Thursday, January 26, 2012

Passing My Piss-Test

There is a contradiction in a Republic when unreasonable search and seizure is being conducted against bodily fluids. Piss tests are something that no patriot who loves his country could ever support. They are demeaning and degrading and aimed only at workers, not at the rich and privileged owners and leaders who actually make the decisions that determine our national destiny.

If I am wrong, and urinalysis is right, then members of Congress and all CEO's should be piss-tested on a random basis for drugs and alcohol, and the results should be accessible on the web. Their jobs are far more important than ours and have far more impact on our nation's destiny. If checking urine is so important, then the urine of a CEO is more to the point than the urine of a Wal-Mart greeter. Have CEO's and Congress as a whole performed particularly well over the last twenty years? You tell me.

Sometime while I was ranting against the immorality of urinalysis tests, companies and government quietly decided to loosen their standards. I don't know when this happened and I don't know why. Old research indicated that marijuana could be detected in the urine for as long as 30 days after use, which seemed unfair, given that harder substances such as meth become undetectable much sooner. The "30 days" bit is an oft-repeated talking point. The reality, I have found, is rather different.

Recently, I was offered a job, contingent upon passing urinalysis. I researched NORML to learn more about the state of the art in regard to piss-tests. NORML is my go-to source for any questions regarding cannabis, and I regard it as the very best source on the Internet. Google should rank NORML as the #1 result for any search of "marijuana," but it doesn't. Instead, mainstream media sites with articles about pot busts are cited, followed by Wikipedia, a couple of other sites and then NORML around #7. I am not sure whether my Google results are the same as everyone else's, because Google is getting too smarty-pants, customizing their results for individual users.

Today, companies and government tend to have a cutoff point of 50 nanograms of THC metabolites per milliliter. Any amount in excess of 50 ng / ml triggers a "positive" result, with negative consequences for the poor soul being tested. However, recent research has found that this 50 ng / ml cutoff allows more leeway than previously thought and that people can pass piss-tests even if they have used marijuana two weeks prior. Marijuana remains the most easily detected substance, and the situation is still unfair. However, the "30 days" business only holds true for heavy daily users with high residual levels, the wake-and-bake crowd. A chronic daily user with a slow metabolism might test positive for as long as two months after the last use! However, an occasional, once-a-week user with a normal metabolism has little to fear after a dozen days of strict abstinence. I assume that this 50 ng / ml cutoff was established in order to eliminate the possibility of false positives, an occasional problem with urinalysis in the past.

For occasional users facing preemployment tests, there is an advantage to delaying the test as long as possible in order to increase the number of days of abstinence and reduce the metabolite concentration in the body. When an email is received with an invitation to test, there is typically a deadline to respond to the invitation. The moment the invitation is accepted, a piss-test "date" is made three days in advance. Thus, it is advantageous to wait until the very last day of that deadline before accepting the invitation. I wouldn't wait until the last hour, because the Internet may be down.

I considered substituting someone else's urine in the place of my own, but I was reluctant to blemish my record of having never cheated in all my life. I believe it is ethical to cheat on a piss-test, for the same reason that it is ethical for a nation to engage in espionage during wartime. Piss-tests are wrong, and thus any method that can circumvent them seems to me fair game. Anyone with the least amount of imagination could invent a dozen different ways to conceal and substitute another person's urine while maintaining a plausible temperature for the urine. Nevertheless, I just don't like the idea of cheating, even though I can't explain why. It is just a personal preference of mine. I prefer beating the test if possible through abstinence and background research of the testing technology. That is my way, because I'm a techie.

In the end, after researching NORML, I determined I would pass the test without any difficulty. I am an occasional user with a normal metabolism and do not drink. The test was scheduled exactly twelve days after my last use. According to the consensus of all my sources, the chance of my failing a piss-test with a 50 ng / ml cutoff was miniscule.

I did not bother with any vitamins or supplements and did not exercise any more than usual. I think that there is a lot of pseudoscientific hogwash about ways to defeat piss tests, with various vitamins and herbs promoted that have little or no actual effect but may make certain vendors rich.

