California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Gamers Killing Innocent People

by John Lawrence, August 31, 2018

Two recent incidents involving gamers: 1) Wrong way driver in San Diego takes out mother and daughter on freeway. 2) Shooter in Florida at gaming event. The question might be asked: is gaming really an unhealthy obsession? The San Diego Union reported:

"The 18-year-old who sped the wrong way down state Route 805 Thursday, crashing into a SUV and killing himself, a 12-year-old girl and her mother, was a YouTube star who had made a small fortune in video gaming gambling, according to authorities and hundreds of gaming fans on Twitter.

"The California Highway Patrol identified him Friday as Trevor Heitmann of San Diego."

So this young dude had plenty of money he made off of gambling on YouTube and a  $250,000 hand made car. Evidently, he knew what he was doing as there were other bizarre incidents involving him that day. Was he on drugs? Whatever his personal circumstances, he had no consideration for the two beautiful, innocent people that he erased from the earth. If he was rich from his ill gotten YouTube gains, his entire estate should go to the family that he destroyed as compensation for this insidious act.

Two people were also killed at a Jacksonville, FL gaming tournament when a fellow gamer gunman opened fire. The occasion was a tournament for competitive players of the football video game, Madden. The winners would go on to a higher level tournament in Las Vegas in October, where large cash prizes could be won. So why is so much money connected with gaming. Most of these guys are young kids, and yet they can make millions of dollars gambling? Is this a healthy lifestyle?

The shooter was David Katz, a 24 year old. According to CNN, Katz went by the gaming name, "Bread", and previously won Madden tournaments in 2017. In February 2017, the Buffalo Bills tweeted out a picture of him after he won the Madden 17 Bills Championship. "Congrats to David Katz, the Madden 17 Bills Championship winner! Thanks for following along, Bills fans," the tweet read. In an interview after the win with former Buffalos Bills player Steve Tasker, Katz talked about his prowess.  "I think personally I'm one of the better players," he said.

Heitmann, described on Twitter as “McSkillet”, regularly posted YouTube videos about his websites, CSGOMagic and skin.game, devoted to the Counter-Strike video game and gambling. He posted a video in December of the black McLaren 650S he had bought some months earlier. Without appearing on camera himself, he shows close-ups of the car interior, back end and full view with open wing-like doors. He describes the car as “pretty damn insane” and said he could afford it because he had “made a ton” of money online, with nearly 900,000 subscribers. Reportedly, the McLaren can reach a speed of 200 mph.

Some friends of Heitmann tweeted that McSkillet had lost his income when the Counter-Strike game developer, Valve, “banned his life’s work” in selling slick decals, or “skins” for virtual gaming guns and other toys. Kevin Hitt, editor in chief of VPesport.com online gaming news outlet, said Valve, under constraints from the state of Washington gambling commission, confiscated about $200,000 worth of McSkillet’s skins and shut down his ability to acquire more. Hitt said McSkillet, and others in the gaming gambling world, would take bets on the potential value of skins, and third-party sites would use software to assign a dollar value to different styles of skins, based on their relative rarity. Other sites would make the payouts to betters, taking a commission.

This is all pretty hard to believe. This guy bought and sold skins for some virtual game and then took bets on how much the skins were worth based on their rarity or how much somebody was willing to pay for them? It boggles the mind that there could be so much money involved in something that has no, I repeat no, redeeming social value. These games are allowing young people to get involved in gambling. They are encouraging gambling with all the seamy Las Vegas culture that goes along with it.

No wonder that innocent people are getting killed. The whole gaming world is looney tunes. And the Pizarro family should get young Heitmann's estate.

Off the Top of My Head

A Realty Show for a Government. A Circus for a Presidency.

by John Lawrence, August 15, 2018

The USA has sunk to the level of a laughingstock among nations, but, domestically, the ratings are high. The Trump/Omarosa reality show is entertaining the nation to death. Trump calls Omarosa a low life and a dog. Well, she's hardly a dog. She gets a rating of 10 on Trump's beauty rating scale. Omarosa says Trump uses the "n" word and isn't fit to be President of the US. Franklin, Lincoln and Jefferson must be rolling over in their graves. Washington, who cut down the cherry tree and then couldn't lie about it, set a standard for truth telling that this bunch of loonies running our country has made a mockery of.

