A Chicken Is Not Pillage

Programming Notes

Since it would appear that at least for a while I have commenters again, there are a few things that I should clarify.

First, thank you Lizard for including me on your blogroll at Reptile Dysfunction.  I've never considered such a thing as an endorsement or the removal a vilification.  I've never thought that sidebar links were anything really other than that the web author says "Hey, I go there so I probably should just give myself an easy way to do it."  That appears to be what you did.  On that level alone, I appreciate the link.

Second, if any y'all attempt to comment on older posts and find you can't, it has nothing to do with moderation, or authoritarianism or any personal fantasy that someone is out to silence your voice.  All posts here are set to turn comments off after one month.  Typepad has a comment spam issue, and those spams flood the older posts.  That moderation is a matter of convenience, not malicious intent.  If there is something you absolutely have to say concerning past matters then email me.  That's not hard to find.  A related point is this.  The Typepad comment engine does not convert URLs to links as many of you have come to expect Wordpress to do.  I am looking into switching to the Disqus comment engine.  I haven't found it to be all that user-friendly at other sites.  If any have thoughts, suggestions or recommendations, I would like to hear them.

Third, I have a difficult and stressful job.  I know that many reading this will instantaneously react with the thought "Well I do TOO!"  Yes, you probably do, and I respect you for it.  But that doesn't change what I've just written, now does it?  In addition, my beloved is chasing a dream of training and breeding German Shepherd Dogs.  That means that I'm chasing it too.  They require care and attention.  The takeaway is this:  I still don't have the greatest amount of time to do my blogging.  If that doesn't live up to your expectations, then I am somewhat sorry, but I won't change my life to suit you.

Fourth, there are different kinds of bloggers and this seems to have gotten lost in the greater milieu of Montana blogging.  I am not a political blogger.  I do not focus on geo-political  chicanery, or supporting the Democratic party, or supporting the rational Republican  faction in Montana or analyzing every minutia of a candidates whims.  I am an opinion blogger.  It would be easy to insert several sentences of original content into long quotes from the opposition or the favored.  It would be easy to throw a link-storm of the crap most people likely reading would have already read that day.  Uhhh, I'm not going to do that.  I am, first and foremost, an ongoing student of philosophy, which means I take time to consider things, and I have a startling small amount of time to write about them.  Please consider the third point here.  Do not expect me to post everyday.  I thank you for your readership, but I may not be worthy of your expectation.  You'll have to query yourselves on that point.

This will likely be the most irksome plank of any reading this.  Life is a difficult and stressful endeavor.   The only release we often find is joy.  For me, that joy is found in Football.  I love the game and will continue blogging about it, regardless of the complaints of many.  I do not bet on football, or even put money into fantasy football.  It is a sport I admire, respect, adore and understand deeply.  I study it, with some apparent success, none of that professional (though that would be truly my dream.)  I will continue to blog about football, and I have no interest or will  in responding to those who a) think I should be blogging about something else, or b) wish to demean my source of joy, pain and drama.  If that is a problem for any, then find your own joy.  You have no authority to impose your will on mine.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

I am much happier, now.  Here, have a picture of a puppy:

  Throughout my hiatus, there was one thing I really did miss, and that's railing against assholes who really really deserve it.  Not because 'they believe the wrong things'.  If I did that, I'd be writing at Cowgirl.  No, the ones who usually most deserve it are those who believe that only they and theirs believe the right things, and to them, everyone else commits bad think, and is an an asshole to be shunned, vilified and silenced.

There's a lot of folk out there who have believed for years that I am a 'good Democrat', often with derision, of course.   Certainly I'm thought of as a good democrat by the people who send me two to three emails a day, (often more) in support of cause X or petition Y, always with a request for money.  In truth, I am a good democrat, it's just that so many others keep using that word.  I don't think it means what they think it means. 

