I saw this headline today.

(Reuters) Report: Nearly Half of HIV Adults Are Women

Wow. I wonder who the other half is.

Fallout

Fallout

	It's moments like these, historical events that make a blog owner happy. Nationally, this news is big. In the sports world, this news is huge. And in this state, this news is gimongousgantictastic! This state is buzzing with the events that took place in Detroit last Friday night.

To give you an idea of the atmosphere here, on my way into work this morning, I flipped through my usual collection of radio stations. I spent on average about five seconds per station and in those brief moments before I moved on to the next station, every radio program managed to mention something about Artest or the fights or Detroit - five seconds! That's a small indication how big the news is here.

I have coworkers from corporate out in D.C. emailing and IMing me asking me about what happened, what's the mood here, what do our fans think of the whole ordeal, what did I think of it, was the punishment appropriate. They've come to me for the inside track. The news is big out there, it's a typhoon in here.

And here's what I said:

When asked if Pacers fans here are embarrassed as to what happened. I said I don't believe they are for the most part. I think they are proud of their team, I think they are proud of their players who don't take anything from disgruntled fans. Was the Artest/Jackson/O'Neal reaction an over reaction? Probably. But something had to be done. If you saw the following Pacers game against the Orlando Magic, the players (the ones that were allowed to play, all six of them) got a standing ovation in Conseco Fieldhouse. No one here is embarrassed.

I tried to imagine what the outcome could have been had Ben Wallace shoved Reggie Miller instead of bad boy Ron Artest. What if it were nice guy Miller lying on that scoreboard table getting hit with the cup? What would Mr. Cool/Captain-Of-The-Team do? After thinking about it, I honestly think we'd see a very similar reaction and I don't mean Artest jumping into the stands on Miller's behalf.

I think we'd see Miller jump off that table and head into the stands kicking Detroit hide and not taking any names. Only what would be different this time would be 11 other Pacers on his heels parting the crowd like Moses at the Red Sea allowing Miller the chance to exact his revenge.

Artest got one Pacers escort instead of a whole team. Why? Because he's Artest. He has the brute strength and raw emotion of 11 other people and the Pacers that didn't join him, didn't feel Artest needed their help and they probably felt sorry for the fan(s) that was about to receive the shock of his life.

It's also perception. Artest as a person does not deserve to be assaulted by any means. But if you were forced to pick someone on the Indiana Pacers team to get hit by a flying object and have that action have the smallest impact of unfairness, it's Artest. Not because of his hard foul on Ben Wallace but because of his reputation, his past. If you believe in Karma, Artest was probably the closest to have it coming. Miller is Mr. Nice Guy. Any unprovoked assault on him would have been unjust in the extreme and the demons of holy hells would be raised to punish those who upset this balance in the universe.

To avoid confusion, I do not condone the assault that happened to Ron Artest. It was completely unprovoked. I support this man and his decision to take his own action 100%. I'm only talking about behavior and perception here which might provide insight to the common reactions we're hearing and the punishments that were delivered.

As much as Commish David Stern and the NBA deny it, this is good for business. This NASCAR's the NBA up a bit and in this day and age of fear, people want to see blood.

You have to realize, many NBA players, Artest included, are just thugs off the street who are handed everything overnight they ever wanted materially. Your racial sensitivity monitor might be starting to beep right about now, but this isn't racial. I'm talking about members of a certain club, two clubs: NBA and NBA fans and both groups have quite a racial mix.

These NBA players didn't go to behavior school, there are no NBA courses on how to deal with the sudden changes to their lifestyle that they receive. There are players in the NBA taken out of inner city pressure spots where the living atmosphere from day to day is kill or be killed and these kids are then put into a camp where they dedicate at least a decade of their life to working hard physically and they're expected to act like Mother Theresa with a mean slam dunk. The fact that events like the one in Detroit don't happen more often astounds me. I don't know what else you expect from these players especially when you put them in a building with more thugs directly off the street and with little to no security.

I understand Detroit's reaction. They are the embarassed ones. It was 3 vs. 3000 on (inter)national television and the three (eventually) walked away. Talk about a loss of town pride.

Anyway, I like to see things shaken up. I like to see systems undergo constant change. This will be an interesting time for the NBA and a moment that will not be soon forgotten. But like I said, it's a good thing.

The funniest thing I've heard so far out of this whole ordeal was a comedy skit where a radio personality who was doing an impersonation of former NBA player and current NBA commentator Charles Barkley, was asked what he would've done in that situation, he replied, "I would've gotten up and punched Bill Walton right in the face. How come out of all those fights, nobody went over to Bill Walton and gave him a piece."

I'm only paranoid of that which has already happened in history.

I am not a fan of a government that wants to raise my family or tells me how to raise my family. That means I am also not a fan of people who want the government to raise their family.

PayMyPal

PayMyPal

I wonder how successful I would be if I were to go around to as many websites as I could find that requested donations via PayPal, write the webmaster saying I want my (5/10/25/50/100) bucks back because I had a change of (mind/heart/soul/socks) about their (product/service/prank).

How many of them would bite and fork over the "refund?"

I will be the parent of a daughter before I have my next oil change.

2 Halo Or Not 2 Halo

2 Halo Or Not 2 Halo

I think I'm the only Xbox owner on the planet who didn't buy Halo 2 this week.

"Free will is an illusion. People always choose the perceived path of greatest pleasure."

-- Dogbert

The Horror Of Trees

The Horror Of Trees

What about the trees? What about the trees? Save the enviornment! Hey, trees have killed their fair share of people too. We are merely defending ourselves.

We honor the fallen: Michael Kennedy, Sonny Bono, brave heroes who were sacrificed for the cause. This post is for you.

Ski with God my brothers.