But I wouldn't be surprised if Trump were to be reelected. He's the Entertainer-in-Chief. Ronald Reagan set the standard for having the correct curriculuim vitae for aspiring Presidential candidates: be a movie star first. Ever since then, it seems that the American people have elected the most entertaining male as President. Of course we've had the whole Camelot thing with John Kennedy who was bonking Judith Exxner on the side along with the Chicago mob boss, San Giancana. Frank Sinatra set Kennedy up with Exxner and Marilyn Monroe. So Camelot was not really Camelot, only nobody knew about it at the time.

But surely, a little gravity at the national level might be in order. The Democrats are staking their future on that. Trump promised bread and circuses just like the Romans did, and he sure has delivered on the circus aspect. The bread....not so much. I wonder what he's calling Omarosa in private. Probably a lot worse than "dog."

Off the Top of My Head

The Militarization of Space

by John Lawrence, August 14, 2018

The Trump administration has a brave new idea: the militarization of space. Along side of that idea is the enemification of Russia. I just made that word up. It means making Russia the enemy. What happened to the International Space Station where Russians and Americans worked side by side in peaceful cooperation to further human knowledge? Well, the Trumpsters are having none of that.  As VP Pence said, we don't just want to have a presence in space, we want to dominate space. I guess NASA would be "just a presence in space."

Well, if Trump is going to modernize the branches of the military, may I suggest that in addition to the Space Force and the Air Force, he should also change the archaic names for the other military branches. The Army should become the Land Force. The Navy should become the Sea Force, and the Coast Guard should become the Shore Force. Then Trump and Pence would have all their ducks in a row. Maybe we should also have a Border Force which would serve to militarize the border. The Border Force would have a budget comparable to the other branches of the military and would make sure that no one came across the border illegally.

Peaceful cooperation with other countries is so twentieth century. In the 21st century America seeks to dominate the world and space. Domination becomes the guiding principle. As Nixon would say, "the lift of a driving dream." The last guy who had that driving dream was Adolf Hitler. It didn't work out so well for him, but maybe the US can pull it off. With the world's largest economy and the world's reserve currency, the US is almost at the point of achieving total domination. It can punish other nations militarily and it can punish other nations economically. After all, it says in the Bible that man should dominate nature not cooperate with it. Just as the German philosopher, Nietzsche said, the higher order beings should dominate the lower order beings with the family being the smallest unit of domination. Just as in the military, the higher officers have rank over and dominate the lower officers. At the bottom are the plebians and grunts. So it works also in civilian life. The rich dominate the poor and run the political and financial institutions. The man dominates the woman and the woman dominates the children. That's what a perfect society would look like. Total militarization and dominance. Everyone would know his or her place. What place does love have in this society? A smidgen maybe.

So what the US has achieved is Pax Americana, a peaceful world predicated on the use of force to keep state and individual actors in their respective places. The only problem is that this vision of society and international relations is doomed to failure. There are enough people in the world that won't accept this state of affairs. There will be blowback and pushback. Some people have a vision of peaceful cooperation among the peoples of the earth. Some even want to protect the environment so the earth doesn't burn up and flood out in a final Gotterdammerung.

 

Off the Top of My Head

An Utter Nincompoop

by John Lawrence, February 21, 2018

Put an utter nincompoop like Closeau on the case. Chief Inspector Dreyfuss thought by so doing he could secure the Medal of Honour for himself. Steve Martin in the Pink Panther has his shot to solve the case. If Steve Martin made another Pink Panther movie he would have to Tweet. I would like to see Closeau Tweeting. He seemed to use the latest technology like email. But to keep up with the times, he would have to Tweet.

The Producers was a movie in which the plot was a setup for a production to be so terrible that it would fail, and the producers would walk off with a bunch of money that they raised from some unsuspecting old ladies because the IRS wouldn't investigate a flop. They searched for the worst play ever written: Springtime for Hitler.On opening night, however, it seemed that the play was going to be a huge smashing success.

