This just in, everyone: The President, Lord Messiah Barack Hussein Obama, peace be upon him(1), has declared that we have a national emergency on our hands! Grab your guns, because the Russians Chinese enemies are invading! Head to the bomb shelters, because the nukes are incoming! Board up your houses, because the next Katrina is on its way!

Oh. Hold on a second... Okay, this just in: The national emergency is because of H1N1? Oh man, it must really be serious, right? It's the next Black Plague! Entire cities are succumbing to the microbes ravaging the planet! The end is nigh! The government was right! It's truly a pandemic of epic proportions!

Oh. Hold on a second... Okay, this just in: According to the article that we ourselves just linked to, the CDC is still saying there's only been 1,000 deaths? Well... A thousand is still an awful lot! It really is serious, isn't it? And the poor children! 100 kids have fallen to this deadly disease.

Oh. Hold on a second... Okay, this just in: We have nothing specific just yet, but reports say that Americans who are simply being fat are causing over 100,000 deaths in a year. And what's this? Alcohol causes 85,000 deaths? 175,000 children drown each year?

In light of these numbers, I ask you, dear readers, where are the declarations of national emergency on the dangers of eating at McDonalds? Or chugging your favorite beer at the local bar? Or the dangers of children near water?

Oh. Hold on a second... Okay, this just in: I've just been informed that these numbers are from Wikipedia. Wait. One moment please. I need to discuss something with my fact checking crew.

(Why is this an issue? Isn't there a source for this? There is. People who buy into sensationalism like this are the kind of people who think Wikipedia is accurate without checking sources already! They shouldn't have any trouble believing this if they believe so much of the other stuff on that thing! Alright, fine. I understand. Don't let it happen again!)

Okay, we're back. I apologize for the delay, and I'm sorry to tell you readers that our establishment doesn't treat Wikipedia as an accurate source and there was a slight misunderstanding with our latest intern, who has been unceremoniously and immediately... Taken care of. As a result, my new fact checker has pointed me to a few more notable sites:

• We have a report from 2006 by our very own CDC that lists the top 15 causes of death in the United States.
• Since H1N1 has been declared a pandemic, we only thought it prudent to include WHO statistics on leading causes of death around the world in 2004.
• For all you proponents of legal marijuana, we are including an independent, but well-sourced chart from DrugWarFacts.org that also lists annual causes of death in the United States.
• And while we're at it, if you wish to conduct your own research into the leading causes of death, you may wish to use the Google query for leading causes of death!

So in the light of the things that are actually causing high death rates in this country and in light of just how incredibly insignificant the H1N1 numbers are in comparison with the leading causes of death, I again ask you,dear readers, why has The President, Lord Messiah Barack Hussein Obama, peace be upon him, decided to declare a state of national emergency because of this clearly insignificant threat?

To be honest, we've given up trying to understand his decisions.

(1)Due to The President, Lord Messiah Barack Hussein Obama's recent reception of the Nobel Peace Prize, we here are Rivenwolf.net will gladly honor the event by appending the phrase "peace be upon him" whenever we speak to him directly or when we mention him in our reports.

Since everyone else seems to be weighing in with their stereotypical anti-Microsoft drivel, I'm going to weigh in with a slightly more balance interpretation of events:

1. Microsoft installs browser add-ons when you install .NET framework.
2. People get angry because you can't disable it. (Actually, you can. I wonder where this rumor started?)
3. Apparently there was a security hole in the add-on. (That Microsoft has since patched.)
4. Mozilla decides to block the add-on, even after Microsoft patched it.
5. The kicker is, Firefox doesn't let you turn it back on if you want to. (I tried.)

Isn't not being able to turn it off why people were upset? But not being able to turn it on, that's not a problem? People get upset that Microsoft holds your hand and installs add-ons, but when Mozilla holds your hand and permanently disables add-ons that are deemed "dangerous to society", that's okay? Two groups doing the exact same thing... One is getting burned, and one is getting praised. Thus are the actions of the anti-Microsoft open-source movement. Rather like a liberal, wouldn't you say? They claim to want a standard of behavior, and yet they don't care to adhere to that standard of behavior themselves. (Oh snap! A political comment? From me? Shame, shame!)

The add-on has been patched. This much has been repeatedly announced. It's even on Windows Update now. What's your excuse for not installing the fix? Mozilla's argument is that people don't bother to upgrade, so they're going to block the add-on for everyone! Thank you, Mozilla, for treating everyone like idiots because a handful of people are too lazy or ignorant to actually check into the facts and/or use Windows Update on a regular basis.

I'm tired of Mozilla. I stopped using Thunderbird and now I'm not using Firefox anymore. In fact, Firefox is so stupidly slow and bloated that I've installed Opera on my Dell Mini for school use. So much faster and so much more proprietary! (And now I've even found a StumbleUpon toolbar for Opera!) Now I won't have to live with Mozilla's standard holier-than-thou attitude that open-source projects radiate all over the planet. Disgusting.

