What's in a name? Pure evil.

When I'm Supreme Ruler of All I Survey, the first thing I'll do is confiscate a great deal of wealth for my own personal pleasure. (I'd like to pretend I'm a better person than this, but hey, I'm Supreme Ruler and that means perks, baby.) Some time shortly thereafter, I'll get down to the business of making everybody's lives much better with my second order of business: I shall forbid congress to name their bills.

No names, not ever. Date-time stamp them ("House Bill 200802131306"), or assign them ascending prime numbers ("Senate Bill 6637"), or maybe even just use whatever numbering system you already have in place, but don't tack on any helpful descriptions, thank you very much. I don't care if that makes individual pieces of legislation difficult to distinguish; every last one of you congressional types have laptops and assistants and freaking pens and paper, so take some notes and sort it out.

The problem with giving bills nicknames is that politicians, clever and resourceful creatures that they are, have a talent for naming their bills in a manner that makes other politicians look like assholes for voting them down:

...You don't want military recruiters to have greater access to our children and their personal information? That's all well and good, but you'll have to vote against the No Child Left Behind Act... and that makes you a bad person who wants to leave children behind. Look, voters: see those children wandering around the parking lot, panicked and crying? It's 'cause this guy voted to leave them behind!

...Want to prevent potentially abusive wiretapping of American citizens? All right, but that makes you an opponent of the Patriot Act, not to mention the Protect America Act. That's right: I said you're anti-patriotic person who wants to leave Americans unprotected, you damn dirty commie!

...You think restrictions on firearms infringe on important constitutional rights? Well, that's your opinion, but I hope you're prepared to vote down the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. Of course, a "no" vote on this means you A) absolutely adore handgun violence, and B) think that Jim Brady deserves to be confined to a wheelchair. You just hate cripples, don't you?

If bills were designated only by ugly chunks of nondescriptive text, legislators and their constituents wouldn't get hung up on the emotional baggage of words like "Children" and "Protect" and "Freedom" and "Puppies" (you do remember the "Vote For This Or You Hate Little Puppies Act" of 1986, don't you?). Congress could finally debate and vote for bills solely on the content of the proposed law.

(For the record, the last law with a name would be the "Okay, I Officially Declare An End To Naming Bills, But Not Until After This Bill Is Signed Into Law" law of 2008).

Car Horns ≠ Social Tools

When somebody beeps their horn at me while I'm walking on the sidewalk, I never react. Ever.

Correction: sometimes I startle a bit and cringe into a half-assed defensive posture, just like everybody else within a hundred foot radius of a car horn. (I resist the urge, but reflex is a powerful motivator.) I react this way because the average automobile honk is, by design, alarmingly loud and omnidirectional. Clearly, it is not a device well-suited to communicate such subtleties as a warm, friendly "Hi there!" to a specific individual. In fact, there are only two legitimate messages one should send with a car horn:

1) "You there! I am about to smash into you with my vehicle. Evade me, or brace for crushing impact."

2) "The light is green. Please stop texting and move your fucking car."

That's it. If you're beeping for any other reason, you are most likely misusing your car horn.

Excerpts from the Book of Surliness

7 The BIG GOD GUY looked upon his two little boys, and He said, "Go now, and make your homes, and take wives, and generally get busy and be happy." 2 And the two boys went into the world to make their fortunes. 3 The older boy climbed the highest mountain, and he looked every way, and he saw vast tracts of arable land, strewn with riches and opportunity, in every direction. Yet on reflection, the oldest boy decided that he would rather stay on the land on which the BIG GOD GUY his father had raised him. 4 So it was that even though it was a small and almost entirely worthless place, the older boy felt a great sentimentality towards this land, and did claim it as his own.

5 The younger boy climbed the same mountain, and beheld prosperity as far as the eye could see in every direction. Yet when he climbed down from the mountain, and saw his brother building a house on their poor childhood plot, the younger boy did stamp his foot and jump up and down and cry and wail, and there began a great argument between the brothers.