The Pink Panther has a similar plot. Closeau, the utter nincompoop is set up to fail making Chief Inspector Dreyfus look good. In both cases the intentions didn't work. Closeau succeeds, Springtime for Hitler succeeds. Now we have the equivalent of Closeau in the White House, an utter nincompoop. Will he succeed? It could happen. But I wouldn't bet on it. In the book Fire and Fury, the author suggests just such a scenario which begs the question: is the United States government a joke or a travesty?

After Trump and the Republicans are successful in reforming social security and Medicare the way they reformed the tax code, somebody should write a play - Springtime for Trump. He will have successfully convinced his tribe that he has done them a favor by taking away all their benefits. You've got to laugh at all this. What else can you do? Hitler in the White House will have succeeded where the 1930s era Hitler couldn't quite pull it off.

Off the Top of My Head

Is High Tech Getting Too High?

Are They Just Pushing More Useless Gadgets Down Consumers' Throats?

by John Lawrence

Apple's iphone 8 will use facial recognition to unlock your phone. I wonder what could go wrong with that? What if you are staring at it from the wrong angle? Do you have to hold in a certain way, not too low, not too high. What if you have a bad case of poison ivy and your face has swollen up? What if you have cuts or bruises on your face? Will it open if you're squinting? What about when you're driving? Do you have to give it your full attention, taking your eyes off the road?

It seems that a new model of every high tech gadget has to come out every year or so. Sometimes the new model is worse than the old. Take, for instance, those high tech rest room faucets. It was too much effort, evidently, to reach over and turn a handle so they invented a faucet where all you had to do was swipe your hand in front of it and it turned on. Except when it didn't. The last time I washed my hands in one of these high tech rest rooms I had to go down the line swiping my hand in front of every faucet until I found one that actually worked. There was never a malfunction of this sort when all you had to do was turn a handle and the faucet worked mechanically.

This relentless pursuit of higher and higher and sometimes useless tech is dictated by Wall Street. Instead of just churning out phones or other gadgets and selling the same model year after year with whatever improvements actually contributed to the functioning or made sense, Wall Street says you have to come up with a Wow Factor of a new model in order to get your stock price up. You can't just turn out a well functioning model. Shoe makers used to just have to be good at repairing shoes in order to make a living year in and year out. That's not good enough for the stock centric corporations.

That's why the Internet of Things has come about. Not content with just manufacturing the same good product year after year, corporations have to come up with the Next Big Thing whether we need it or not. Consumers have to be forced to consume. Much of the Internet of Things, which corporations have adopted as their goal, is useless and worthless, but corporations' stock prices would fall unless they came up with something.

Gizmodo reports:

Unfortunately, a lot of it [the internet of things] is total garbage. When it comes to Silicon Valley, there’s nothing like an expensive, overwrought solution to a problem that barely exists.

Take this recently announced toilet paper tracker, for instance. Are you always getting caught out on the shitter with no toilet paper? Never fear: A YouTuber (oh, goodie) has invented a smart toilet paper dispenser that can sense when you’re running low and will notify you via an app. Might we suggest a couple of non-electronic hacks, like... keep the toilet paper in the bathroom? Maybe just one or two spare rolls? Carry some tissues in your pocket? Christ, there are plenty of options that aren’t connecting your toilet paper dispenser to the internet. ...

We couldn’t forget to mention an IoT device that is connected in perhaps the least useful way possible. This pair of flip-flops with a chip and accompanying app doesn’t provide anything conceivably useful like fitness tracking data, but instead sends wearers information about discounts. Sign me up!

What I’ve learned from this is: man, capitalism creates some truly stupid, useless shit. Also, parody is dead, and we’re about six months from a real-life SmartPipe.

Russian hackers will now be able to shut down the whole US electrical grid by gaining entry through somebody's flip flops. Is this looney tunes or what?

Republicans Have an Infinite Supply of Crazy Ideas to Distract the Public from Dealing with the Country’s Pressing Issues

by Source on April 11, 2011, from the OB Rag

in: American Empire, Civil Rights

Guns in churches, schools and bars. Immigrants expelled to solve financial problems. When are we going to get wise to their tactics?

By Don Monkerud / AlterNet / Originally published April 4, 2011 |

Guns in churches, schools and bars. Immigrants expelled to solve financial problems. Morality praised as the key national issue.

