No Apology Necessary

Have you ever been in a heated debate when suddenly the person opposite you crosses the line and says something so egregiously offensive that you simply can no longer tolerate it? Well I have, and usually I’m the offensive asshole. But in those instances when I’m not, I’ll often hear the words: “Well… I’m sorry if you’re offended.” As if this makes it okay. Is this supposed to be some sort of apology? Because it isn’t. It’s their way of saying: “You’re a huge pussy and I feel sorry for you because you’re simply too stupid to agree with me.” But it works like some fucked-up Jedi mind-trick on people. The receiver of this back-handed apology almost always accepts it as they want to hear it… as an actual apology. Whereas the giver of said not-an-apology gets away with not actually apologizing. Everybody wins right? Wrong.

You can’t let these people get away with this shit.

There are only two correct ways to respond to someone who apologizes “if they have offended you”. The first is to say: “Well, you DID actually offend me. So the question now becomes, are you apologizing for the fact that I am offended, or are you apologizing for that outrageously shitty thing you just said or did that caused me to be offended? One of those apologies I will accept, the other I will not.” Oh, they will act all outraged at your belligerence, pretending that they did, in fact, apologize and now you’re somehow the jerk who is without any sense of civility. Ignore this. They’re busted and they know it. They are now confronted with the reality of not only the initial offense, but the more embarrassing act of attempting to manipulate you into believing yet another of their lies. Chances are they will act offended… this is your opportunity to say: “Well… I’m sorry if you feel offended.”.

The only other appropriate response when receiving a not-an-apology is to take a moment of silence, look them in the eye, extend your left hand for a handshake and then use your right hand to punch them in the throat as hard as you can. When they are lying prostrate on the ground, gasping for air, simply bend over and tell them: “I’m sorry if you’re having trouble breathing.”

Oh, and don’t get me started on the whole “No offense, but…” prefix to a sentence. The next words about to come out of that douche bag’s mouth are guaranteed to be intentionally and purposefully offensive. When you hear that phrase, just re-scramble the words in your head so that you instead hear what they actually mean: “I’m a complete asshole who realizes I have absolutely no fucking idea what I am talking about, but my narcissistic, bullshit opinion must be heard regardless of how racist, ignorant or cruel it is.”

“Hey, no offense, but you’re ugly, your children are stupid and you’re wife is a two-dollar truck-stop whore. But ya know… no offense.”

Evil is as Evil Does

Well it finally happened. Our benevolent Internet Overlords have finally gone rogue. I am, of course, talking about Google. Welcome to the Dark Side Google... we've been expecting you. You may or may not know that I am an Internet marketing consultant. You'd never guess it from my blog, but I actually work with companies to make their online efforts more effective and useful. That includes websites.

Google has a long-held (well since the 2004 IPO) informal motto of: "Don't Be Evil". This stems from a letter from its founders stating: ". . . Don't be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served-as shareholders and in all other ways-by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company."

OK. Cool. I like that. I can get on board with not being evil, just as much as I can get on board with being against Bubonic Plague or airline food. But something has gone terribly wrong. Recently, Google unveiled "Side Wiki" as part of the Google Toolbar plug-in for your browser. This nifty little tool essentially allows anyone to post a comment about the website they are currently visiting allowing users who are also viewing that website to see said comments. So where's the harm in that you ask? What sinister plot does this seemingly helpful little widget reveal?

Let me put it this way. People spend a lot of effort and money on their websites, sometimes millions of dollars. Often it is the core marketing and sales vehicle for their company. In some cases these are regulated companies like pharmaceutical companies. What Google has done here is to provide an effective tool designed to wipe out the investment made by organizations trying to present their products or company the way they want. In other words, companies have spent money to build a site that they feel best represents their interests to their potential customers on the open marketplace of ideas. If there is a differing opinion, other sites are welcome to make their case as well. But if I've spent millions driving traffic to my site... say Microsoft.com, and some competitor pays a college kid to write something terrible about Microsoft Internet Explorer and that everyone should use Google Chrome as their browser... then I am paying for my competitors to advertise against me, right on my own Web property.

It's like allowing General Motors to go to every Toyota dealership and spray-paint the side of the building with: "Toyota Cars Kill Americans!"

"But wait," you say, "There is review of these posts. It is designed to provide helpful feedback and improve the quality of life for everyone not evil marketing practices." Well, you know where you CAN'T post a comment? The download page of Google's toolbar. But you can sure as hell post one on Microsoft's home page:

So I guess now, Microsoft is lucky enough to have helpful tips on their own home page like: "My hope is one day Microsoft with stop trying to make-up web standards and instead jump on board the current and future standards which Opera, Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox have embraced from the beginning."

Did I catch that right? On Microsoft's home page there is now an option to see content that tells users that they should use Google Chrome. Nice.

So what does this mean? Well, it means that now Google is forcing everyone who has any stake in a company's website to first, use the Google Toolbar on their browser so they can at least see all the crap people are saying about them on their own website, second, it forces companies which are regulated, like pharmaceutical companies to report any claims made against their products (true or not) to the FDA and possibly hold off clinical trials for drugs and medical devices that could be saving lives, and finally, it creates a chilling effect whereby companies are now better served by hiding content and indeed their entire websites under login structures and secure socket layers to avoid having their own brand investment used against them by competitors, thereby making the majority of useful content online harder to access for everyone. Gee, thanks Google!