I only did what NORML recommends--on the day of the test, I voided my bladder several times prior to my arrival at the clinic. This helps, because it is well-established and often repeated that the greatest concentration of metabolites is found in the first void of the day. Also, by drinking plenty of fluids, one dilutes the concentration of metabolites. The sample I provided contained only urine deposited in my bladder during a narrow 2-3 hour window. It had little or no color, because I had been drinking about double the usual amount of tea and water that day in preparation for the test.

I had no doubt whatsoever that I passed. The clinic never informed me, because their master is the employer, not me. However, the employer offered me a job, so there's my answer.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Preppers

I accept a slight possibility that the U.S. economy and even civilization as we know it may collapse in the near future. Too many of our leaders are corrupt, incompetent, or misguided. Corruption is perhaps the most common problem among both Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans are the worst, but that doesn't let the Democrats off the hook. This whole country has been going down the tubes for a long time. It is simply not possible for tens of millions of Americans to get a job in this economy, and that's a big deal that is going to cause social problems for generations to come. When so many able-bodied people are out of work, yes, that's a major problem, no matter what kind of government is in power. I expect higher rates of every variety of societal ill. I am glad I did not have children. The middle class is disappearing, particularly among the young, and people are becoming poorer and poorer. The old have it better, entrenched in their cushy jobs or rolling in their retirement funds. The young have it worse by far. The young cannot find decent jobs. The young wait tables, bag groceries, flip burgers at best.

"Preppers" are the survivalists of 2012. In a way I view them as sheep. They are stockpiling food in a kind of fortress mentality, thinking they will always be safe in their basement. If they have a lot of resources, and people know that they have a lot of resources, then they will not be safe. People will rob them.

I take a fatalistic view. If civilization collapses, then all bets are off anyway. The world will become much less pleasant, much less comfortable, much less enjoyable. Life will become cheaper, death and injury more common. In such a world, is it really important to survive?

I think it is better to assume that things will remain more or less as they always have. I don't think it is possible to prepare for an Apocalypse. In the event of societal collapse, it may become necessary to move at great speed, leaving one's possessions behind. All the food that one has stockpiled may become a burden rather than an asset. How can one predict the nature of an Apocalypse? I think it is a bit morbid and cheerless to prepare for such a thing in the absence of any direct and compelling evidence.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Microwave Popcorn

Microwave popcorn is overpriced, bad for health, and contributes to obesity. A good food with a solid nutritional profile is rendered fattening and bad for health by cynical manufacturers who despise their customers.

It is both simple and cheap to pop kernels without oil by using nothing more complicated than heated air.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

The Solar Flare

I felt a bit odd last night and into Monday morning. I just had a feeling that conditions were unfavorable. It was almost as though there was too much noise in the background. Perhaps I have a pseudo-scientific explanation at hand. I just read that there was a massive solar flare Sunday night, and the Earth has been and continues to be bombarded with radiation. I wonder whether solar flares cause any psychological effects in human beings. I have a little hunch that solar flares may increase or accentuate the negative, that is to say the unpleasant and anti-social emotions, but it is only a hunch, and nothing I've read in reputable media gives any credence to that opinion. Lacking evidence, I must classify the notion that solar flares effect human psychology as a highly suspect hypothesis. But I think the question merits a bit of research by a graduate student or two. Most of all, I think a survey would be effective, asking a thousand people whether they felt better overall or worse on the day that the Earth is impacted by a solar flare. I felt a bit worse, and I think other people did as well. Some researchers merely analyze crime reports, because it's an easy thing to do. Feeling worse does not necessarily mean that rates of crime or violence will increase. In fact, the opposite may hold true; people may withdraw or isolate themselves when they feel bad, thus reducing rates of crime or violence.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Monday, January 23, 2012

Meth is the Most Difficult Drug

If I take the position that we should legalize drugs, then that means all drugs, even the very worst, such as meth, which is popular among stupid people. My position is that fools will find their poisons. It is pointless to take extraordinary measures (that result in loss of life, money and health) trying to protect a fool from himself. I say that in the case of drugs, let evolution take its course.

