Made up Words

It drives me crazy.

Day after day I watch television , read newspapers and articles and see it.

You’ve seen it too I would guess and it just creeps along like it has a life of its own.

What am I talking about ? Why made up words being used as commonplace nouns, verbs and etc. of course.

You know the kind of word I am talking about right?

Watch a few commercials on TV and you’ll see them, Ones like:

• Fashionista (what the heck is an ista anyway)
• Accuweather forecast (from the news and weather channels)
• Also AccuTrack and anything with an- iffic at the end of it , like Wonder-iffic

Most of the time these come from the lunatics that are in charge of marketing products to us on the TV. They feel like if they don’t have a new word to describe something, we won’t pay attention to it.

Well I got news for them, we don’t pay attention to them anyway. These are the same maniacs that think it is a good idea to put a live shot of some talking head on the left hand side of the screen, a horizontal crawl at the bottom of the screen, a vertical talking points panel on the right hand side of the screen and also have a channel logo inserted at the bottom right hand corner, because they think they are utilizing the entire screen to get their message across. It just pisses me off and makes me want to change the channel or mute the station.

Yeah, those idiots.

Same nuts that would have you believe we should buy everything Billy Mayes used to yell about.

Same morons that think if we repeat the phone number 27 times in 30 seconds , more people will call it.

So we have three small examples : I’m sure you can think of many more.

1. One is the words that they make up in order to describe something that they are trying to sell you, whether its adverting or to market a product.
1. How did a chamois become a SHAM-WOW otherwise ?

i. Chamois - A very soft, oil-tanned, suede-finished, leather, originally made from Alpine antelope, but now made from sheepskin splits. Known for its' absorbency.

ii. SHAM-WOW – see chamois

2. Another are the words that are used to describe something that actually mean something else entirely
1. For example, think Segway (as in segue)

i. There’s a word that already existed in nature, but was modified to describe a 2 wheel transportation device

3. The last is the way they use a made up word and attach it to another useful word in order to come up with a third word
1. This is the category that Fashion- Ista, Max-Inista and everything else with –Ista on it, fits into.

Another whole sub-set of this irritation is how marketing folks will make up words to describe a set of numbers that actually could have been described with a normal word, but then they wouldn’t get to charge millions of dollars to present the findings if they didn’t somehow “sexy” it up.

• Think for example , like Day-Part, a word they use to describe a specific time of day.
• Drive-Time, Day Part, Meal Period all mean the same thing if you are talking about 8 am .
• It’s called Breakfast time or Morning.

Don’t confuse this with Oxymoron’s however. (See (Oxymoron’s and the lies of Marketing)

FYI : An Oxymoron is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words, such as 'Cruel Kindness' or 'Jumbo Shrimp' (Jumbo means 'large' while Shrimp means 'small').

It is a literary figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory words, terms, phrases or ideas are combined to create a rhetorical effect by paradoxical means.

Try this : http://www.oxymoronix.com/

Some of my favorites are:

1. Military Intelligence
2. Unbiased Opinion
3. Microsoft Works
4. Exact Estimate
5. Virtual reality

I’m not even going to get into the medical ad issue , where they name a drug some archaic made up name in order to make you think it is something more powerful than it is and can cure everything from soft toenails to pimples.

• One of my favorites in this class is Clopidogrel (also known as Plavix)
• Clopidogrel is an oral, thienopyridine class antiplatelet agent used to inhibit blood clots in coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, and cerebrovascular disease.
• It is marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis under the trade name Plavix. The drug works by irreversibly inhibiting a receptor called P2Y, an adenosine diphosphate ADP chemoreceptor.

Ah well, I guess that’s how crusty old farts like me get to be crusty old farts.

Thankx for reading my rant !

bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.

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Random Rants and assorted other thoughts on headlines I saw today

33 Miners get rescued from a deep mine shaft in Chile

• My immediate reaction is “Yeah ! Alright!.” And then I think, I cannot begin to imagine or fathom what it must be like to be that far underground, for that long , and I have nothing but respect for those guys. I would never work a job like that, but then again , I am not them. I’m glad they made it out.
• Miners make it out alive !