This is just plain irresponsible of Google. But is it evil? I am sure it is well intentioned. The goals are for the common good, designed to help and protect us all. Therefore I can definitively state that it is evil of the highest order.

But more importantly, it's stupid. I control the online advertising budgets for several companies. I'll be damned if I am going to pay Google to send users to my site, and then allow Google to encourage some knock-off third rate competitor to use that traffic against me. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. 

And just in case you don't happen to be a Google shareholder, don't worry this will cost you too. You see, now every company needs to spend time and money essentially writing a blog to repudiate or answer possibly erroneous commentary. That costs money. Money that gets charged back to consumers. In essence, now every company has to have a blog whether they want to or not. But don't worry, the blog is monitored... by Google.

"Run Forrest! Run!"

Fair and Balanced

I’ve been watching a lot of Fox News lately. Well, let me re-phrase that… I’ve been watching programs that appear on a channel that is called Fox News. One must be careful with language here because the name of the channel is a misnomer. The name is purposefully designed to imply that the programming contained on the channel is news, when in fact, it isn’t exactly news that they are providing. It’s like having a channel called “Comedy Central” and airing Police Academy 4. It makes people think that it is actually comedy they are watching, when in fact, it’s clearly nothing of the sort.

This is a common tactic of liars and con-artists… or put another way, politicians and pundits. It’s a form of double-speak that is at once subtle and blatant. It floats on top of the substance of things and envelopes them in a fog of convoluted logic creating a false premise for the delivery of information that would otherwise be considered inconsistent with people’s perception of reality. But make no mistake, it is intentional and it is effective. It is the simplest form of double-speak. I illustrate this as a prelude to a much more complex and insidious tactic commonly used by people who may have no idea they are doing it. The process goes something like this:

1. Accuse your opponent of trying to do something terrible.

2. Explain your opponent’s tactics to achieving that terrible goal.

3. Do that terrible thing you accused you opponent of planning on doing, using the tactics you explained your opponent would use.

4. Be outraged at the hypocrisy of your opponent when they accuse you of doing what you had previously accused them of wanting to do.

5. Use that outrage to focus attention on the outrage itself, rather than the terrible thing you just did.

It’s so simple, a caveman could do it… or even Glenn Beck.

I’d like to come up with a name for this tactic, something like: “A Reverse Reality Logic Bomb” but with a little more zing to it. Maybe I’ll call it Fox News. The point is, this tactic is most effective when the outrage is genuine. In other words, the perpetrator of this lie needs to be so overwhelmingly ignorant of reality that they actually believe they have been victimized. Of course, the liar would never call himself a victim. Instead he would accuse his opponents of having a “victim mentality” and trying to use that to make themselves rich, so they are able to gang up on him, attack him and deny him his rights, which is why you should listen to him thereby make him rich. Perfect.

You may ask: “How can I protect myself against falling victim to this ingenious ploy?”.  It’s very simple. Any time you hear someone upset, yelling, screaming or in any way demonstrably declaring outrage, you know that you are either dealing with a liar or watching Fox News... but most likely you are doing both.

If We Can Put a Man on the Moon...

Why can't we blow it up?

I was recently asked this question: "If the whole world worked together, how long would it take us to blow up the Moon?" Well, the answer is obvious... more than a week.

Let's first assume we're talking about nukes here. And we're not talking about moving it out of its orbit and crashing it into the Sun, or drilling a big hole and using some sort of resonance sound wave to destabilize the core, or any other clever bullshit science fiction trick. No... we're talking about blowing that big white fucking orb in the sky to kingdom come.

OK.

First, the diameter of the Moon is approximately 3,474 Kilometers, or since I am in the U.S. and therefore irrationally opposed to the Metric System, we're looking at 2,159 Miles. One of the largest craters from a nuclear blast was about 106 ft. deep or .02 miles. This was caused by a 15 megaton bomb. We currently have about 30,000 warheads in the world. Most of which we couldn't convert to high yield bombs, but for the sake of argument, lets say we have access to 20,000. So with a little math here we can assume that with a nominal yield of 15 megatons it would take approximately 20,000 bombs just to make a hole 400 miles deep. We're not even close.

But hold on there just a damn minute... man. The Soviets created a 100 megaton bomb back in the 60's or 70's (40 years ago folks). And, at one point, they had amassed around 45,000 nukes and the U.S. had a paltry 30,000. Add some Chinese, French, English, Pakistani and hell, maybe even an Iranian nuke or two and we've got the proven ability to build upwards of 100,000 bombs at any given point. If we worked those centrifuges 24X7 I bet we could crank out 20,000 one hundred megaton nukes in no time.

That changes everything.

If one 15 megaton nuke blasts a hole .02 miles deep, then a 100 megaton nuke would likely make a hole 6.6 times deeper, or .132 miles deep. Multiply .132 times 20,000 nukes and we get one big fucking 2,640 mile-deep crater... which is, of course, about 600 miles deeper than we would need to blow a hole clean through that bad boy.

So how long would it take us, if everyone on the planet worked together to make this happen? Like I said, longer than a week. Maybe even a couple of months.