Way way on back, I spent a couple of weekends gathering signatures for the ERA.  (For any younguns reading this, that was a proposed Equal Rights Amendment which actually would have codified in our Constitution that all people are deserving of the same legal rights.  That right there should indicate to you that no, that wasn't in the Constitution, and still isn't today ...)    Over the years, I've thought a lot about that experience, pondering what I'd learned, or if there was anything from it to learn.  The message that came through the loudest is that people, Montana people at least,  don't like being told how to think.  That seems simple enough on the surface, that no one likes being told what they should think, but that isn't how I phrased it, or consider it to this day.  The simple (and erroneous) idea that offering competing ideas to people isn't problematic is probably correct.  Where the push-back starts is when you begin telling them how to think about something to arrive at the conclusion you want.  The mere threat that you want to change someone's thinking, not their conclusions but the very way they embrace their conclusions, sparks anger.  It is a threat to identity, it is a threat to basic authority over one's own reason.

Certainly most folk don't come to the right conclusions.  That's why we blog, right?  ~wink~  But when we step back and take a look, we find that they are coming to the right conclusions, for them.  They have reason, or at least what passes for it in the human animal.  They have experiences, biases, myopia and blind spots; we all do.   But we don't all consider them in the same ways.  Except at the basest electromechanical level, we don't all think alike.  We have different, sometimes wildly different, data sets which we call experiences and memories.  Some folk inspire imagination and connections between disparate ideas by reading fiction, others not.  Some read fact after fact after fact and draw rock solid conclusions (given there are no facts that they have failed to consider.) Some people just plain like having conclusions handed to them so they can process the minutia of the day.

Not one bit of this is new, obscure or revolutionary information.  And to me, that fact is what makes assholes really assholes.  The one conclusion that is wrong 100% of the time is that there is a right way to think and that others are doing it wrong, monstrously wrong.  I wrote the post "Monsters" 10 and half years ago.  I wrote  at the end of it  "If I can work up the give-a-shit, I'll write more on this later."  Now THAT, my friends is epic procrastination.  A lot has changed in those 10 years.  I'd love to say it's for the better, but that would be a bit of a lie, wouldn't it?  I certainly won't repeat the litany of everything that has gone wrong, but you won't have trouble finding that listicle if wish.  Others repeat it almost daily.  Still here's some things that should be on that list and aren't:  More Americans are disenchanted with our politics, though how in the hell that happened transitioning from a Bush Presidency to Obama should give everyone a bit of pause.  I suggest there is some wisdom to be found there. More Americans are convinced that the government is our enemy, whether by purchase of corporation or from a liberal Kenyon gay-agenda takeover.  There's empirical evidence for those opinions, but here's one that just seems a broad observation related to those.  In our social media connected information overload world, people seem far more concerned with identifying wrong thinkers and pointing out how monstrous they *really* are.

We've entered a great Ad Hominem phase of democracy, if you can even call it that anymore.  Here's what I've noticed about Democrats in Montana.  With ever more frequency, they apply the right-think test to people, and have lost ground in the legislature since I wrote Monsters 10 years ago.  A lot of ground.  I tried to point that out at another blog a number of years ago and was told I wasn't thinking right because Democrats held all five major positions in state government, the state Supreme Court (in a thoroughly non-partisan way, of course), and both Senate seats.  I'm stating the same here, and to any who wish to defend the stratagems and right thinking of Montana Democrats with the same argument?  Well come at me, bro'.  Tim Fox is our Attorney General.  Our legislature falls increasingly under the control of the worst elements of bat-crap crazy.  And about those Senate seats ...  Here's the real takeaway that tends to send me over the edge.  For ten years the argument has been made that people will tire of the Republican Monsters and then Utopia.  To those so thoroughly convinced that if we just boycott, silence and vilify anyone who doesn't think the right way, how's that plan working out for you?  Another website tried their level best to turn Art Wittich into a monster.  Yes, he's an awful human being and represents the worst of governance.  He also almost single handedly blocked the best job creation infrastructure bill the Montana leg has seen in quite some time.  The monster punked us all

I am a democrat because I am convinced that the only way we can have a functioning society that works for all is if all voices are heard and represented, even the wrong-thinking ones.  (Irony alert!)  Please don't think I'm putting on holy airs, here.  I'll argue til the cows go to slaughter, and I don't always observe social niceties.  It is fun to misbehave.  But I try very very hard to let people think for themselves, even if I think they are idiots.  You can't have a democracy where certain ideas themselves become an evil, and getting along becomes a greater goal than social justice and rule of law.