CVS to pay 77.6 Million dollars in Meth case

• 77.6 million dollar fine in Meth case
• In a case from 2008 (and / or 2007 depending upon which version you read) CVS has been fined 75 million dollars and ordered to refund 2.5 million in profits because they did not adequately monitor pseudoephedrine, which is / was a major ingredient in the manufacture of meth.
• The problem is that even though now you can’t buy this product in any substantial quantity (think Sudafed) , you can make meth without it. So this does nothing to stop or even slow down the production of meth.
• The sad part of all this is that you can make it in as little as 6 hours or so and virtually anyone can do it. The recipe is on the internet and a simple google search is all you need.

Facebook introduces one time passwords to help with account hijacking etc

• People figure out ways to get around anything that is in their way.
• This won’t work, because this usually is not how your account gets hacked to begin with ! (Facebook one time passwords)
• As long as some mutt is employing social engineering tactics on naïve unsuspecting folks, no measure that they take will prevent this.
• Some old fashioned customer service would help though.
• Talking to a live person at Facebook is seemingly against the rules, or they have deemed it to be cost-prohibitive.
• Either way if your account gets hacked, your pretty much on your own to fix it.

Pentagon will abide by order banning “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell”

• First, read my post from yesterday about this. (http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/2010/10/dont-ask-dont-tell-dont-know-dont-care.html)
• Second, in its current from this order has almost no chance of succeeding. Politicians will muck this up, trust me. (/pentagon-will-abide-by-order-against-ban-on-gays)
• Third, 4 letters. UCMJ (stands for Uniform Code of Military Justice). Nothing she says applies to the military rule of law, unless specifically suspended by the Supreme Court or changed by Executive Order unless the Congress also passes new rules, which changes the UCMJ. Her ruling does not address the UCMJ at all.
• The Justice Department almost certainly will appeal this ruling , because they are constitutionally bound to uphold duly passed laws of the United States. Even if the Attorney General doesn’t like it, precedence says he has to appeal this ruling. This will end up in the supreme court several times before it is settled.

Christine Aguilera driven to divorce.

• Uh, So what? This isn’t news.(christina-aguilera-divorce)
• Neither is Miley Cyrus, Brittney Spears or anyone called a “celebrity” (cyrus-criticized-new-video-sexy)
• Big Deal. 50 % of all marriages end in divorce.

Thankx for reading my rant !

bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post. Join my facebook group "We are all tired of Bickering Politicians" at

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Don't ask, Don't tell, Don't know , Don't care, Don't get it

Disclaimer : I have no idea what it is like to be gay. Although from a military family, I also have no idea what it is like to serve in the Military. My point of view is myopic, WASPY and male and is entirely my own.

A Federal Judge has declared “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” to be unconstitutional. She has also now issued an injunction to the US Military that in effect say “Stop enforcing” Don’t ask, Don’t tell.

The net effect of her ruling applies to the worldwide conduct of all US Military forces and all active and all future investigations.

There are numerous arguments on all three sides of this issue. I say three sides because it is traditionally argued most vocally by Gay protest groups, the military establishment and the politicians. The rest of us have opinions that if polled would range from damn right to who cares and all points in between. The Gay groups (including both democratic and republican gay rights organizations , like the Log Cabin Republicans) argue that gays should be allowed to openly gay as a matter of practice in every situation. The military says that being openly gay “negatively affects unit cohesion and morale” , whatever that really means, to have openly serving gay service members, and the politicians come up with every loopy variation of that including that somehow being gay has anything at all to do with the traditional male/female relationship and the nuclear family. That’s another whole story, but I just don’t get that point of view at all.

The judge , Virginia Phillips, said that the 17 year old policy “"infringes the fundamental rights of United States service members and prospective service members" and violates their rights of due process and freedom of speech. I don’t know if you know anything at all about constitutional law, but even if it wasn’t, this is a constitutional issue now nonetheless, because this judge has said it is and there is no going back. The facts don’t change because you don’t like them, and there is now no chance this will be solved politically. Not that there ever really was in the first place.

I am a little bit confused.