Here's a consequence of meth being illegal: burn victims. It would be kinder to let the meth user purchase meth at a meth store than to compel him to play around with volatile chemicals that he little understands.

Meth is the most harmful recreational street drug in existence and requires special sanctions, even if legalized. Meth should be manufactured to 99.9% purity in order to devastate the black market and drive the criminal class out of business. If all meth users know that the State offers the best and cheapest meth, then the drug dealers will be out of business. Meth should be taxed at a rate sufficient to compensate the government for the social costs it creates, and sold to adults at a single location, one per state, in small quantities suitable for seven days of moderate personal use. Those who purchase it should be required to be sterilized, so that they will not produce future generations, undergo testing for STDs, forfeit their drivers' licenses, vehicle registration, government benefits, children and firearms, and their names should be registered and made available to law enforcement. The dedicated meth user would be willing to do all of these things in exchange for a nearly pure, cheap and legal source of product. Those meth users that would not be willing to do these things would comprise a relatively small percentage, because the drug overwhelms the brain's faculty for reason.

This plan would greatly reduce the problems associated with the illegal black market in meth and reduce the number of accidental fires, burnings and overdoses. Fools would continue ruining their lives with meth, but there would be fewer cases of collateral damage against innocent bystanders, children, law enforcement, or the public health system. Fools would enjoy their highs until their deaths with less impact to the community.

An alternative to this plan would be to require prescriptions for the cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine, because the criminal class lacks the competence to manufacture the key ingredient in meth. I would be in favor of reducing the availability of pseudoephedrine, because that would represent an effective method to eliminate meth from the world. Right now there is not an effective method to eliminate meth from the market. Who is against the ban of pseudoephedrine? Big Pharma. They want to continue making the big money associated with their cold medicines.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Euthanasia

I've always been in favor of the right to die, also known as euthansia or mercy-killing. A recent case illustrates my opinion. I think it is barbaric that doctors are prohibited from easing the suffering of the distressed. One of the reasons that medical costs are so high in Western countries is that our governments foolishly prohibit mercy-killing. Herculean efforts are made to preserve the life of those who would, if given the choice, prefer death. Meanwhile, poor people who want to live die due to lack of basic medical resources.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Iraq Vs. Iran

Bush probably invaded Iraq due to dyslexia. He thought Iraq was Iran. At any rate, wrong country, wrong time.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Officer Derek Middendorf Captured on Video

A rail thin old man suffering from dementia got beaten senseless by Officer Derek Middendorf.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Megaupload

I don't have sympathy for the Megaupload tycoon. People that are in the scene to help others are one thing. Hackers understand the concept of friends helping friends, of sharing what one has. It is an old tradition that dates back to the discovery of fire. However, people that profit off the work of others are another scenario altogether. What did Dotcom invent, other than his last name? Dotcom's millions will be better put to the service of the U.S. or N.Z. governments. Dotcom is exactly the type of character that the corporations should have been going after in the first place, years ago, instead of the poor little grandmothers that they were punishing with expensive lawsuits and $3,000 fines for .mp3's that their grandchildren downloaded.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Failure

Many a night, for the past year or two, I've had the same dream. A comprehensive examination is scheduled tomorrow, and I just found out about it and haven't enough time to study. Or a twenty-page essay is due tomorrow, or in a few days, and I don't have enough time to conjure up something reasonable. Or a class that I signed up for has been meeting for months, and I only just remembered that I had signed up for it. I feel a panic and an urgency. Then I recall, as I wake up, that I'm not signed up for any class and have no tests or essays due. What a relief! The dream hasn't any basis in my past, other than a few instances when I was surprised by the syllabus, but in those cases I pulled all-nighters and studied enough to make a passing grade. I did really well in school, and if I had things to do over again, I should have gotten a Ph.D., and then I'd be set for life as a teacher, without the problem of knowledge's obsolescence which has set me back in the computer programming field.

