Here are some tidbits about me:

• Name: Joe Higashi
• Location: Recently moved to Flagstaff, Arizona
• Hobbies: Titties and Beer
• Occupation: Computer Programmer.
• Birth date: 07/04/1976 ( Wow, quite a coincidence eh? )
• Ancestry: Half Hispanic, half Japanese,half Armenian, half Mutt.
• Citizenship: Born in the USA
• Favorite movie: Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend.

Like you give a rats ass.

I am one lucky bastard! I found a 1964 silver Roosevelt dime today ( I think FDR's the guy on dimes that looks kinda like the pope ) I got it in change for a soda. Suckers! I used to look for silver dimes often when I worked as a cashier back in 1992, and never found one all summer. I have only ever found one other one when I was like 8 years old dispite looking every so often at any dimes I might happen to have. That makes this is a monumentally rare, fortunate and auspicious event! Even better than a fortune cookie because you don't have to eat it!

You know you are on a winning streak when you get a dime that's probably worth 4 times face value! That's right a 40 cent dime! Yeah, I'm sure gonna buy a lottery ticket on the way home from work tonight! Momma needs a new pair of shoes!

Charmed - that's me! Cool as ICE!

• Optional: Crush Cape Cod Dark Russet potato chips into bottom of casserole pan.
• Pour cooked and drained pasta into casserole pan. Any pasta that has ridges to hold cheese is fine ( rigatoni, ziti w/lines, spirals, etc ).
• Optional: Add cubes of ham to pasta.
• Optional: Add croutons to pasta
• Add small ammount of milk to saucepan. You can always add more, but you can not take it out. Soggy pasta and cheeze sucks ( Though if you do screw up and make it too soggy, just put it in the fridge and eat it the next day. The pasta will continue to absorb excess liquid in the refrigerator and correct having added too much milk )
• Add at least 1 pound of grated cheeze to the milk over medium heat. Stir till cheeze dissolves. I use the sharpest cheddar I can find easily which happens to be Cabot Hunter's Sharp cheddar which comes in huge bricks. I use half a brick at a time for this artery clogger!
• Immediately pour the cheeze over the pasta before it seperates.
• Sprinkle more grated cheeze on top. Then broil till the top is crispy.
• I eat this with salt and pepper
• I try not to make this too often because I would weigh about 1000 lbs but it is so good I sometimes can't resist.

I hate to rant about something as boring as 'who gets to be president' but here goes.

Don't vote for Bush. He cuts taxes and INcreases spending. This, is a recipe for disaster.

Now I am all for cutting taxes, but programs need to be cut at the same time. Otherwise we will find ourselves, in the near future, with the choice between raising taxes to unbearable levels, or cutting programs to the bone. Though I am all for cutting most programs to the bone, it is irresponsible to force this by bankrupting America.

This strategy of President Bush is called 'starve the beast'. When we are forced through economic necessity to deal with the deficit, our likely choice will be for us to cut programs rather than raise taxes since raising taxes would further harm the economy. But the destableising shock will harm many people's lives unnecessarily, and put the United States in a weakened ( broke ) position. But Mr Bush implements 'starve the beast' anyway because it lets him be very popular with the bread and circuses mob. Cut taxes? Yes please. Keep/expand the government dole? Yes please. Until we go broke. But that will be well after Mr Bush's second term so he doesn't really care. Whatever happens, the filthy rich of the world ( like him ) will still be sitting pretty.

As for Iraq: Dethroning Saddam and rebuilding his country will cost, before it is over, more than 200 Billion dollars. 200 bil / 250 million US population = $800.00 for every man/woman/elder/child in the US! Less than 5000 people died in September 11. And Iraq had nothing to do with it!

This means his war is vulnerable to ridicule on at least two tacks:

1) Although dethroning the tyrant Saddam is laudable, and the Iraqi people should be eternally grateful to the people of the US for giving them freedom and democracy, the US didn't get anything from it. It was charity. The cause of the US war on terrorism was not furthered by changing the regime of a country that although ruled by a tyrant, was not a contributor to terrorism. Basically the $800.00 per person price tag cost of this war is a FORCED DONATION from the people of the United States to the people of Iraq. When hundereds of thousands starve in Ethiopia/Somalia/Wherever how much did you donate to feed them? And their problems were more severe than those of the Iraqis. I'll bet most people's donation to save-the-starving-folks fund was no where near $800.00.

I'll grant that Aghanistan's Taleban needed to be overthrown, but I don't see order being enforced there. Opium production is more central than ever to the Afghani economy, and while terrorist training bases are no longer openly run in that country, we have not changed that country in any way that will enable us to take our eyes off of or troops out of Afghanistan with the expectation that terror camps will not spring up again. Instead of working to construct a functioning Afghanistan we have preferred to waste our time in Iraq. And there is a distinct possibility that Iraq will not remain free once we have left because the Iraqis may believe they got their freedom for free. They may not value that precious commodity because they have not fought for it. However one can hope that the Iraqis will appreciate the blood price they did pay for it when the Americans bombed their soldiers and so value their freedom appropriately.