Here is what the text of the constitution actually says on due process and freedom of speech:

• ARTICLE [V.] No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
• ARTICLE XIV. SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
• ARTICLE [I.] OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS SAYS : Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Doesn’t say squat about being gay or serving in the military. So, while I have never supported the idea that being gay is in any way injurious to those of us who are not gay, and I have never served in the military, I have to tell you the message sent by this law and now by the injunction is both confusing and at the same time as absurd as the argument for the law in the first place. Personally ? You want to be Gay and carry a rifle and fight our enemies? OK with me. I could care less about your “gayness”, and care more about your ability to aim your rifle. (for example) Your being gay has no affect on me not being gay. Never has, never will. To say that you can serve if your Gay, as long as you don’t tell us your gay, which if you do, we are gonna act all surprised and kick your ass outta here makes as much sense to me as saying that you have a fundamental right to be gay in the first place. It was bad policy and is a stupid law as it was written and now this ruling comes along and attempts to make us think that it has anything at all to do with due process and freedom of speech.

The law is kind of like saying you can serve in the military if you are a space alien as long as you don’t tell us you are a space alien. The ruling says you have a fundamental right to a credit card as long as you only think about it, but never use it. Like anything ever exists in a vacuum. It is intellectually lazy to simply compartmentalize one subject over another and then draw conclusions from the individual compartments, supporting the other individualized compartments , except that they don’t know the other compartments exist. Makes me go “ Arooouggh?”

If you want to integrate a group into another group (gays into the military- for example) be aware that you do not integrate only a select portion of that group and get to ignore the other portions, because you don’t like the aspects in those portions. All things must be considered as a whole and as parts of that whole. That’s just the way it is. You want to integrate Blacks into the military ? Fine. Everything about being black gets in, you can’t stop it, no matter what your policy is. You want to allow certain types of criminals to serve openly ? Fine. Everything about being criminal gets in too. Just accept it. You cannot make a policy that turns off the mind and think that all is well just because you say it is. It just don’t work that way. See here’s the real problem that no one addresses. Gay people scare straight people. Black people scare white people. Young people scare old people. Men scare women. Dogs scare cats. We are all just afraid of our own shadows. If they didn’t nobody would give a rats ass if someone was gay or not.

I am not expressing an opinion on whether it is right or wrong to be gay. I’m not gay and I haven’t given the other point of view much consideration, if any. Whatever your anatomical equipment preference is makes no difference to me one way or the other. What I am saying is this. Be honest about what you are saying and quit hiding behind a compromised point of view. You want to make a law that says you cannot be gay and serve in the military. Research it, fund it, pass it and enforce it. Just be aware that your opponents are going to be as vocal about repealing it as you are about enforcing it. One side or the other has to lose. When you lose, shake hands, dust yourselves off and get over it, and move on. The policy should have been called “ No guts, No plan, Don’t want to deal with it”, because all it did was make the fight last another 20 years instead of being settled back when it first came up. You can be a gay cop, a gay firefighter, a gay politician, a gay anything else, but you can’t be a gay sergeant? A Senator ( think Barney Frank) , could have been kicked out of the military for being gay in 1990 and then potentially could have served the last 20 years as an openly gay senator with no repercussions?

And now they think the goofiest appeals court in the land , the Ninth Circuit, is going to say this judge is wrong?

Can you say “Supreme Court”? I knew that you could.

Thankx for reading my rant !

bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post. Join my facebook group "We are all tired of Bickering Politicians" at

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=292482513888. We would love to have your voice added to the noise !!

How do you dispose of batteries?

Smoke and mirrors baby, smoke and mirrors. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It is not really a problem , what you actually experienced was a flame up of swamp gas , ignited by lighting and exploding weather balloons that created the illusion of a problem. Uh-huh. I must be an idiot as this is one I just can’t wrap my brain around, without subjecting everyone around me to a 15 minute diatribe and making my blood pressure spike through the roof.

Everything in the World today either does or can run on batteries. Well, everything is a fairly strong word, but in a general sense I just mean that a bunch of stuff is designed to have battery support or have batteries as the primary power supply. Cars, flashlights, computer accessories, laptops, watches, cell phones, smoke and CO2 detectors, laser pointers, power tools, wireless printers, radios, you name it , and they all can and do run on batteries. Many things are designed to be portable devices that can’t be hooked up to the power grid at all and must be powered by batteries. Literally millions of items, every year are designed and sold that run on batteries. On top of that, they are developing newer batteries every year that are bigger, stronger, faster and can be recharged more and have bigger amounts of the chemicals in them that everyone says is the problem, including the battery makers.

You understand my point ? Look around your house and go from room to room and think about all the things in your house that run on batteries. If you are anything like us, you have 3 or 4 items in just about every room .