Microsoft alternatives that work? As if!

So now that I'm actually in computer classes that aren't freshman level, I've noticed a sharp increase in the anti-Microsoft atmosphere. Even the professors take time to make irrelevant jabs and jokes at Microsoft's expense. It's really, really distracting and annoying. One of these days I'm going to start making jokes and Linux and Apple's expense. I've already had a few opportunities that have presented themselves... Ironically because they were trying to make fun of the Windows market. One particular opportunity arose when they were talking about how Dell would use generic hardware, lock it down, and slap their brand name on it to sell at a profit, to which I immediately remarked: "Oh, you mean like Apple?" Nobody said anything, but such things from my mouth will be more common if they keep up the tirade.

Anyway... At one point in the class, the conversation turned to how horrible Microsoft Office was and how awesome OpenOffice is and how the ODF standard is awesome and how DOCX is just an evil money-making scheme. I mean, there was some interesting things mixed in between the rabid open source arguments, such as how governments were concerned that old documents might not be able to be opened in 50 or 100 years and how they needed a document format standard. So I decided, hey! If you would have just given the facts instead of taken the opportunity to make fun of a capitalist business that is supposed to make money, I would have considered using OpenOffice because of ODF. But, ya'know what? I tried it anyway.

Unfortunately, once I actually started using options in OpenOffice that I take for granted in Word 2007, I started running into some pretty interesting problems. Most notably the automatic bibliography features. A professor told me OpenOffice makes writing papers easy because you don't have to remember APA formatting. Great, I said! Let's try that! I have a paper due this week that needs APA formatting, so let's give it a shot. Load up a new document... Tools... Bibliography Database... Instant crash. In Linux. How awesome is that? Okay, maybe it's because I'm not using Ubuntu Stamp of Approval OpenOffice. Let's try Bibliography Database on Windows. Load up a new document... Tools... Bibliography Database... Instant crash. In Windows. How awesome is that?

Seriously? A modern feature with the prominence to be on a first-level menu crashes the entire application without any warning? I wonder what would happen in Microsoft Word did that. Which, I might add, it doesn't. I tried it just now. Guess which word processor I'm going to stick with? I'll give you three guesses and a hint: It's not OpenOffice. So much for the arguments that open source bugs get fixed before proprietary stuff. I try to look up solutions and I get bugs reported from 2007 and 2008 for version 2.0. Hello? This is 2009 and version 3.1 and the bug is still there? Excuse me while I laugh at your precious open source ideals.

The same goes for Ubuntu Netbook Remix. I put it on my Dell Mini because I was tired of Dell's version being old. All was well... That is, until I wanted to switch from the new-fangled UNR desktop interface that turns your entire desktop background into a task bar. I want to see my background image, thank you very much. So I switch! Simple, right? Something as basic as switching between Netbook interface and normal interface shouldn't have any problems, right? Hah! How could I be so naive? Not only was there a bug that prevented the window manager from running on start up, but the bug persisted even when I switched back to the stupid "new" desktop interface. Applications would load, but the window manager wouldn't technically be there, so I couldn't move, resize or even close the windows. They'd keep opening on top of each other and run in the background.

Yeah, I'm totally convinced open source is superior to Microsoft products, guys. Gee, I wonder what would happen if editing the Start Menu properties on Windows suddenly caused windows to freeze open, even on reboot, until you managed to limp along to find a patch you had to download from deep within a bug repository. It wasn't even in the automatic update, yet. For some reason, this massive bug managed to sneak through a severe lack of Ubuntu testing and I'm still not even sure it's up for automatic update. To be honest, I spent a day browsing bug reports so I could fix something as basic as changing desktops. I would never recommend Ubuntu to anyone who wants to use their computer easily.

And then there's Apple, of course. The iPhone, pride of the cell phone market, of which I own, relying solely on iTunes, the single most laughable chunk of programming I've ever had the honor of using. Right now, it's idling at a lovely 50MB of RAM. Doing absolutely nothing. When it wants an update, it vomits dialog boxes all over my desktop until I either update or hide the warnings. I finally just hid the stupid things. I would rather be entirely clueless as to updates than have boxes popping up in the middle of my work and games. Of course, I can't even use the Apple Update thing that have going... I have to install new versions of iTunes from full-install scratch. And I mean I have to uninstall the iTunes I have, too. Why? I don't know. It makes no sense, but whenever I use the update feature, my iPhone invariably ceases to sync. It'll toss up a cryptic "can't connect" error that not even Apple's knowledge base can pinpoint. Only after I uninstall and reinstall from a full 100MB installer file will it ever actually work.

So folks, there's a reason I use Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2007: They just work.

Owned.

