There are things about people that I’ll never understand. One of those things that has been on my mind lately is how people can let other people in online forums get under their skin. I’ve been participating in online forums since the late ’80s, using PCBoard and Fidonet, and I never could understand how someone could let a complete stranger bait them into losing their cool and question their own self-worth.

This has happened recently on an online forum that I really enjoy participating in. I’ve met some good people on this forum over the years that I’ve participated there and some of them have become actual good friends that I believe I could count in a time of need. A few have already proven that when my mother died. They were there with me and helping me get through the grief and mourning.

People come and go on this board. Some hang around for a month or so and then disappear some may hang around for a year or more. A few stick with it and make close friends. Every now and then someone gets so comfortable with the people that they know are there that they forget that it is a public place that can be read by anyone and post something way to personal to tell in public. When that happens there will always be someone there to tell just how foolish they were to post that intimate bit of information in a public forum.

Sometimes people are just venting and it comes out as a whine. Again someone will POP up to tell them what a whiner they are. I’ve seen it happen over and over and I’m always amazed at how personal people will take these assholes that respond back to them with a blunt reality check. Yeah, they are rude and crude and they make you look at what you wrote and see it for the rationalization that it really is and they make you be honest with yourself…. or at least see yourself through their eyes.

It always amazes me then when the person being attacked starts to try to defend themselves to these assholes. The parts the asshole got right you need to accept it and learn from it but the parts they have wrong… well, who are they for you to care what they think of you. How can someone who should mean nothing to you have such a hold on your opinion of yourself that you take their bait and get into a flame war with them?

It isn’t worth getting your blood pressure up arguing with these trolls. If you want to fluster them, take a long hard look at yourself and agree with them on the points they may have right. Concede your faults and see what happens. It’s a lot better doing that than getting your blood pressure up trying to prove to someone that really doesn’t matter that you are actually a good person with no faults.

I’ll never undestand why more people don’t see it the way I do.

Years ago I use to drink fairly heavily at times. I don’t think, though, that I’ve ever been so drunk that I would continue driving home without noticing that my passenger had been decapitated.

Well, here’s another example of stupid zero tolerance policies… and this one just a few miles down the road from my house.

A student at Grayson High School, in Gwinnett County, was stopped by a school administrator when he was spotted wearing the shirt that read “Hempstead, NY 516), a reference to the Long Island town, and its area code. But, the administrator only saw the first four letters of the town’s name, and believed it to be a drug reference.

“It was ridiculous,” says Caron Jones, mother of Terrell Jones. “They were labeling him that he was advertising marijuana,” she says. The family moved to Gwinnett from Hempstead, and never considered that the hemp in Hempstead might cause any problems at the boy’s school. “I had no idea that hemp stands for marijuana until I looked it up in the dictionary,” Mrs. Jones says. “But, his t-shirt says Hempstead, not hemp.”

After being questioned by school officials, Terrell finally convinced them to do a search on the internet and see that there really is, in fact, a Hempstead. After determining the existance of the town, the boy was allowed to return to class. The boy’s father is still furious.

Okay, I really understand that clothing with references to drugs and alcohol have no place in a school setting. What gets me in this situation is that these people who are suppose to be educating my kid in, among other things, geography had to be told by the student how to confirm that Hempstead, NY referred to a real town and was not a drug reference.

And my son is in this school system.

This is going to bite them.

A former Democratic senator who lost three of his limbs during the Vietnam War plans to deliver a letter of protest to President Bush Wednesday, asking him to denounce political advertisements questioning John Kerry’s war record.

Last night Kerry had some sympathy over the unfairness of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads and the news out today about Benjamin Ginsberg working for both the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the Bush campaign is going to have everyone thinking that Bush is the one being the stinker. This piling on, though, along with MoveOn.org’s fourteen attack ads against President Bush is going to twist this around on John Kerry and make him out to be the mudslinger.

Why can’t people understand that too much of anything is always too much?

I’ve often said that the “cry baby factor” has a lot more effect on my decision to vote for or against a political candidate than their political promises. With that in mind, Nealz Nuze had this political cartoon that gave me a chuckle.

What do I consider adds to the cry baby factor? Basically, if you are running for a political office and you or your supportes run an attack ad or write a book about how much of a dirty rotten S.O.B. your opponent is and then your opponent or their supporters strike back with a similar campaign and you cry foul you are a cry baby and undeserved of my vote.

In this election the two leaders are both undeserved of my vote so Kerry’s crybaby factor probably won’t effect my decision whether or not to vote for him. It does, however, add to the entertainment value of this election.

I’ve been a fan of Garrison Keillor for a long time. Something about his voice, his writing and the delivery of his writings on Public Radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion” just makes me feel good. I really like his humor. So the other night while I was at Barnes & Noble Booksellers I had to remind myself of my budget while thumbing through his book “Homegrown Democrat”. I didn’t buy the book but I’ve found the first four chapters online and I’ve read them.

So far this book almost makes me want to stop being an Independant and go out and become a Democrat. I will be picking up the book when I next get paid.