In today's economy, companies don't want to talk to anyone that doesn't have two years' recent experience in the latest and greatest computer languages. They are unwilling to train and do not esteem experience, education or aptitude. There is absolutely no hope at all in the job market.

I may not understand many facets about the world economy or international trade, but I know this much. I am a good computer programmer. I think that if someone like myself can't find employment as a computer programmer, then the U.S. is in deep trouble. This country's day in the Sun is over, and the world is changing into a different sort of place, and I don't know whether Americans are going to like it very much.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Bush's Legacy

Bush's legacy is going to be Saddam 2.0.

I hope somebody thinks Iraq was worth a trillion dollars. I don't. Might have been a good idea to create a trillion dollars' worth of jobs here in the U.S.A., instead.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Steve Jobs

It's amusing that the media idolizes Steve Jobs. He is one of the worthless parasites responsible for the high unemployment rate in the U.S.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Syria

The Syrian regime is really horrible and there are no two ways about that. The stories I read in the media leave me with the impression that Syria is run mafia-style by a bunch of bandits, and Assad is their chieftain. Possibly the Alawites were in ancient history a tribe of bandits. At any rate, they are now. Their relationship with the rest of their neighbors has certainly changed for the worse, and I think they are going to have difficult times in the future no matter what happens to their regime, whether it survives or not.

All that said, I find it difficult to get enthusiastic about intervening in Syria. We already did our usual number in Libya, and I don't see the Libyans clamoring to pay for any of the costs of the intervention. Mercenary armies traditionally have been paid for their services. We get paid nothing. Iraq's gratitude is laughable. How Iraq turns out remains to be seen. I find it difficult to have much hope for Afghanistan either. The trouble is with the people. They are not like us. They are not educated. They are extremely superstitious. They don't share Western-style values. Eventually a strong man always arises among those people. They have not had a republic in a thousand years. Where is their Thomas Jefferson, their James Madison, their George Washington? Once we leave, then they will revert to their old ways in time. That's my prediction. We are regarded as aliens, intruders, foreigners.

Russia supplied more arms to the detested Syrian regime recently. I imagine the Russians rationalize things this way. The whole Middle East, with the exception of Israel and maybe Turkey, is just a bunch of authoritarian regimes. The dust hasn't settled in Egypt and Libya and other countries yet. Torture and executions for spurious reasons are fairly commonplace throughout the Middle East. So if the regime falls in Syria, then Syria may become more efficient. It may become wealthier. But freedom? Civil rights? That's difficult to imagine. What Russia really fears is the Arabs coalescing into a coherent union, like the EU. They like the Syrian regime because it plays ball with them and does favors for them and keeps the Sunni majority in line.

For all the talk in the media about a civil war in Syria, I think the regime is going to endure and survive. It will be a little bit weaker, but it will survive just as the Iranian regime survived the turmoil of 2011. Iran and Syria have far too many ignorant and violent thugs that are in possession of gold and guns. I think that any ethical person in those countries does not really have much hope to lead a productive life, because to do so would be to serve as a tool of an unethical regime, which would be a violation of ethics. Eventually an ethical person would run afoul of the regime. Those two countries, Iran and Syria, will be bastions of violence and ignorance for generations to come.

It is depressing to think of Iran with nuclear bombs. The U.S. is not really in a position economically to begin another war, thanks to Bush's blunders, and all signs point to our steering clear of military conflict. I think what will really happen is that, if Iran hurts anybody with a nuclear weapon, then all life will be annihilated within Iran and possibly their neighbors and all of their allies. It will not be Mutual Assured Destruction, but Assured Destruction at any rate. That is why China and Russia don't care whether Iran gets bombs. Both of those countries already have sufficient deterrent. They assume that the Iranian leadership is not insane. Whether that is a safe assumption remains to be seen.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Monday, January 16, 2012

