Dont Look at me…

   These days we make it easy for our government to track our movements, investigate our lives, and pretty much invade our privacy.    “Privacy”, now that’s a funny word.    There is no privacy anymore, and we, as a tech-savvy society can’t wait to spread our lives all over the internet.   We complain about corporations using our information for their own evil purposes, yet we do nothing to prevent it.   Oh, we’ll lock down our Facebook privacy settings, and even hide our email address from the public, but is that really doing anything?   No, it’s really not, and we are all too willing to trade common sense for vanity.   

   I’m no different than anyone else.   The mere fact that I have this blog, and a Facebook account proves that.  I try to be more aware of the information I give up, but I know that by simply having these accounts, my information is out there, and the privacy I’ve lost is my own fault.   And if you’re reading this, well, it’s probably your own fault too.

   With Google, and now the CIA using resources like Recorded Future, we have to expect a huge amount of our lives to no longer be our own.   We’ve given them permission to see where we are, where we’ve been, and the power to influence where we will go.   We’ve allowed this to happen out of sheer laziness.     Laziness and a bit of egocentrism.   So until we decide to abandon our computers, all we can do is pay attention to the information we’ve given to world.   And if possible, give out misinformation, where we can.   Pay with cash.   Create fake names when on Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter.   Use fake phone numbers, addresses, and set up an alternate email address that’s specifically set for all online accounts, but doesn’t link back to your name directly.   There’s no way to completely erase yourself from the dark corners of corporate databases, but there’s no reason to make it easier for them to find out what kind of toilet paper you like.

When does Karma pay?  I was posed with a very difficult situation yesterday.  I was at the ATM at the bank, withdrawing some money, and as I was counting it I noticed that the machine had given me $20 too much.  I quickly checked the receipt to see if I had punched in the wrong number.  Nope I was right, $20 too much.  My first thought was “Nice!  There’s Lunch.”, but as I turned to walk away I started to get this bizarre sense of what I can only describe as “wrongness”.  I didn’t understand this.  I had always said, in many conversations about situations just like this, that I’d just keep the money, “they (the bank) have plenty of money, who’s it hurting?”.   But now I was actually faced with it.  I really wanted to keep it, but the feeling in my gut was persistent in it’s argument.  In an attempt to convince myself that it would be ok to I put my argument in to terms of Karma.

My argument was:  This is Karma paying me back for catching a mistake they made 4 years ago to the tune of $3500 in my favor.  I had built up so many Bank Karma points this was my “Karma payment”.  I didn’t know this but apparently once you have so many “Karma points” built up, Karma has to pay-out.  Or so my argument went.  My gut insisted this was incorrect, and that this was just adding to or subtracting from, depending on my final decision, the points I already had.  Or perhaps replenishing some points that I had lost somewhere along the way.  There was really no way to know.  All in all, my gut won, as I couldn’t prove this to be a payment of any kind, and I took the $20 back to an astonished group of bank tellers.  My gut was happy and promptly took me to McDonalds for a treat.

The lesson here is this:

If you ever get extra cash from the ATM, Keep the damn money!!  Your gut is evil and just wants an excuse to get fat!!!

So, when does Karma pay?

Well, true to form, the Democrats are still failing to get the idea that they have the power.  The Dems are hailing Rep. Sen. Olympia Snowe for finally taking her head out of her ass and getting on board of the Health care bill.  The Dems are so happy because now they can say they have bipartisan support for the bill.  My question is this: Why!?  Why are you waiting for bipartisanship from a Republican party that has done everything in its power to sabotage the very health of this nation? 

We the nation gave you the power, by our own votes, so that you wouldn’t have to deal with this bullshit.  We gave you this power so you could get the job done that we wanted you to do.  Yet there you sit, looking for approval from the Republicans.  That’s not what we wanted.  That’s not what we needed!!   We need you to step it up and get the job done.  You can do it.  Just stop submitting to those useless old fucks. 

You (Democrats) are now the giant, stop letting the midget (all the love to the little people) punch you in the nuts.  Stomp his ass and lets move on.  I think Obama gets it.   Help him out.  Stop looking for Republican approval and start looking for your stomping boots.