societal taboos than moral concerns. It's old news, and in case you've missed it, let me fill you in; Skins is a teen drama from the UK, and it follows a group of 8 high school teenagers, different in each season, and explores different issues, including the one that got the show cancelled in the U.S.; Teen sexuality. Now, having been in high school not long ago, I can attest to the fact that at this point in my life, people had been talking about, and sometimes experimenting with, sex. It's a way of life. But the media attacked Skins, saying that it's like child pornography. To me, this is reach, because Dance Moms seems a lot more pornographic than skins, and these girls are 12! Yes, Skins has racy scenes, but at this point, their hormones are kicking in, so it's more believable and acceptable, in my opinion. Also, there are countries in other parts of the world where the legal age is lower than here, so playing the child pornography card seems unfair to Skins when other shows on our corner of the world have done worse. Now, in Britain, the show hasn't been received as negatively, and has in fact earned its share of rewards. Although I haven't seen the show, I thought while I was talking about television, I should at least shed some light on this, since the media reaction to Skins offended my sensibilities. I just felt like this show got bullied, and like the bully hater I am, I felt a need to stand up and say something to defend it.

I'm confused...

I have a feeling that there's something everybody doesn't know about the Casey Anthony trial. Her verdict was a major upset, and the media is all over it. But, despite the evidence that has been mounted against her, the jury decided that there wasn't enough evidence to prove her guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. That's the important thing, because, in the court, all are, and I can't stress this enough, INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY! And the jury decided that the evidence wasn't conclusive. I haven't followed the case very closely, though, as I've been paying more attention to Bradley Manning and his role in the Wikileaks case, and its role in the Arab Spring. But, though I don't want to make a rush to judgment, I don't take murder, especially against those that can't fend for themselves, lightly. But I'm containing my gut reaction and waiting for the truth to come to light. Here's what I think I know;

- Her body was found in a swamp.
- The defense claims that they buried the body, and that the victim drowned in a pool.
- Some pieces of evidence include a couple Google searches, including chloroform and how to snap necks.
- In her car was found duct tape and the trunk supposedly smelled like a dead body and had hair in it. (haven't heard about what the forensics dept. had to say about the matter.

I can think of how this could lead to a conclusion other than Casey Anthony murdering her daughter. This could have been set up. Someone could have used her computer and car. What they needed is evidence that proved SHE was the one who killed her daughter, and I don't know if they had that or not. But supposedly they have 300 or so items of evidence if I remember correctly. So I don't know how to feel about the verdict. Is she really innocent or did she really murder a defenseless child? I wish I knew for certain, so I could understand why everyone is angry about this. Are they mad for the right reasons or the wrong reasons?

Hot Coffee

You know how they say "there's more than one side to any story"? Well, here's a good example:



Did I ever mention that I miss seeing this show? Back home I used to have satellite television, and there was this channel on the far end called "FSTV", and DemocracyNOW aired on that channel. It was in the 9,000s range, and I got it with a deal from Dish Network. But I digress. I felt this clip should be shown because it challenges how most people understand the hot coffee lawsuit that was ridiculed to death. I bet most people watching this didn't know that the coffee got her hospitalized, and that they tried to reason with the fast food giant, only to get an insultingly low sum of money for compensation. Now you can see why this whole case against "lawsuit abuse" is poppycock, but it was enough to pull the wool over our eyes. No wonder Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission was allowed to happen. No wonder people sign away their right to a lawsuit through arbitration contracts (and most likely your employer will insist you not read the fine print before signing.) No wonder people are having a hard time fighting for justice against a corporate goliath that seeks to take and take and continue taking until there's nothing left to be taken. It's as they say, the love of money is the root of all evil.