My friend, Felix, started a blog, Incorpreal Works. I know Felix to be a very articulate and thoughtful person. I expect to see more good writing there from him. Check him out from time to time.

I grew up in a Chevrolet dealership. My father was a mechanic for Summer’s Chevrolet in Red Bank during my early, formative years. I was raised in Red Bank and spent a lot of time at that dealership. Summer’s later became Adcox-Kirby Chevrolet and moved to Brainard when I was about twelve so I was sort of raised with an affinity for Chevrolet’s.

Maybe telling you that will help you understand my sadness. I just took a glance at the Chevrolet website and was greatly disappointed at the offerings in cars that they have. There was absolutely no car I could really get excited about. Yeah, they have the new body style on the new C6 Corvette, which Car & Driver gave great reviews on, but the Corvette is fifty years old. Oh, and they have the new SSR which is kind of cool, but that’s not really a car. Is it?

It’s really been this way for a while now. Yeah, Chevy has some great SUVs and I still prefer a Chevy truck to the offerings from Ford, Dodge, Toyota and Nissan but every since the Camaro got dropped from their line I’ve just lost all interest in Chevrolet cars. I had great hopes with them bringing back the Malibu name but it just doesn’t get it for me. It’s just a cheap mid-sized fleet car not even pretending to offer any performance. And when other car manufacturers are releasing cool station wagons this year Chevrolet gives us a ho-hum 5-door Malibu Maxx.

Possibly the only savior for the whole line is the Impala SS. Still it’s only a V6 but it’s a supercharged V6. I’m waiting for some reviews on this car. Until then, I’m adopting Chrysler as my car of choice.

While he’s absolutely right I don’t believe he has a whole lot of room to talk.

BOSTON - Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush on Thursday of relying on front groups to challenge his record of valor in Vietnam, asserting, “He wants them to do his dirty work.”

Michael Moore, Terry McAuliffe, MoveOn.org, Al Franken and the rest of the Air America, Ted Kennedy, Bill Maher, Whoopi Goldberg…

All these folks have taken pot shots at President Bush and made allegations that can not be substantiated about his tour of duty in the National Guard. I’m going to be hard pressed to believe that Kerry was disappointed in their actions. At least I’ve heard very little (read none) from him in begging them to back off.

Both sides are doing this right now and for either one to cry foul on the other is very disingenuous. I personally wish they would both just focus on the last ten years of each other’s lives and forget all this ancient history.

I take a glance at the Electoral Vote Predictor almost daily, just to see what is changing. Nothing lately but today something struck me. While Kerry is carrying the electoral college in the polls he is doing so by carrying most of his states with weak or barely support while the states that Bush carries he’s carrying mostly strongly. This is telling me that the election could be determined by just one slip up by either candidate or a random bit of good news that’s really out of either candidate’s control, like a change in the rules.

I’ve been back in Augusta this week. During the times I’ve been there I keep driving by this place that has this old Studebaker Hawk sitting in the same place. I finally got curious and stopped to check it out.

This is a beautiful 1963 Studebaker Granturismo Hawk. As far as i can tell it is all original and it is in great shape. The paint is a little thin and dull but after 40 years what else would you expect.

If my finances were in a little better shape I would have been driving this car back with me. But I guess I’ll have to wait a little longer. Still it’s a beautiful car.

You may have noticed the Electoral College graphic in my sidebar. It updates with every update on Electoral-Vote.com updates their site. I really like that site in that it puts the polls we hear about into proper perspective. It is the states that elect the president in this country, not the individuals.

Today I found another part of the website, the Electoral College Graph, that shows some interesting trends. The most interesting part is that when Farenheit 9/11 opened Kerry lost electoral votes with Bush gaining none during that same time period.

What does that mean? I have no idea.

Well, Dubya did it again. Another of his malapropisms came to light during a signing ceremony for defence expenditures the other day.

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

I know some people will claim it was a Freudin slip and not a malapropism. Me? I just get my entertainment wherever I can.

I’m not real sure what to make of this. Professor Carol Black, president of the Royal College of Physicians, seems to believe that too many women in medicine will weaken the influence of physicians.

“We are feminising medicine. It has been a profession dominated by white males. What are we going to have to do to ensure it retains its influence?”

Basically, she’s acknowledging that it is still a man’s world and that, sadly, is true. Still, this type of blunt pragmatism really takes me by surprise and offends me. What she is saying may be painfully true but the fact that she is saying it can only exacerbate the problem. Whether or not physicians retain their influence is a much more minor problem than whether or not women’s domination of a field reduces the influence of that field.

Over on Flutterby! there is a discussion over the declining wages in this country over the past few decades. Anyway I mentioned the FairTax and was promptly told how unfair the FairTax is.

I fail to understand how people can get their minds so twisted as to not understanding that everyone paying a single rate on income or spending is the only fair way of doing things. People who earn less pay fewer dollars in taxes under any flat rate income tax that allows for no sheltering of income or deductions for various types of expenditures. Any flat rate tax on consumption is also inherently fair. What isn’t fair is to give any one constituency a way out of paying taxes.

Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s what I had to say. I’d be interested to here what you think of the FairTax.