brandonrobison.net

I heard today that President Obama is proposing to create (or already created?) a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Ha. What a joke.

Why not just past Directive 10-289? It reads:

In the name of the general welfare to protect the people’s security, to achieve full equality and total stability, it is decreed for the duration of the national emergency that-

Point One: All workers, wage earners, and employees of any kind whatsoever shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be dismissed nor change employment, under penalty of a term in jail. The penalty shall be determined by the Unification Board, such board to be appointed by the Bureau Of Economic Planning and National Resources. All person reaching the age of twenty-one shall report to the Unification Board, which shall assign them to where, in its opinion, their services will best serve the interests of the nation.

Point Two: All industrial, commercial, manufacturing, and business establishments of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth remain in operation, and the owners of such establishments shall not quit, nor leave, nor retire, nor close, sell or transfer their business, under penalty of the nationalization of their establishment and of any or all their property.

Point Three: All patents and copyrights, pertaining to any devices, inventions, formulas, processes, and works of any nature whatsoever, shall be turned over to the nation as a patriotic emergency gift by means of Gift Certificates to be signed voluntarily by the owners of all such patents and copyrights. The Unification Board shall then license the use of such patents and copyrights to all applicants, equally and without discrimination, for the purpose of elimination monopolistic practices, discarding obsolete products and making the best available to the whole nation. No trademarks, brand names, or copyrighted titles shall be used. Every formerly patented product shall be known by a new name and sold by all manufacturers under the same name, such name to be selected by the Unification Board. All private trademarks and brand names are hereby abolished.

Point Four: No new devices, inventions, products, or goods of any nature whatsoever, not now on the market, shall be produced, invented, manufactured or sold after the date of this directive, The Office of patents and Copyrights is hereby suspended. (Added later in chapter: All “research departments, experimental laboratories, scientific foundations” will be closed except for government-operated facilities.)

Point Five: Every establishment, concern, corporation or person engaged in production of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth produce the same amount of goods per year as is, they or he produced during the Basic Year, no more or no less. The year is to known as the Basic or Yardstick Year is to be the year ending on the date of this directive. Over or under production shall be fined, such fines to be determined by the Unification board.

Point Six: Every person of any age, sex, class or income, shall henceforth spend the same amount of money on the purchase of goods per year as he or she spent during the Basic Year, no more and no less. Over or under purchasing shall be fined, such fines to be determined by the Unification Board.

Point Seven: All wages, prices, salaries, dividends, profits, interest rates and forms of income of any nature whatsoever, shall be frozen at their present figures, as of the date of this directive. (But taxes will be allowed to increase as needed for the public good)

Point Eight: All cases arising from and rules not specifically provided for in this directive, shall be settled and determined by the Unification Board, whose decisions shall be final.

I’ve been reading through Upton Sinclair’s Oil! for some time now. It’s really an enjoyable book to read, but it’s taking me forever to read. Anyone who thinks they know Sinclair’s or my philosophies will “know” we differ greatly. But from reading Oil! I’ve begun to think we may be a lot closer than I previously had thought.

According to Sinclair, big corporations become “bigger” (and by bigger, I mean eviler) by gaining government favors, usually in exchange for some form of bribery on the part of the capitalist. Workers can never gain the upper hand in this sort of system where the big guys are constantly overpowering them. The socialist’s fix? “Workers of the world unite!” Supposedly, this will solve the problem, because then the capitalist will be at the mercy of his workers. Except until the capitalist calls in his favors from the people he’s bribed and gets the army (or some such armed faction) to come in and stomp on the workers. Epic fail for the socialists.

Since the big guy controls everything, he will almost certainly be able to find other “workers” who will be willing to quash any other worker uprising. Looking past the economic impracticality/impossibility of socialism, the plausibility of the mass of workers overpowering their so-called overlords seems to be just as unattainable.

According to me, capitalists are not by themselves inherently evil: they become evil (”bigger”) only by means of government aid. Notice the similarity and contrast with Sinclair’s belief?

Sinclair looks more like: Capitalism –> evil –> government

Mine is like: Government –> evil –> capitalism

In either case, however, “evil” is abundant. How would I solve the problem of evil? I’d suggest that government not have such a coercive force. But then the practicality problem still exists: Wouldn’t people or groups still exist which could go around bossing others around? I suppose they might.

And so ultimately, I can’t help but contemplate how both ends of the spectrum are so similar.

After talking to people at airports and getting no where, I called JetBlue’s customer service line yesterday. The guy I talked to, and his manager, both told me they couldn’t do anything for me, but if I wrote in directly to JetBlue, they could investigate the matter further and possibly offer me some recompense.

For those of you unfamiliar with what happened, the story is told in the complaint letter I sent to JetBlue:

Prior to departing Washington DC, we were informed the flight had been delayed. The ground crew told us we might miss our connecting flight in New York, but we would probably be okay. We were asked if we wanted to take the chance. Since my wife (Ashley) and I both had work the following Monday morning in Las Vegas, and since the crew was telling us we would probably make the connection, we decided to take the chance.

When we arrived at New York, we were told our plane had left about five minutes before we got there. We were then told that “since we had been warned,” we would have to find our own accommodations for the night. While we found this ridiculous, perhaps the most irksome part of the whole situation was that we both had to miss work the following day!

I understand that unexpected delays come up — weather, air traffic control, etc. — but as these things come up so regularly, a professional commercial airline should come to expect them and understand how to deal with them. Yes, our flight left DC late, but would it have been so hard for the connecting flight to wait an extra 15 or 30 minutes? That kind of lateness can easily be made up on a transcontinental flight. Or perhaps arrangements could have been made to have us fly a different airline? A so-called “customer friendly” company such as JetBlue should be able to work something out to please its customers.