6 The BIG GOD GUY frowned, and came upon the boys as a stag. Or something on fire. Or maybe a wise man. 7 Anyway, he was generally displeased, and He asked the boys, "What seems to be the problem here?" And both boys did rant, and rave, and reference ancient maps and historical documents, and the BIG GOD GUY shushed them forcefully. 8 "Perhaps one of my boys could simply leave this tiny, and actually really crappy, piece of land," He suggested, "and go make his home elsewhere." And the BIG GOD GUY did gesture out at the rest of the world, which was about 400,000 times bigger than the boys' childhood home and really quite nice, on balance. 9 And the BIG GOD GUY departed in a flash of light, or some other dramatic special effect.

10 Both boys wiped the snot and tears from their faces, and nodded, and praised their father for his wisdom, and ordered one other to leave. And the argument began anew, and there was slapping, and kicking, and pulling of hair, and the BIG GOD GUY did return with a clap of thunder. Yes, definitely thunder.

11 "Children," growled the BIG GOD GUY, "I've had about enough of this shit. Stop bickering over this little pile of sand. There's a whole fucking world out there." 12 And both boys, abashed, did prostrate themselves and beg forgiveness, then began citing passages from books again, whereupon the BIG GOD GUY did swat them each on the ass in turn. "Shut the fuck up!" He did roar. "I don't care what your prophets and seers wrote. I'm telling you right now: no dirt is this important. Stop your whining and get the fuck along." 13 And the BIG GOD GUY did head back to his room, warning, "Do not make Me come down here again."

14 And both boys did smile, and shake hands for the cameras, and played nice for a few days. 15 Then the conversation did inevitably turn to that same tiny piece of dirt, and the boys were now shooting bullets, and exploding in crowded areas, and launching cruise missiles, and generally beating the piss out of one another.

16 So it came that one day, there was great disaster, and both boys were quite dead, and the land over which they had fought laid waste. The family of the older boy blamed the younger, and the family of the younger boy blamed the older, but both families went their separate ways and did not squabble or bicker any longer. 17 And the rest of the people of the world publicly bemoaned the tragedy of it all, but privately thanked the BIG GOD GUY that the two nutjob boys had finally shut the hell up about that useless strip of land.

18 And the BIG GOD GUY did murmur, "You're welcome." And it wasn't good, but it was a little bit better and a whole lot more quiet.

Rights as wrongs

Pedestrians have the RIGHT of way... but it is WRONG to walk out into traffic. That's you, (probably young) person casually sauntering through the "DON'T WALK" signal.

You have the RIGHT to voice your opinion... but it is WRONG to call an ugly person ugly to his face, or inform a 300-pound woman that she's fat. A-hole.

You have the RIGHT to move very slowly, or even stop moving entirely, pretty much whenever and wherever you like. It is WRONG of you to do so in chokepoints that obstruct the movements of others. This means you, old ladies hobbling two and three abreast through narrow grocery store aisles, and you, kids braking in the middle of the road to chat with the (similarly immobile) driver in the next lane.

A chat with "Loud Pipes Save Lives Guy"

Loud pipes save lives, you say? Oh, I see: your low-profile motorcycle is more obvious to cars if it's very, very loud. Okay, Mr. Safety-Conscious-Biker-Whose-Illegal-Aftermarket-Exhaust-Is-Quite-Literally-Louder-Than-A-Jackhammer... let's talk about safety. I have some ideas.

First off, I'd like to discuss your color scheme. Black bike, black jacket, black gloves, black chaps, black doo rag... oh, yes, it's all very cool! You do cut a pretty smart figure. And they say black is slimming, too, which is nice.