2) Less than 5000 people died on September 11, and no further serious terrorism has taken place since then. The importance of terrorism has been greatly blown out of proportion. More than 5000 many die of AIDS every year in the US. Many more than that die of heart disease, cancer, obesity. Spending 200 billion on researching cures for the diseases of the world would save far more American lives than the War on terror ever will. Even better, the money could be spent subsidising the health insurance of Americans which would trickle down to the research departments of drug companies.

I have traditionally voted Libertarian in the past because I have traditionally not preferred the Republican candidate over the Democrat candidate or vice versa. I don't want my social liberties taken by Rebublicans beholden to the religious right, and I do not want my financial liberties taken by tax and spend liberals. ( Bush seems to be his own beast - a tax cut and spend anyway creature ) But Bush has proven himself worthy of being voted *Against*. I will therefore vote for the Democratic nominee as a foil to the current Republican Congress. Doing nothing is better than doing stupid.

You may wonder why a Libertarian-type like me would advocate doing anything with government money saved other than funding tax cuts. I reason is that I know a libertarian 'utopia' can never exist. I see Libertarianism more as an Idealistic school of thought with many insightful threads than as something that can actually exist in the real world. Money is power, and power is money. If I can force a rich guy to give me his money by voting for the government to take it from him to fund a program that will ultimately benefit me, then by golly I will. I don't give a tinkers damn about 'some rich guy' any more than 'some rich guy' cares about me. This is more fundamental and true than any Libertarian Idealist School of Thought will ever be. It just happens that I also buy into the Libertarian argument that as the government becomes more and more the source of largesse, that the government gains more and more power over the individual.

My tolerance for this kind of government power seems to be much lower than most people's to the point that my politics almost mirror what they would be if I were rich. ( If I were rich then I would not want to be taxed - duh. )

But everyone has their own idea of where the 'sweet spot' compromise between government power through being the source of largesse and getting as much as possible out of the rich. ( the rich will always be outnumbered by 'the rest of us' so their views don't factor into politics. )

The 'view your own comments' display now sucks. It is hard to read now whereas it was easy to read before.

Oh well...

I made this up in my car on the way to work. I have to write it down before I forget. It's to the tune ( sort of ) of Oliver Twist's 'Got to pick a pocket or two'.

In the Yuc-a-tan pen-in-su-la in Mex-i-co,
In the ground you can see there's a ver-y big hole!
It was formed sixty-five mil-yun years a-go,
And killed off all the di-no-saurs and turned the plants to coal!

It was caused by a pe-ta-ton blast!
Which came from a bront-o-saur-us' ass!
Mon-te-zu-ma's revenge,
Can happen again...

So don't eat a bur-it-to you don't know,
On vacation down in Ye Old Mex-i-co!

Dude.

I just read an article about a baby born with a parasitic head growing out of it's head. If there was an omnipotent God that could qualify as benevolant, there would be no such human suffering as this or other more unfortunate victims of chance genetic/biological carnage.

A55M0NKEY is my handle on slashdot. Think of the monkey that Jim Carey conjures with the Power of God from the colon of the thug in the movie Bruce Almighty. Yeah, that's me.

It took somewhat longer than I believe it would have taken to accrue 'Excellent' Karma with an offensive-to-morons handle like A55M0NKEY. It has the word Ass in it, and it is written in 5CR197-K1DD13-ese. EG: the 5's and the 0. I used to have a different handle ( nagumo76 ), for which I forgot the password, and have since changed ISPs and so changed email addresses. I bid that account farewell. I also made my homepage http://goatse.cx.

Before achieveing Excellent karma, my posts would be modded as 'Troll', 'Flamebait', 'Overrated' etc more often than they used to be when I used the nagumo76 account, but once I got Excellent karma, people seemed to leave my 2 point posts alone, as if that 'credibilty' made up for the prejudices against my handle name. I guess reading the post, and judging it on it's own merits is too hard for some people - people who seem to live and die by prejudices. Many a person w/Excellent karma is a Troll/Overrated/etc, but that Bonus point is a powerful symbol for some people. Well I'll do as George Carlin says, and leave the symbols to the symbolminded...

That bonus point that comes w/Excellent Karma is a powerful Mojo, but I've found a way to neutralize it. I now express sympathy with the cancellation of the goatse.cx domain in my signature. Hey, that was my slashdot homepage!

My sig really is my opinion, Obscenity is defined well in the dictionary as merely offensive/repugnant/etc, it's a harmless word with a harmless definition. But in the US, the courts have come up with a tortured definition of the word designed to BS their way around the First Ammendment.