How *NOT* To Do Comment Moderation

MT Intemperance  is completely fucking out of control.  Off the reservation.  A fucking loon.

When 'Being Consistent' Really Means 'Lazy'

Volumes could be, and likely have been, written about that title and its application in politics.   However, this is not such a post.

Since Six Apart was sold several years ago, my use of Typepad for blogging has gotten progressively more - irritating.  It's minor to be certain but little irrritations over time add up.  Part of it is seeing what features are offered by better platforms.  Part of it is simply a feeling that the user interface is not aging well, and new features are either not forthcoming or approaching at a glacial pace.  I recently had a spam problem, receiving up to a dozen spam comments a day.  That required fairly constant attention, until it subsided.  I submitted a help request as to why these were getting through when I was flagging them as 'spam' in the Typepad spam filters.  I received no reply at all, nothing.  Approximately a year ago the spell check features for composing posts simply quit working, regardless of what browser I use.   For the most part I am excellent at spelling, but it would not be dishonest at all to call me a truly lousy typist.  I fat-finger all the time, and the self makes a crappy editor/proof-reader.  Spell check is a lifeline that for my own self worth, I am not happy living without when I pay for medium to write in.  (First world problems!)

Over the last several days, I have read many articles about moving to a hosted site running Wordpress.  Most any who read this will already be familiar with it as a user, or a regular visitor at sites that are written using the software.  It is feature rich, updated regularly, and allows for a host of second party themes and additions.  In Typepad there is no rich text editor for posting from mobile devices, so my iPad is useful only so much for actually blogging with.  Switching sounds like a no-brainer, right?  Well, hang on there just a second.

The 'pros' to a switch should be obvious.  It's the 'cons' that have me screaming "CHAAAN" into this little intertube communicator device here.  The first is cost.  A reasonably robust hosting service will cost me about a third more per year than I am currently paying.  The more popular ones cost up to or over twice as much.  I can, of course, get a free Wordpress.com blog, but the features are as limited as what I currently pay for with little net gain.  It will save me some money and yet there are significant drawbacks I will point out in a bit.

The second 'con' deals specifically with the free Wordpress accounts.  I already have one, set up soley to facilitate signing in for comments at Wordpress sites.  My luck with being able to use that sign on is apparently very bad, hit or miss at best.  I have not had a good user experience with it.  It might be my fault, it might be the fault of the sites I visit, it might be Wordpress.com itself.  What I do know is this, as an I.T. professional, user experience counts for a great deal of the choices that people make.  I am, frankly, not inclined to switching to software that has frustrated me in the past regardless of the irritations provided by Typepad.  (That is exactly why users the world over were hesitant to switch away from Windows, even with Vista, until MS provided the impetus with the paradigm shift to 'the NEW Windows', or Windows 8 as they hate us to call it.  User experience forms choices.)

The third 'con' and this is the biggie is simply history.  Blogging history.  I have a lot of it, well over ten years in fact.  I have seen an enormous number of bloggers switch platform, and almost every one keeps the old platform maintained, either as insurance, archive or for all I know nostalgia.  I have no intention of doing that whatsoever.   If and when I switch it will be final and complete.  That is the very problem, the switching.  Typepad has a utility to export your blogging history and Wordpress has a utilityy to import that history from Typepad.  A few problems with that.  All permalinks will be gone.  All images and files such as pictures, PDFs or videos will be gone.  It is one helluva lot of work to transfer those to the new site because they have to be done manually.  That takes time and a whole lotta effort.  I can rightly call it intimidating to think back on the number of links I've posted over ten years, the number of photos, the shear number of YouTubes.  All of those would have to be manually re-linked.   And then, the lazy set in ...

Don't get me wrong, please.  I don't think there is irreplaceable 'value' to what I've posted over the years.  Still, our lives are full of enough of lost history, money and time.  "Mom threw out my comics!"  "Wow, I used to date her!"  "I loved that game, and now it's selling for 4 digits on ebay?!"  "Whatever happened to that Teddy bear I slept with everynight?"  In over a decade I have made friends, had epic battles (Hi, Tokarski), and posted my life online for the world to see, good or ill.  Frankly, I'm not willing to lose that, but feel overwhelmed by the necessity of trying to keep it while switching where that data sits.