My wife and I will be moving to the DC area soon. Since both our families live on the West Coast, flying will likely become fairly frequent for all of us. As things stand at this point, I can’t say I will want to use JetBlue, and I will certainly advise my family against it if this is how its customers are treated.

This is the response I received:

Dear Mr. Robison,

Thank you for your email regarding your JetBlue flight on May 31. We regret to hear that you and your wife were not able to connect to your flight due to our delayed flight to Washington/Dulles (IAD). We know your travel plans were important and we understand your frustration at missing your connection.

When we have flight delays, we strive to let our customers know of their options prior to boarding the flight. Our records indicate that you were informed the connection had the possibility of being missed in IAD. We expect and even demand that our crewmember offer the best in service at every point. Please be assured we have forwarded your comments to our leadership.

Although we strive for the highest level of customer service, that does not always constitute a refund, compensation, or fare adjustment. We must respectfully deny your request for compensation.

We hope you will offer us another opportunity to welcome you onboard and look forward to sharing a comfortable JetBlue experience with you and your family.

I guess we’ll be avoiding JetBlue from now on. I’d recommend everyone else do the same.

But I guess there is a market for everything.

Afrika is a safari and photography simulation game released last summer in Japan. I hadn’t heard of it until I stumbled onto its music. The soundtrack is really impressive. A segment of the score, along with the beautiful PS3-rendered graphics, can be experienced in the video below:

I just got my hairs cut. I haven’t gotten a haircut since… sometime last summer. Below are before and after shots. The before was actually taken about three weeks ago at Larson’s wedding. Click the image to enlarge it.

April 24 My birthday…

April 24-26 Going to Northern Utah for Larson’s wedding. I’m hoping to see lots of old friends while we’re up there.

May 12 Taking the last test of my undergraduate career — no more UNLV!

May 15-17 I’m guessing we will probably take a trip to Lucerne Valley this weekend to see Ashley’s family.

May 22-31 Washington DC / Northern Virginia trip. Check out where we’re going to be for at least the next four years (probably longer). Visit DC sites. One year anniversary on the 31st!

June 23 My favorite band, The Mars Volta, is releasing a brand new album.

July 15 Probably my most anticipated movie this year, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes to theaters.

July 25 Ashley’s birthday. (Though I have no idea what we’re doing…)

Early August Move to the East Coast

A new trailer for the upcoming movie version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released yesterday. You should watch it. I nearly wet myself.

Check out the ownage going on in the following two stills I took from the movie:

(First pic is Snape owning Harry as he flees Hogwarts. Second pic is Dumbledore owning some Inferi in the cave. Click to enlarge.)

As this was my favorite book of the series, I am trying not to get too excited about the movie. Invariably, the movie-makers will feel the need to add some stupid crap and take out some important parts of the book, or do something else to somehow totally destroy the awesomeness that was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And then I will be sad.

(In fact, this has already been confirmed. For those of you who have read the book: the lesson where Dumbledore and Harry visit the House of Gaunt has been completely removed from the movie; and they’ve added a scene where Harry and Ginny are stuck at the Weasley’s home when Death Eaters decide to attack it… *sigh*)

Oh well. I’m going to be there at midnight for sure.

[Added later: For a smaller, streaming version of the trailer, click here. The high quality Apple version is better, though.]

Crap.

I don’t like being associated with “rightwing”-ism, but apparently that seems to be how the government wishes to pigeonhole me, according to a recently-released report by the Department of Homeland Security on Rightwing Extremism:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration. [emphasis added by me]

I’ve suspected for years that I’m on “the lists” — but I really probably am!

On top of that, I have a Ron Paul bumper sticker on my car, so I better never travel in Missouri.

This is taken from Upton Sinclair’s Oil! …of all places…

[He realized] that the “English” was cruelly dull, and that the young man who taught it was bored to tears by what he was doing; that the “Spanish” had a French accent, and that the professor was secretly patronizing bootleggers to console himself for having to live in what he considered a land of barbarians; that the “Sociology” was an elaborate structure of classifications, wholly artificial, devised by learned gentlemen in search of something to be learned about; and that the Modern History was taught from text-books which had undergone the scrutiny of thousands of sharp eyes, in order to spare the sensibilities of [rich donors], and avoid giving to any student the slightest hint concerning the forces which control the modern world.

We watched Oliver Stone’s W. tonight.

Those of you who know me know I’m no fan of our former president, but come on. I felt like I was watching a something that a high school student had written. I am by no means a scholar on George W. Bush, but the telling of his life seemed very one-dimensional and sophomoric.

There was, for example, an over-stressing of W.’s inability to accomplish anything on his own. While this may be a valid characteristic of the man, and while I don’t put him on my “list of smartest individuals,” there are many people in the world who receive just as much fed to them on a silver platter as W. did, who never amount to anything. Let’s not forget that he has accomplished far more than most people will ever dream of, even if it’s not a dreamy legacy.

There were things I did know about Bush’s life that the movie completely misrepresented, eg. many of the Bushisms from the movie were given at completely different points than when they occurred in his real life/career. I realize Stone may have just wanted to take some easy jabs at the ex-president, but in my mind, it merely served to weaken the truthfulness of the overall story. “If Stone is changing little things like that, what else is he changing?”

And last of all, the span of the movie just seemed to be too much. It covered most of W.’s life, which also included his involvement with his father and his father’s presidency. It also tried to cover several key individuals who were involved in both presidencies, like Colin Powell and Dick Cheney. The result of it covering so much material is that several main characters were also presented in a very one-dimensional way: Dick Cheney is the conniving oil baron; Karl Rove is all about political expediency, no matter the cost; Colin Powell is the voice of reason amongst a reasonless committee; and so on.

Anyway, bad movie. I wouldn’t recommend it.