Minimum Speed Limits Aren't Just for Highways

We (royal "we", getting ready for Emperor-speak) are at a loss to explain what happens to people in grocery stores.

Is there some sort of Grand Canyon/Niagara Falls/Rocky Mountains/Pebble Beach type of stunning vista attached to aisles of sugared cereals extending to distant horizons?

Do those Kmart-blue lights effect a hypnotic trance in some people?

Are people's lives so empty that a visit to Costco is such a highlight that it needs to be extended maximally?

When I grocery shop I usually have a list and something much more interesting to do next.  I understand that lists can blind one to new discoveries (in hardware and stationery stores as well as grocery emporiums), but I can also "do the aisles" at a reasonable pace.

My mother, at an age when getting up from the chair was difficult and canes or walkers were involved, when put behind a shopping cart on Seniors' Tuesday (free tea & cookies) at the Safeway, would be off like a shot.

Before I could even find her she would 4-wheel-drift into the checkout line, full to the gunnels.  I have no idea how the old girl could hump a case of Niblets into the cart, but when the pantry inventory was down to only 48 cans you just did what you had to do.

Anyway, why do so many of today's shoppers slow their gait to a bare shuffle?  And why do they stop -- usually 2 or 3 across -- in the middle of aisles and intersections.

Their blank visage often shows no discernible thought of any kind, let alone a crisis of direction or indecision. Certainly they seem totally unaware of others behind them who are only in this aisle as a short-cut to the huge jars of martini olives that are the penultimate item on the list.

Why do I seem to be the only one keeping to the right, shoulder-checking, looking both ways at intersections. If carts had turn signals -- and they should -- I would use them.

Upon coronation, there will be licencing and enforcement. No licence, you will pay for a caddy/chauffer.  I'm open to opinions on punishments/fines for the licensed who nonetheless commit egregious violations, though I believe nothing less than expulsion will suffice for unattended carts in mid-aisle.

A Khadr and his money.

Well that $10.5 million sure got the apathites stirred up.  I propose that nearly everybody has a strong opinion on this thing, but that the vast majority have gotten to their fiercely held belief based either:
... solely on their first gut-reaction or, more rarely,
... by a blinkered search for every argument that might support their first gut-reaction. (no offence, folks, the first one was my initial response)

A recent poll suggested about 20% of people figured the Feds should have or had to come up with the money. I suggest that group is heavily loaded with people who think government is an incompetent bunch of idiots who lie, cheat and generally screw over the little and medium-sized people, especially brown ones.

The other 70 odd percent is likely filled with folk who see their government as an incompetent bunch of idiots with bleeding hearts for everybody but the hard-working hard-fighting folk who build and defend this fine nation from riffraff, terrorists, and pretty much anything different.

So, you don't have to agree with me -- I'm not quite emperor yet -- but would it be so hard to take a small pill, set aside your undoubtedly-correct opinion and give my thoughts an open consideration? Here goes.

He was a kid. He is a Canadian citizen. He got dragooned by his parents, off to Afghanistan (ever been to Afghanistan? we have; loved it, but we had a plane ticket home and there wasn't a war on). They undoubtedly explained to him repeatedly, and in detail who the bad guys were, why they are bad, and what hell was like.

There's a firefight.  Let's agree his family are bad guys, but let's also stay aware of the difference between going all ululate-y with a knife and a suicide vest in London, vs fighting in your ancestral homeland against foreign military for a cause, however-misguided.  You end up wounded seriously. Everybody else on your team is dead.  Some of the other guys are also dead and/or wounded.

According to first reports the other guys' fatalities and injuries were caused by a grenade chucked by a middle aged guy who was promptly snipered into heaven/virgins/etc.
The kid gets tossed into Guantanamo.

Perhaps because there is no one else alive to punish for their fallen heroes, the reports get changed to say the kid tossed the grenade.

Torture ensues. (You ever been tortured? Ever in jail?  Ever in jail with no prospect of ever getting out?  Me neither. Scares the crap out of me.)