So, not to belabor this introductory point, but ya know, batteries are everywhere, in virtually everything. I’ll bet just in my house and surroundings there are over 100 batteries in use in dozens of applications.

Now think about this.

Every social activist that has ever been in the media (television, newspapers, the Internet, anywhere) goes on and on blah, blah, blah until I just want to smack em with a ball peen hammer, about how electric cars and battery powered items are “Greener” and how they are better for the environment, because they “reduce dependence on fossil fuels”. In the same breath they smugly buy their little electric cars that get 300 miles to the charge and make their own energy while braking and use less “fossil fuels” and all sort of other assorted nonsense until you just get sick of hearing some blathering idiot go on and on about the subject.

Here’s what I don’t get. E’splain this one to me Lucy.

If electric cars are the answer and having things run on batteries (or have the capability to) is the answer, then why oh why do you also see television commercials that say “Don’t throw batteries in the trash.”?

To me this is not a mutually exclusive deal. You can’t have one without the other. If you use batteries, they eventually wear out and have to be disposed of. No-Brainer. If you think the answer to “Global Warming” (or at least part of the answer) is to have an electric car, that runs on batteries, then you also must acknowledge that having worn out batteries left over when they wear out is a smaller problem than the fossil fuel being used prior to the batteries was in the first place. Where do you think the batteries are gonna go when they have to be replaced in your “Greener car” and the literally MILLIONS of batteries produced and used in just this country alone, every year, wear out and have to be disposed of?. You can’t eat them, they don’t really degrade to harmless materials over time (like a biodegradable sack will) and they eventually always wear out and have to be replaced or thrown away. What happens to your greener car’s batteries when it is in a high speed accident or gets hit by a train?

How is a battery greener when it takes fossil fuels to produce it, fossil fuels to recharge it, fossil fuels to transport it to the assembly plants, fossil fuels to clean up after it and it creates an enormously problematic disposal problem when they wear out , have to be replaced or are damaged ? The next question is pretty simple too, Just how in the heck am I supposed to dispose of them, when no alternative is available ? Does anything in your DOGMA dialog have any kind of answer to that ? Sorry to rain on your parade and everything , but, everything has a lifecycle and no matter how shiny and new it is today, tomorrow it will wear out and be a candidate for the trash bin. I can’t eat them, burn them, bury them or throw them away, so what in god’s name do you propose I do with them when they are worn out? Stockpile the used ones until they start leaking into the groundwater? I could stick em up an activists butt, however they would then be toxic and the problem would still be there anyway. But I digress.

I live in a very small town, the landfill here doesn’t take batteries knowingly (especially car type batteries), the trash company provides 1 (one) disposal cart for all trash items, and there is no facility for recycling of batteries (let alone much of anything else) anywhere around my house, within 250 miles . Also, they do not look at the trash when it is being dumped into the truck by the one man claw machine so I suspect this is happening in just about every area of the country as well.

Every single store you walk into however has huge battery displays and we sell the crap out of batteries for every imaginable use in every imaginable size, shape color and for every possible purpose.

Nowhere on that display or any display the manufacturers provide tell you what to do with the batteries when they wear out though do they ? Their point of view is “You bought it, you figure it out.” They only make them, they are not responsible for them when they wear out.

If we aren’t supposed to throw them away in the trash, the manufactures can’t tell you what to do with them, and there is nowhere to dispose of them “properly “and we are encouraged to be responsible and help save the planet ,then here is the question : ” WHAT IN THE HECK WOULD YOU HAVE US DO WITH THEM INSTEAD ? (besides saying to ourselves “whatever” as we toss them into a trash bag?)

Answer that question and provide a solution that makes any sense at all and I’ll do it. Hell, I’ll bet everybody would do it.

Until them just shut up about your “Greener is better” philosophy because you don’t have a clue and haven’t thought about the entire problem in the first place. You are just repeating the marketing that is designed to sell more batteries. I don’t have windmill in my backyard and haven’t figured out a way to be able to afford the enormous costs of installing Solar energy either.

Of course If I did have a windmill or solar panels , the energy is ………stored for use…….. later in ,…..wait for it, wait for it….a BATTERY !

Imagine that.

Thankx for reading my rant !

bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.

Join my facebook group "We are all tired of Bickering Politicians" at http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=292482513888.

We would love to have your voice added to the noise !!