American politics are getting more bizarre and in some cases, border on the nutty. Current politics include Republican legislatures in Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Minnesota fighting for their “rights” to reject energy efficiency light bulbs, while South Carolina will manufacture their own state’s rights incandescent bulbs.

Alaska wants to eliminate federal protection of salmon, polar bears, seals and wolves in favor of “state sovereignty.” Dozens of states pledge to roll back “Obamacare,” and protect their citizens’ right to high-priced monopoly healthcare.

A GOP legislator in New Hampshire recommends sending the disabled and homeless to Siberia where it’s cheaper to live.

Americans have always relished smears, scandals, and partisan struggles that appeal to the lowest common denominator. A fierce national anti-intellectualism, fear of losing social position, and an economy run into the ditch by greedy bankers are driving the public to look for answers.

The Tea Party and their Republican sycophants exploited these factors by making the federal government the enemy to win recent elections. Now, they are having a field day.

Important issues they’ve tackled include expanding the rights of gun owners, portrayed by the National Rifle Association as oppressed victims of government regulation. These oppressed victims bought 200,000 more guns than usual in 2010, to make a total of 200 million to 350 million guns in the U.S.

Despite 30,000 deaths a year and 70,000 injuries caused by these guns, the NRA insists, “guns save lives.”

In Florida, NRA supporters seek to impose a fine of $5 million on any doctor who asks patients if they own guns. In South Dakota, NRA supporters want to require every adult citizen to purchase a gun.

Georgia is about to allow guns in bars, churches and political events; Arizona allows anyone to carry a concealed weapon without a permit; and Utah has named an official state firearm, soon to be followed by Texas.

NRA supporters in nine states seek to legalize guns on school campuses. In Montana, Radio Shack is giving away a gun with every purchase of Dish Network, and in Missouri a car dealer is offering a free AK-47 with the purchase of a new vehicle.

Congressional Republicans forced “gun rights” into the healthcare bill to prevent the collection of “any information relating to gun ownership.” Congress refuses to ban ammunition clips that hold 40 bullets and fire two shots a second, and the NRA refuses to meet with President Obama because he has “spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment.”

In another effort to “save the country,” GOP legislatures are attacking illegal immigration. Georgia wants to charge any undocumented resident caught driving drunk with a felony, condemn immigrants for stealing “job opportunities” from citizens, and make it a crime to “transport” or “harbor” illegal immigrants.

Several states seek to bar illegals from college and prevent them from marrying U.S. citizens. Alabama would make it illegal to rent to an illegal immigrant, and several states want to pass laws requiring employers to check with a federal citizenship database before hiring anyone.

One GOP legislator says he wants to “make South Carolina a very hostile place for those who are in this country illegally.”

Meanwhile GOP presidential contenders support a moral crusade to save America:

• Mike Huckabee of Arkansas blames the economic downturn, crime and high school drop-out rates on our “morality.” He wants America to “rediscover God” and worship evangelical Christianity.
• Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi lauds the White Citizens Councils of the civil rights days and pledges that we should do “everything that we can do to stop abortion.”
• Newt Gingrich claims, “religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite” that wants God “driven out of public life.” He places moral values at the top of the U.S. agenda, as important as the economy and national defense.
• Michele Bachmann promises to increase the importance of social moral issues and says, “Social conservatism is fiscal conservatism.”

Working people are not faring well in the business-supported GOP push to dominate politics.

In Nevada, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce is seeking to repeal the state’s $8.25 minimum wage.

Darrell Issa, Republican from California, wants to outlaw any states minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage.

Wisconsin overturned the rights of state workers to collective bargaining, and Republican governors around the country are laying off thousands of workers, privatizing government jobs and firing schoolteachers.

Republican Congressional leaders abolished committees on global warming and ended recycling programs in the House cafeteria, claiming “green” initiatives are too expensive and compostable utensils melt in hot soup and break in salads.

The GOP wants to end cheap government mortgages by abolishing Fannie Mae because it competes with for-profit banks. They also seek to abolish the EPA, along with government support of Planned Parenthood and National Public Radio; and Republican Ron Paul wants to abolish almost all government agencies.

Is the GOP creating a new role for America as a laughingstock of the world, or is American simply becoming one giant loony bin?

Don Monkerud is an Aptos, California-based writer who follows cultural issues and politics and writes occasional satire.