So, what I'm really asking is for any advice that mitigates the 'CHAAANS".  Do I stay or do I go?  What do you think, people?

That Slow Boil ...

Most of the time, arguing on the Internet is like cooking rice.  Every once in a while you get it right, but most of time ot boils over.

A Decade of Excellence and Putresence

Slightly over a week ago, 'A Chicken Is Not Pillage' turned 10 years old.  That hallmark passed without any recognition, hoopla or fanfare on my part, mostly because I didn't even realize it until today.  Simply put, I've been through a lot in this little online world, and the Montana online world has been through a lot as well.   There is a HUGE amount more to write about this, but frankly, I'm tired and impatient.  Happy Birthday to this blog.  I hope that many of you have found at least some enjoyment here.

Tim Fox Hates Your Internet

No that isn't a joke.  Attorney General Tim Fox wants your Internet under his thumb ... fer the childrens, o' course.  Read this.  I'm serious, read it.  Don't wait for the executive summery.  Just.Read.The.Damned.Article already.  I'll wait.

 

Are you done?  Good.  Here is that summery.  47 state Attorney Generals have a sent a strongly worded letter to Congress begging that free-speech protections on the Internet be gutted and discarded because the Internet hates children and innocence.  Here's the letter.  In short, it says that bad things happen to children and local law enforcement can't stop that because states don't have control over anyone who might possibly be accountable for communicating the intention for bad things to happen in the entire world.    Please, Congress, give states the ability to regulate what gets posted on the Internet by holding anyone in our jurisdiction accountable as we see fit, because, ya know, children!.

Do you think what I've written is hyperbole?  If so, then you didn't read the article, did you?  If not, go read it now.  I'm not making this up.  That is exactly the power the 47 state AGs have just requested, the power to let local legislation and enforcement decide who is guilty when bad things happen based on a method of communication, of supposedly free speech.

I don't know whether John Bullock would have signed such a letter.  I do know that Tim Fox did.  Such a short time into his tenure, and Tim Fox wants to control your comments, your website, your web host.  Tim Fox hates your free speech, and hates your Internet.

New Blood, And How I Wish It Could Be ...

A rather serious question:  Is it possible to foster new blood in the Montana blog'o'sphere?

My initial response is "No".  Given the appeal of Facilebook and the Twahters, there isn't much reason for people to blog anymore.  The larger political bases are covered, the sentimental self-indulgence has moved to Facebook, and the need to be needed has fostered Twitter.  So, from a purely user-need orientation, there is no point to blogging, for any of us.

From a reader-need perspective, there is little to be offered.  There is no safe place.  Every website is rife with trolls.  Concern trolls like Craig Moore, and Belief beggars like Tokarski.  Every website seems in intellectual competition with others.  The holy writ of 4 & 20 cannot be denied by anyone, and Intelligent Discontent is just pablum for the masses.  Dog forbid anybody should read Left in The West.  It isn't fashionable.  Montana Cowgirl is beneath notice, except maybe to EVERYONE,  and Montana Streetfighter can't be bothered to actually engage with any other blog with a link (or check their moderation queue, apparently.)   Then there are the flood control experts, mostly interested in releasing the Damn/Dam, commenters like Larry Kralj.  There is little point to actually reading blogs anymore.  And from a personal perspective, there's damn little point in writing them.

Still, I spent the afternoon looking for newer Montana blogs to support.  Yes I found a few and think it pointless to offer support.  Blogging probably is dead.  Over the next week, I will be archiving most of what I've written here, and then I will likely leave the Internet as 'we know it'.  After all, I pay for my website, like so very few others.  'Kinda like to have the money back.  I would love to help the newest Montana voices, but they seem to not want it, or my voice would simply feed the ego of those who have no choice but to follow theirs.  Don't get me wrong.  If this website doesn't go away, it will be because of my passion and love for posting about football.  You have no say in it, one way or the other.  (That was posted for concern troll, Craig.  And, yes, Tokarski, your comments will still end up in the spam folder.)

I want to use my free speech rights to give grades to the Montana online.  Here it is.

Treasure state politics:  D-  Nut up, you immature assholes.  You don't allow comments.  You don't allow dissenting voice.  You don't allow anything that establishes your credibility.  You kinda suck.