November Update

November Update

I forgot to do a monthly update! My memory is fading fast. Here's one with a snapshot of today's headlines.

U.S.: 42 Insurgents Killed in Fallujah
Arafat's Wife Lashes Out at Officials
Peterson Jurors Expected to View Boat
Hinckley Asks Judge for More Freedom
Bin Laden's Ex-Driver Seeks Delay in Trial
Ivory Coast Loyalists Confront French
'Incredibles' Rakes in an Amazing $70.7M
Ark. Girl Blows 16-Inch Bubble
Stocks Move Lower on Profit Taking

Market:
DJI 10394, NASDAQ 2042, SP5 1165

#1 Movie at the box office:
The Incredibles

Last movie I saw at the theater:
Shaun Of The Dead

Last movie(s) I saw not at the theater:
Aliens
Butterfly Effect
The Big Bounce

Books I'm currently reading:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction

CDs I'm listening to:
Korn - Greatest Hits Vol. 1
Wired CD Compliation - Rip Sample Smash Share

Video games I'm playing:
Morrowind III: Elder Scrolls. GoY Edition
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic

Baby Update

Baby Update

So we're all done with baby class. It covered techniques like coping with the pregnancy, relaxation methods, what to do during labor. We got a tour of the maternity wing in the hospital then the last week was caring for your newborn. We had four classes and went weekly on Tuesday night from 7p to 9p. It was worth the $75, if anything to get us acquainted with the hospital and the staff that we will be using.

Mrs. Lock started her third trimester this week. She's at week 27 and everything is going fine. She's dealing quite well with the pregnancy, very few side effects and she even said the other day that she'll miss being pregnant. I can fix that.

She's actually in Chicago today for some meeting. Seven months pregnant and she isn't slowing down for work.

I'm a little bit under the weather today. I hope it's not flu! I can't take a break though because I have corporate visitors in town. We need to go over a bunch of things before starting up a new air traffic system here.

Words to the members of my government

Words to the members of my government



All quotes said by Thomas Jefferson.

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."

"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave. "

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive."

"No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will."

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

"He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."

"It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong."

"Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society."

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

"One man with courage is a majority."

"I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. "

"In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty."

"Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence."

"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

"Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe."

Mr. President

Mr. President

Today's an important day for this country. With the polls saying the people are divided, 48% for incumbent President George W. Bush and 47% for the challenger Senator John F. Kerry, this is going to be as close as it gets. Vegas doesn't even know how to calculate the odds on this one.

Of course I have made some observances in this political season that I'd like to address.

One of the impacts of this election, arguably, would be documentary filmmaker Michael Moore's piece titled Fahrenheit 9/11 which was pretty much a Bush bash fest. I enjoyed the film as I do all of Moore's pieces. I think he is an excellent documentary filmmaker and it's interesting to me to see the worship or the slams he gets because of his political work. If anything is a showcase to how people react to how they're beliefs are supported or refuted, it's Moore's work. There are tons of documentaries being done in this style, a story told from one view point, but Moore's gets the most attention and I tried to find out why. I think quite simply, it's the topic. People are very passionate about their political beliefs, and why shouldn't they? It probably has the greatest impact on their day to day lives.

I saw another documentary piece recently titled Super Size Me about a man's 30 day experiment to show you why fast food is bad for the human body. This movie was a McDonald's bash fest like what Fahrenheit did to Bush, but I haven't seen any reaction (except from McDonald's themselves) on the scale that Moore gets for his piece. Where are the McDonald's fans, the fast food fans defending or shredding such a controversial piece. The filmmaker 30 day fast food experiment wasn't even scientific which should make it more controversial, but alas, it's all about the topic. If you don't want to stir up passion (please do actually) don't mess with people's politics.

My prediction is that Senator Kerry will win this election. Even though he's down in the polls, the difference is negligible and you have to take other factors into consideration when determining the outcome, like the polls that are taken to figure out who's leading whom. A sizeable (one that would matter in this close election) group of people were unreachable by polls in this age of cell phones. Pollers can't call cell phones. People with cell phones only (like me), can't be reached. People with cell phones tend to be young adults and young adults tend to vote Democrat. I think it's enough to give Kerry the edge.

Onto another topic: The vote or shut up mentality. I don't support this attitude. Vote or not vote, it doesn't matter. It only takes a small percentage, something like 4 percent, if the group is properly mixed to represent the whole group, we would get an accurate result by the 4 percent. The trouble is when the group isn't properly mixed, when all of one group decides to not vote. If you want an accurate election, pressure society to vote. Don't blame the media for doing its job.

Next, delayed results. Get your act together. Get those votes counted quick. Cut down on the lawsuits that delay the results past election night. Voters will quit voting if this keeps up. Fix the system.

Nader deciding to run which both sides claimed would hurt the Dems is a good thing. Kudos to Nader for exercising the format of how our democracy is supposed to work. The Constitution doesn't support a two party system, it's society that's supporting that. So if you don't like having a third or fourth or more parties running, stealing votes from the your precious two party system, change society's views on the two party system and encourage people to vote for the actual candidate they like the most, not vote for the party. Straight ticket voting is for the lazy. There are liberal Republicans and there are conservative Democrats.

Finally, persecution of the undecided voter. It's simple. Undecided voters are being pressured to pick the guy who likes chocolate over the guy who likes peanut butter. It doesn't matter who becomes President. That's why they're undecided. Because you take your issues more seriously blinds you from understanding why the undecided exist.

This will be my first time voting in a booth. I've only done absentee in the past. I hope I know how to work it. There are some clueless people out there voting, I'm sure I can figure it out. Just an hour away now before Mrs. Lock and I head out to make our voice heard.

That's all for now.

Lock

"Chaos is the Law of nature, order is the dream of Man."
-- Henry Adams