The Canadian government basically doesn't care.  They send people to join in the interrogation and share what they get with the 'murricans.  After a few years, Obama shows up and would really like countries to take back their nationals who are parked in Guantanamo with no prospect of proper treatment (ignore that if you wish) or a trial (hard to ignore that one). Canada says "nope, not interested, your problem, do what you want". Whether or not you think that attitude is appropriate in the situation, it doesn't jibe well with things like our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Exasperated, the people trying to empty Guantanamo and the people who think our kid is maybe not getting a square deal have an idea: plead guilty and you can go to Canada. Deal. (Remember, you are trying to be objective here: your choice is back to Guantanamo with no sign of ending torture, trial, release, life, etc. ... or ... a few years in a regular Canadian slammer -- not much freedom, probably bad food, but then out.)  Kid takes the deal, presumably on the advice of his lawyers, who seem to have taken on a life-altering project to defend him in the absence of any help from his government.

In hind sight, this was the decision that had the downside of allowing the 70% to use "convicted terrorist" as an adjective by his name.

Fast forward, lawyers who haven't been paid for a decade of work and who seem to actually believe in the Constitution and their client sue for $20 million.  Their point(s), I believe, are that it doesn't really matter whether he "did it" or not, good chance he didn't, but what matters is that he was denied his rights in a fairly egregious manner.  Everybody with a vote in the justice system agrees, up to and including the Supreme Court multiple times.

New government. They settle and say "sorry" (for the rights violation).  Shitstorm ensues.

Not convinced?  Before you start yelling at me, one more thing. Let's try an analogy:
Kid is born in a crap 'hood in Toronto to a family of gang-related drug dealers and generally bad people, though they call themselves a family or a brotherhood or, whatever.  At some point the kid is told to off one of the very bad guys from the other gang.  Even if he doesn't think that's a morally correct action and even though he isn't in a desert in the middle of Afghanistan, refusal appears to have serious consequences. A firefight ensues. The kid is wounded and arrested.  Pretty sure he doesn't get dumped in an adult hell-hole, tortured, without representation, for a decade or so.

Which only leaves the amount. It's a lot of money.  But a whole pile is going to go to lawyers who I believe mortgaged their house to keep representing him for nada for years.  But why that number?  Why any number when it comes to personal loss and rights violation?  And what does the actual number have to with the basics of the case.  To those who have said "ok, maybe, $50k" I just ask you to put yourself in the situation. But, rather than keep prattling on, I suggest: precedent and probably cost-minimization weighed against litigation.

OK, 70%, anybody think I made a point or two?  Want to tell me what I got wrong?  I'm listening, and really trying to be objective.

Your Emperor-to-be (or not-to-be; I'm getting old and impatient and the support is not yet a wave of tsunaminess) has decided to stray into more varied and sensitive waters.  

I was heartened by the total lack of disagreement and negative comment on my Trump-is-a-dick post.  

The total lack of agreement or comment of any kind I took as further evidence of the people's apathy and need for a fair, benevolent, yet stern Emperor.

You have been warned.

Emperor-in-waiting speaks out on US election

When I am Emperor, neither Hillary nor Donald will be the senior Hoo-ha in my administration.  Neither are likely to be in jail, though Donald may spend a fair bit of time in court and, under my rule, may be subject to sentences involving retributive punishment at he hands of some of the women, contractors, students, workers etc that he has screwed over.  Hillary may get a senior advisory role.

Why? Hillary has years of experience inside some of the most complex, difficult issues facing the USA and the world. She may have made errors of policy and process, but she knows the game, the players, the complexities and the issues. She even has a bit of a track record for being able to work with the "other side" -- pretty much the only way anything worth doing gets done. And deep down, I believe she wants to do "good".

By definition -- of anybody who wants to be President or spends a life as an ambitious politico -- she is not to be fully trusted to keep the "good" on top of the pile of motivations and decision criteria, so she'll need minders and challengers. She screwed up on the email server, and the hacks and leaks are exposing some of the unpleasant "sausage making" that I believe you would find behind any campaign or political career. Nothing has yet been deemed prosecutable. If an "outsider" showed up who seemed to have the wisdom and capability to make the sausages in a cleaner better way I would be singing their praises. A yelling lying unread hate-baiting bully is not that person. And how can you trust anybody who does that to their hair?