Old Age

Thanks to modern medicine, our bodies outlast our minds nowadays. Many people, if not most, die long before their physical deaths. They are walking simulacrums of the people that they used to be, with the same name but only the merest fragments of their original identity, their personality distorted and withered until they are almost unrecognizable. Nevertheless, they possess full legal authority and every right to surrender their assets to the evil-doers of the world. That is why evil-doers--telemarketers, salesmen and cultists--keep calling random numbers and knocking on random doors. They know that in some cases, they will descend upon a vulnerable person who is no longer capable of sound reason. And they can fleece such an individual with relative impunity.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Obama Wins in 2012

Romney will be the G.O.P. nominee? I'll vote for Romney when cows jump over the Moon. Obama will win in 2012 by a landslide.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Another Brainiac CEO

Rich tycoons are just overflowing with brain power. Here's one that blew something around a quarter-billion of welfare for the rich government funds.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Santorum's Charity

Here's an article about Santorum's so-called "charity" for the poor--or rather, charity for Santorum and his political buddies.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

A Year Would Be Better

A day in jail is really too light for a billionaire who takes money from the U.S. government. I think a year in jail would be more to the point. Then the court can review what progress has been made on the agreed-upon project. The court should not be wasting taxpayer money reviewing the billionaire's deeds on a daily basis. One review, once a year, is sufficient. Until then, old Mr. Billionaire should be hanging out with Gen Pop in the county jail. The United States has too many greedy, selfish rich business criminals stealing from the government as it is. They have grown old, fat and lazy from a steady diet of easy money that they do not work for. Rich people have an entitlement mentality. They think money accrues to them because they are better than everybody else. Welfare for the rich needs to end.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

The MLK King Monument Misquote

From the Christian Science Monitor:

"What appears to have happened is Lei Yixin, the Chinese master sculptor commissioned to create the monument, and the monument's American inscription carver, Nick Benson, had an aesthetic problem they wanted to solve by shortening the quote. The change was made after the official plans of the monument were unveiled, meaning that the Interior Department and other supervisory committees had no input."

Personally, I think those two knuckleheads mentioned made an obvious mistake that would have been apparent to a bright fifth-grader. The sculpture itself is ugly. I would not hire Yixin to carve a poodle. I think the entire monument should be scrapped and replaced by another one, this time made by a talented sculptor.

So much of modern art is ugly. I think most modern artists don't even attempt to create beautiful things. The only reason modern artists thrive is that many people just go along with whatever the marketplace says or whatever their friends say or whatever they suppose is interesting; they ignore their native aesthetic sense of beauty. Future civilizations will not be interested in much of the "art" produced today.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Why I Didn't Buy a Kodak this Year

I'm not surprised Kodak filed for bankruptcy. Kodak has for a long time been run by idiots. The executives are mentally retarded. If the executives were ejected, and the company run by workers, then Kodak would become the dominant brand in the marketplace. Instead, Kodak was run by greedy, stupid morons who did everything in their power to destroy the Kodak brand.

Kodak Easyshare is a case in point. That bit of software was absolutely required to download photos from Kodak cameras. Other cameras do not have this peculiar limitation; you can simply download via Windows or any third-party program. Not so with Kodak. Kodak requires a memory-resident program to be alive in your computer AT ALL TIMES, sucking up resources and doing who knows what. Sometimes it even caused my computer to crash. Its features were junk. It was little better than a glorified Windows Explorer. Basically it just sat around reducing my computer's memory and taxing my patience.

Why did Kodak require Easyshare software? Simple. They wanted to sell a bunch of useless unwanted crap on their online site. Easyshare pesters the user with all kinds of unwanted offers, because the Kodak CEO has the mindset of a mafia boss. It was a slap in the face for trusting what I thought was a reputable American brand.

Needless to say, when the time came around to replace my Kodak, I did not even consider buying another Kodak, no, not at any price, even though Kodaks are selling for dirt cheap nowadays because everyone now realizes Kodak is a synonym for crap. I will never buy a Kodak again in my lifetime. Millions of other former Kodak customers had a similar experience and feel the same way. Hence, Kodak filed for bankruptcy.
by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments
techlorebyigor is my personal journal for ideas & opinions