4 & 20:  Jay, you started this website and it was one of the best.  Turning it over to egos like Lizard?  Bad move.  No matter how many precious kudos this site gets from the Missoula community, it is still just a an inbred horrorshow.  Lizard doesn't seem to care at all about Montana or Montanans.   JC doesn't seem to care about anyone but himself.  Jhwygirl has fled, mores the pity.    Pete is still engaged, and that's the only reason this website deserves  a C.

Montana Streetfighter:  F.  What a hollow use for bandwidth.  You 'break news' that you can't and won't confirm.  You are a rumor mill, nothing more.  Half the comments you get likely come from you, yourself.  Yours is not a website.  It's a propaganda rag of pixels.  You don't engage with anybody in Montana; you don't seem to care about Montana at all.  You really suck.

Montana Cowgirl:  B +.  Despite the spite spewed your way, you do seem to break news important to us all.  I don't care whether it's Cowgirl, Cowgirls, or any random person.  You make news, and this is not a bad thing.

Should anybody wonder I would only give my website a B-.  I know my football, and that is my passion.  If you don't like the grades I've given, too bad.  Argue with me if you can.  I allow comments.  But wouldn't you efforts be better spent supporting the newest Montana websites?  We need new blood.  Go for that.

Happy New Year!

Or perhaps I should write "Happy New Blog!"  I haven't had any intention of letting this site go dark, but I also have had no interest in blogging.  Long form blogging as we know it has defied all the predictions of its demise, but still offers less satisfaction than the immediate Tweet or Face-of-evil-Book update.  Most of my recent activity has been in comments to blogs, and that has convinced me that I still have things I'd like to say.  So, continue here I will.

That should not be read as a New Years resolution.  It's just kind of where I'm at right now.  Regardless of where the rest of you are at, I wish you a happy new year.

A Bit Of The Ol' Political, With Blog Notes

My brother likes the new layout of Not Pillage.  I'm not certain that I do.  I actually liked the whole simplistic black and white thingy. No artifice, no pretension.    Black words on a white screen (YOU KIDS GET OFFA MY LAWN!)  But I just couldn't deal anymore with video being relegated to too small a space.   So I changed it.

Over 9 years ago, I decided to go with the Typepad basic service.  Wordpress wasn't available yet, and I liked the people who created, own and run 6 Apart.  Even though, as a basic subscriber, I don't have the options of stylesheet design and layout I would wish, I still have a robust and secure internet presence.    I could transfer to Wordpress now, but No.  The reasons are many.

1)  Few things amuse me more than people claiming ownership over a webspace that they don't pay for.  I don't want to be 'that guy'.

2)  I could pay for hosting and still use Wordpad, but that seems a bit inconsistent when I have what I want.  My blogging has never been about saving money.

3)  Though I have sassed them before, and they have sassed me back, I still like the people who run and created Typepad.

4)  It ain't Blogger.

This layout is okay.  It's starting to grow on me, and I can introduce a bit of color when I need to.

If ever there was a video that required the full exposure a new layout could offer, this is it:

The election is coming.  It is time to make a choice.    There are those who would have you believe that Obama is a bad choice and I'm just telling you that he's better than the alternative.  No fucking way.  He is *BETTER* than the alternative, but this sad-sack bad-choice crap is just that, crap.   I don't like getting  shit on by the rich, and I don't really care that drone strikes should have me getting even more shit on by the rich.  There are those who believe that one should willingly hurt oneself to support a morality that favors others (when the truth is it won't favor those others at all.)   'We need to punish bad doers by punishing ourselves' they will claim.  Nope.  No I don't.    I need no such thing.

Drones are the weapons of the future, here now.  They will be used by any President elected, including Jill Stein.  That is the way of technology;  I know because it's my business to know.  If you want universal peace, then write in Ron Paul.  Me?  I'm voting for the people who will favor what and how I live. These are my choices:

Barrack Obama.

Jon Tester

Steve Bullock

Kim Gillan

I haven't a doubt that I will be accused of 'only supporting Democrats'.  I've been doing the blogging thing for 9+ years.  You don't think I've seen all this bullshit from right or left before?