Donald has turned a silver spoon into a gold spoon, but by simply investing his inherited money in a fund tracking the stock market, he could have a whole gold flatware service for 12, without bankruptcies, stiffed contractors, etc.  While he has brought the unhappiness of a large chunk of (mostly) white undereducated and distressed men (and women) into the light, he has done it by allowing them to blame the situation on a Hitlerian "other" and by nourishing unfounded conspiracy theories that are hateful, racist and just wrong, but that allow people who feel hurt and disadvantaged to vent and amplify their anger on largely innocent oppressors and enemies.

Meanwhile he lies pretty much every time he opens his mouth -- including when he accuses others of lying.  He is a boor.  He is clearly a narcissist, unable to accept criticism of any sort without the response of a bully. His business are as full of noisy ethically questionable failures as successes.  His "foundation" appears to be illegal and it's main purposes are to use other peoples' money to pay off his business fines and build fountains in front of his buildings.

All this suggests that his decision-making and judgment in his world -- a much narrower and less complex world than Ms. Clinton's -- is worse on nearly every measure.  He lies, he cheats, he screws people over, he thinks only of himself, he is abusive -- why would we expect better thinking and decisions in a situation involving much bigger issues?

He has played a significant contributing role in turning America from a nation that worked and acted to solve problems and who saw their President as "their" President whether or not they voted for him or agreed with his policies, into a polarized nation that can't get anything done and that has a significant portion of the population who, against all objective measures sees their President as illegitimate and evil in a way so vitriolic and wrongheaded that it can only be seen as racist.

In the words of Pres. Obama: "C'mon"

P.S. I just wrote this to get it off my chest before y'all vote on the future of the giant I sleep next to 8 months of the year and with for 4 months.  Thought I did OK.  Then literally on the day I do it, this guy comes along and maybe does it better:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/opinion/donald-trump-voters-just-hear-me-out.html

The Pope is Gone but your Emperor Remains

As Emperor in waiting, I have been neglectful with regard to communication with you, my subjects-in-waiting. I have been rather busy visiting the southern domains and spending some time in the Empire's Florida castle.  We have also spent some time dealing with the citizenry's living accommodations in our pre-Emperor role as Realtor.

In the next few days, hours, or minutes (depending on when the phone rings or I get otherwise distracted), we will post another item continuing the original series of articles which showed examples of how the world will be much improved once we are installed as your beneficent Emperor-for-life.

UNTIL I'm Emperor ... buying gas in the USA

As previously posted [Canadians Getting Gassed...] as Emperor I will be giving the gas companies some tough love for their inability to handle Canadian credit cards at US gas stations.

There is a fix.  Kludge is more accurate. Why this code would be written into the pumps' wee brains rather than doing the job properly to accept alphanumeric codes is a mystery.  Also puzzling is why the oil companies aren't telling anyone.

I don't know the original source of this, but it came to me through my banker.  At great expense, I arranged a field trip to Florida to test this out -- wouldn't want to disappoint you.

Ready?

When the pump god asks for your postal code, punch in the numbers from your postal code plus two zeroes.  For example, your pc is "M4E 1G7".  You punch in "41700".  And pump away..

University 101

MBA's, Engineers, Commerce grads, Lawyers, Doctors, Pharmacists, etc. seem to make their way through life in what many would consider a "successful" manner, at least economically.  A lot of arts and humanities undergrads seem to find themselves under or unemployed or in a McJob somewhere well down their preference list. 

Indeed, this article makes a reasoned case -- in a very entertaining and funny manner -- that a non-professional degree gives you little more than a whack of student debt.  So screw Arts, right? Head straight for a professional degree by the least painful method possible, right?

Or dump university altogether and get a trade.

Not under this Emperor, my faux-rational slacker-dude readers.

When I am Emperor, the basic rule is:  All capable will take a minimum of 2 years of General Arts/Humanities before being allowed anywhere near a "professional" or career degree program.  The idea is that you learn to think and get exposed to a wide variety of people, thinking, isms, ists, onomies and osophies BEFORE you get to hang out with a pack of like-minded, like-talented borgs trying to come up with an "edge" or the 4-decimal-point answer to everything. [Many Artsies already know the answer is a nice round 42].