Negligence or Otherwise

School having started on Tuesday, they naturally sent back a bunch of paperwork. Among them were the usual release forms.

Of course no one likes to be sued, understandably, but after taking the time actually read one of these bueauracraticspeech documents, I found this passage:

"I agree that under no circumstances will he/she or his/her heirs, executors, administrators and assigns prosecute, present any claim for personal injury, property damage, or wrongful death against said school or any of its officers, agents, or employees for any of said causes of action, whether the same shall arise by the negligence of any said persons, or otherwise."

"...shall arise by the negligence of any said persons or otherwise."

"Or otherwise" !?! What's that supposed to mean? Otherwise can mean a lot of things - among them deliberate and premeditated homicide.

So by signing this form, I am releasing my school to harm me at their leisure while I am doing said activity, and should they do so, I no longer have the right to seek reimbursement. Tell me if this is just wrong?

--
Inspired by my parents, of all people, who refused to sign any more release forms because they wanted to school to be liable for at least something.

Humor-blogs.

Olympic Magic

I have finally watched some of NBC's sliced, diced, edited, and narrated monoply broadcast of the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony in Beijing.

I must say, it is an impressive display of coordination, fat wallets, gunpowder, subtle military might, and buried communism.

My mom, however, was beyond impressed. She was screaming, both in delight and at my dad to record the show. "Oh my goodness." She said it "was the best show in 5,000 years" and that "no other country can beat this".

Larry Niven wrote that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." My mom must have thought Beijing was Walt Disney's wonderful world of magic.

Of course, it was my job to bring her back down to earth and tell her that is in fact very possible for another country to do just as well. It is merely a matter of whether or not the country's government is willing to undertake such a task. It is even possible for future Olympics to surpass this year's, since they would know just how far they would need to go. Afterall, competition is how the world gets better.

Following more reminders of how important it is to learn Chinese, my mom also said that Jackie Chan was writing a song and that he was very patriotic, unlike me. This is proves how very ignorant she is. Jackie Chan is very patriotic. However, he is a Chinese citizen*. I am an American citizen, despite being of Chinese heritage, and if I was patriotic towards China, then I would be committing treason, which is the highest offense and punishable by death.

But enough for now. I'll go enjoy the rest of the opening ceremonies and try to ignore the human rights crises of China.

Political Ignorance

Today, my friends were talking about politics and stuff.

Well, I must confess that I have more or less been living in a box.

I don't watch that box of flickering lights people call TV, nor do I listen to the radio. In fact, I do read the news. Reuter's Oddly Enough articles. It's my only link to the world outside of the not so accurate gossip network.

So I was more or less left confounded while my friends rambled on about politics and Clinton or something of which I had little knowledge of. So, like Finny of A Separate Peace, I put on an expression of thoughtfulness and threw in a couple understanding nods and "Yea's" and attempted to not seem out of the loop.

I don't really see a point in catching on until I'm eighteen, a good three years from now. In fact, I found it almost annoying how people would battle it out over whether Obama, McCain, or Clinton is winning. To me, it's just some far off place; as far as the battlefields of Iraq or the playing fields of Trojans vs. Bruins that has nothing to do with me. Come to think of it, I don't really care who becomes President in my own school's Associated Student Body. It seems that no matter who we elect, nothing changes. Absolutely nothing. The only big thing itself is the election; to see who's the most popular; who's the greatest liar.

But maybe it is time to come out of the little hole I've been sticking my head in. Perhaps who we elect does make a difference - differences that are unnoticeable by me for lack of information.

At the very least, I can try to accidentally stray on to the more practical pages of Reuter's and maybe, just maybe, become a little less ignorant about politics, if only to save my pride. But don't ever expect me to care if USC or UCLA's football teams are better. That's pushing it.

Religious Excuses

I did say I was going to write something about "those silly monkeys jumping up and down shouting 'Allah akbar!'", didn't I? Well, thanks to a local screening of Invisible Children*, here it is. Only try really hard to resist causing more acts of death and destruction after reading this.

Just because I made fun of Islamic militants doesn't mean you other radical theists** get away, too. You're all part of the problem. The Crusades. The Holocaust. I'm pretty sure the Islamic people didn't start the problems. I can't remember exactly, but I'm also pretty sure the Ten Commandments included something along the lines of don't kill, which Common Sense also tells you to do.

Waging a war because some God(s) (which for purposes of this post represents all spiritual figures and does not exist) told you to is just ridiculous. I've heard of strict obedience, but attempting to overthrow a government, as corrupt and pathetic as it may be because a voice in your head (who is most likely not your conscience are most certainly not your higher being of choice) suggested it is plain stupid. What if God told you to jump off a cliff? Well, I suppose some of you might. There is a reason why they call you 'extremists'.

This is exactly what happened to a deranged lunatic named Alice Lakwena, and for the last two decades, an unseen war has been waging in Uganda between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army. Children have been kidnapped by this terrorist group and are forced to either learn how to shoot a gun or be shot with one.

Maybe it's the government's fault, but your crusade isn't helping any. All you're doing is adding to the instability of your region and helping your already weak government doing a worse job of fixing it's many problems. If you took the money that you were wasting on junk food such as guns and bombs and gave it to a more noble cause, the world would be a much better place.

Luckily, the story of the Invisible Children has a happy ending. The conflict has become less transparent to the world, and there has been peace for several years and hope for a bloodless solution. Maybe you could all take a lesson from them and put that Holy Sword you were planning to smite the Infidels with down or place that highly fashionable C4 down vest from Abercrombie and Fitch back in the closet.

Post may be expanded later.
Religion is inefficient. De-convert today!

*Moufflets is not associated with Invisible Children or its affiliates in any way, shape, or form.
**All theists negatively referred to in this blog have declared Holy War of some sort or another or have used violence in the name of their imagined higher being. Moufflets does not establish that all theists are ill-hearted people in general, and apologizes and asks to be notified if it has done so.

Liberation Lies

All those liberation groups that keeping making the headlines are getting on my nerves.

BLA, ULAF, ULAA.* Something with the word "liberation" in them. I swear that there are more acronyms here than the United States government has.

But what are these so called freedom-fighters doing exactly? It seems to me that they're all preoccupied with making large explosive noises, suiciding other people, and suiciding themsevles and other people. In fact, most of them should be stuck in anger management classes singing, "I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty, and witty, gayyyy!!!"

You would think that they have learned long ago that virulence**, I mean violence, is not the answer. I suppose that their average lifespan is too short for anything to sink in thanks to their lemming-like attraction to suicide bombings. I think they're pretty immature. It's like they've gone from boys with toys to men with guns, only they're still stomping up and down trying to get attention.

So grow up, calm down, and try to keep the safeties on your guns. At the very least, get a change of names. It's really not nice to mislead people.

As for those silly monkey's jumping up and down shouting "Allah akbar!" while waving AK-47s and RPGs around, I have another post just for you for another time. So try not to crash a plane into anything before or after you get a chance to read it.

*Nothing personal. Just listing a few off the top of Google search.
** A little poke at those nerds over at Mark Keppel who always seem to come out with the most medals in Academic Decathlon. I respect that.