But... well, did you notice that black is pretty much the same color as the road? That's a sort of camouflage, a French word that roughly translates as "makes you pretty fucking hard to see". How about you tweak the look a bit? I'm thinking day-glow safety orange, like hunters wear so they don't shoot each other in the face. Good, huh? Or maybe slap a hot pink vest over top of the leather-- highly visible and attention-getting!

Oh. No, I suppose that wouldn't look as cool. Not a very badass look, and the ladies do love a badass look.

Okay... well, what about a flag? You could attach it to the back of the bike, on a pole a little higher than your head. Something brightly-colored, though, like--

Oh. I forgot about the badass look and ladies thing. No bright flags, then.

All right, this might sound a little off the wall: helmets. No, stop laughing, I'm serious! Football players wear them all the time, and the worst they'll run into is a big guy, moving at maybe fifteen miles per hour. You're going about seventy, and the biggest thing you could collide with is sixteen tons of Mack truck moving in the opposite direction. Even if you just fall over sideways, your head could hit a whole highway, which is made of unyielding asphalt and way bigger and harder than Ray Lewis. If you're really serious about safety, you could push for a law requiring these helmet things!

Ohhh. Wind in the face... feeling of freedom... bad hat hair... peers call you a pussy... oh, and the ladies again; I didn't think of that.

So, let me get this straight: you're willing to take safety measures, as long as it doesn't ruin your look or your self-image, or require the slightest change or compromise on your part. Is that about right? Wow... I guess that means you really do need your loud pipes, and that there's only one thing left to do:

Sue Harley Davidson. Sue them off the goddamned planet.

Seriously! If you honestly believe that loud pipes save lives, then quiet pipes must, conversely, kill riders... and Harley-Davidson adamantly refuses to manufacture a bike that emits what you consider a "life saving" noise level. Therefore, by your own argument, America's leading motorcycle manufacturer is willfully endangering its customer base with their recklessly stealthy factory exhaust systems. If you're concerned enough about biker safety to blast 120 decibels into my living room, surely you'll now launch a legal crusade to hold H-D accountable for the thousands of riders they've murdered in cold blood. What do you say?

Hey, why are you riding off? Probably to a high-powered attorney, I expect, to take down these quiet bike makers and their 85 decibel deathtraps. Ride on, Mr. Safety-Conscious-Biker-Whose-Illegal-Aftermarket-Exhaust-Is-Quite-Literally-Louder-Than-A-Jackhammer! Ride on, to a louder and safer tomorrow!

Thoughts on pessimism

My mother gave me a magazine article today, detailing the bad things that can happen to pessimistic people. I steeled myself, took a deep breath, and tried to take it seriously. As it happens, the reason that she gave me article in the first place is that I am, by nature, rather prone to a negative outlook, and tend to be dismissive of anyone who tells me anything thematically close to "cheer up".

In fact, this particular article wasn't the syrupy-sweet fluff piece I feared; it simply presented statistics and medical opinions about the long-term consequences of a grim worldview. I was mildly impressed: I didn't find anything immediately annoying about the article.

Of course, I couldn't just smile and get happy, either. A few minutes after reading, my most powerful impression was this:

FROM THE ARTICLE (paraphrasing): Pessimistic people tend to think that all problems are permanent, and give up too easily.

MY RESPONSE: You know who else thinks problems are permanent? People who have legitimately permanent problems, and have accurately assessed their circumstances. A young telegraph operator in the 1980's, for example, shouldn't be called a quitter or pessimistic for examining the marketplace and deciding that his chosen field is doomed-- quite the contrary; he'd be a fool to "tough it out" and "fight the good fight" in a dying industry.

Too many "every cloud has a silver lining" types cry pessimism at the first hint of a non-positive observation. To them, I say this: a negative statement is only pessimism if it is ill-considered, wrong, and unhelpful. If I tell you something unpleasant, it's very probably something I feel is both important and true; I'm seriously not trying to be a dick.

(Okay, sometimes I am trying to be a dick. That's probably your fault for goading me into it.)