They define the obscene as 'that which is of little or no artistic or scientific value and is of primarily of prurient interest'.

That definition is the oxymoron for 2 reasons:

1) Our prurient interests are of immense scientific value. They teach us about our own psychology, so the artifacts of prurient interest that may exist or be created/published have scientific evidenciary value.

2)'Obscene' objects have, by definition, a large artistic value. Demonstrating that people have prurient interest in the obscene by publishing and making money from it, makes a powerful artistic statement. It demonstrates the depths of the tastes that exist in the public. It is a true insult, and no insult is more effective than a true one.

My chili recipe is a mish-mash, stolen from various other people and added to by me.

• Chili
• Optional: Fry up green bell peppers, or poblano peppers work too. If you will be serving to wimps don't use poblano. Poblano is a wimpy pepper, but some people are, well, wimps. Cut em small and fry them until they are dead. Use lots, but cook em down good so they aren't obnoxious. Onions too, but you don't need to cook them so much so add them when your peppers are mostly done. The Clorophyll in green peppers seems to sap the taste out of spices unless you fry the shit out of them first, but the pepper taste is yummy.
• Fry up some grated garlic and pepperoni. Pepperoni needs to fry first because it is tough and full of flavour that you want to get into your food.
• Add ground beef.
• Dash of oregano.
• 1 can whole or crushed tomatos
• Major shit loads of chilli powder. I buy the big ass bottles at the dollar store because I use like a quarter of a cup or more at a time. Some chili powder sucks but it doesn't seem to be related to price. Good chili powder gives food that rich pepper taste. Use more chilli powder if you left out the green peppers. Use paprika instead rather than crappy chili powder - it tastes more like chili powder than crappy chilli powder. If you taste ascorbic acid or citric acid in with the powder you buy it is crap. Chili powder should be nothing but powdered chili peppers.
• Optional: Cumin powder or seeds if you like that 'taco' taste.
• Sugar + salt to taste. Yep sugar. You can put as much sugar as you like, but keep tasting because you can't take it out.
• Sometimes I can't find sugar. You can substitute Hersheys Chocolate Milk syrup. Chocolate you say? Yep. Sometimes I add baking cocoa. This is totally optional. It doesn't make your chili taste like a candy bar though. It's rich and yummy. Prolly authentic. They have cocoa down Mexico way....
• Optional but recommended Black Beans & Kidney Beans 1 can each. I like beans in my chili.

This might seem like wimpy chili to you. And you are right it is chili anyone can eat. You can heat it up with peppers or Daves Insanity Sauce or whatever, or if you will be serving it to other people, you can eat it like I do. I keep it wimpy, but sprinkle a chopped haberno pepper on top of my bowl. Or I just cut pieces off the whole pepper with my fork as I'm eating. The chili cools your mouth but it tastes good with the hot pepper!

Another secret I learned from my wife's dad: Spaghetti & Meatballs is awesome with raw haberno peppers. Stab a bit of haberno onto your fork before skewiering a meatball and pop it in your mouth.. Fuckin awesome! Habernos are best raw anyway. If you cook em, they make your food too hot before you get any pepper flavor.

• Yummy sandwich recipe
• One 8 inch sub roll cut lengthwise, buttered w/garlic
• 3 slices of beef cotto salami laid out on the bread. Shaved ham is good too.
• 3 slices cheddar or grated cheddar or american cheeze on top of salami
• Optional: Thinly sliced tomato on top of that
• Oregano and garlic powder sprinked on top
• Broil till oregano is imbedded in the cheeze and the cheeze is golden brown.
• MMMM Toasty

Serve with ketchup, and mustard or eat with no condom-mints - especially if you used tomatos.

I try to metamoderate often, though I never read the articles or make any informed judgements. I just follow a simple rule:

If the post was moderated Funny, I metamoderate the moderation as Fair, since the fact that someone thought it was worth moderating must mean it was at least funny to one person even if I don't get the joke

It the post was moderated as Insightful, or Informative or Underrated, I leave the moderation unmetamoderated since I would have to think about whether the moderation was accurate and I would also have to read the post.

If the post was moderated as Troll, Overrated, Redundant, Flamebait, Offtopic etc, even 'Fist Posts', I metamoderate the moderation as Unfair since 90% of negative moderations do not enhance my slashdot reading experience, in fact they cause posters to edit out the controversial out of fear of losing too much karma. People who waste their metamoderation points on 'Fist posts' don't deserve moderation points anyway, and neither do spiteful jerks.

I only moderate positively when given points because highlighting good stuff is better than censoring the obviously ridiculous. If something is stupid, nobody needs me to tag it as such - I am sure they can figure out that for themselves.