Obama promised us change... I can't call that a lie. He and his ilk have stirred this country more than anyone could have hoped for. It's amazing how Washington still hasn't grasped the power of the Internet and modern circulation of information. Fox News may be the last bastion of hope for the mainstream media, but with the hundreds of thousands of people with the time on their hands to track these things and spread them around their personal sites and blogs, we can cut through bureaucratic crap faster than ever. The best thing? Liberals just ignore it. That's awesome. It really is! While they're busy ignoring everything and ripping the Constitution to shreds, the voters are waking up and wanting some accountability.

I might suggest you check out some of these blogs. You'll find that most of them don't just spout opinions. They actually have sources and facts behind them, if you're open-minded enough to stop by and actually engage the topics being discussed. Go on! You might just learn something beyond the scope of sitting in your house, feeling sorry for yourself, and wanting everyone to pay for your hospital visits.

This health care thing really makes me laugh. For many reasons. Obama keeps telling lies. Conservatives keep tallying them up and refuting them with logical explanations. Liberals keep dodging the issues and appealing to everyone's emotions. The more the liberals blab off about what ObamaCare really is, the more ignorant they sound. Have they even bothered to read the bill? Oh well. Nobody in Congress seems to have, either. But ya'know? There's one thing that really stands out to me...

Are people really so selfishly arrogant to assume that they're entitled to have everyone else pay for their health care? You can't afford health insurance? Really, I'm sorry. I can't, either, but, then again, I choose not to, anyway. Can't afford doctors without insurance? Really, I'm sorry. I can't, either, but, then again, I don't trust them for most things, anyway.

But seriously? Keep your greedy, envious hands off my money. It's my money and I worked for it, and if I don't want to spend money on health insurance, then I shouldn't have to, and just because you can't pay for the insurance you want or need doesn't mean you have any right at all to come along and demand that the government tax everyone and everything so that you can get it cheap. You have no right.

None.

At all.

Period.

End of story.

So stay away from my money, you selfish little brats.

Yep. Ugh. Crawlers...

Apparently, beemp3.com managed to find a folder I'd hidden away on my site for personal MP3 uploads, ignore my robots.txt rules, and put up links to all the music I have uploaded all across Rivenwolf.net. Can you say "UNHAPPY?" I sure can. How it found the folder in question, I'll never know. Maybe it just guessed... It seems shady enough to do something like that. Shame on my for having the folder indexed for easy access, because that allowed it to link to all the files I had uploaded. Bah!

So, in response to that, I'm not even going to bother flagging them all. What I did, though, was change all my links (so at least beemp3 is linking to dead things now), remove all my indexes (a major inconvenience, but I can't afford to leave them), and rewrite my hotlink prevention rules. Because of that, there may be some nasty side-effects with RSS feeds when I post links to stuff I have hosted. I provided a rule for Google Reader, since it seems to break things by being a referrer. I think most readers, though, treat things as a direct connection (at least the offline readers do), so there shouldn't be too much of  a problem.

If there is, though, let me know?

Well, apparently, what was intended to stay in the committee for an extended period has already been leaked to the community at large, so I have to hack together a quick explanation before the rumors start flying and things are attributed to people that simply aren't true. (Come on, I live in a small town. I know exactly how news turns into gossip!)

I don't know how many people actually read this blog, though. Especially since I haven't said anything for ages. Hopefully that'll change now that I've repaired my RSS feeds and moved to a faster server and have actually started saying things again. That said, feel free to circulate this post far and wide so people who are interested actually get an explanation. An explanation for what, you ask? Well, my resignation from the Mysterium Committee, of course, as the title so clearly insinuates!

Here follows a very much modified (for the public) version of my resignation letter:

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my part in the Mysterium Committee. I first considered joining when I was asked by a friend of mine to help them, and my final reason for joining was because I thought it would be fun and that it would be a nice way to do something good for the community. Unfortunately, due to recent events, I no longer find my participation to be fun.

The committee felt tense when I first joined, but I attributed that to some key teams being in disarray with Mysterium 2009 being so close at hand. People were spread too thin and I hoped that with my joining, things would lighten up and make things more fun for everyone, but now that Mysterium 2009 is over, I sense the mood hasn’t lightened even without hard deadlines.

So the reason I joined the committee? I thought it would be fun and I thought my help would be wanted. At first, it was, but now it seems like it isn’t. All of my reasons for joining the committee are gone, for a variety of reasons, and I have no other reason to stay. In light of that, I formally resign all of my positions (Web Development, Communications and Location) on the Mysterium Committee, effective immediately.

To those of you who I’ve discussed this with off and on, I’m sorry for finally doing this to you, but I’ve thought about this for weeks, and with college starting so soon, I really can’t afford to spend all this energy on Mysterium. If things were different, I would find a commitment like this to be a relaxing diversion from the academic grind, but as things are, it would only distract me and adversely affect my grades.

If you want more information, well... You're out of luck. I'll leave it entirely in the hands of the committee as to whether or not they want to leak the details of my departure. If they do say anything, feel free to ask me what the heck happened and I'll give you my side of the story. But until then, nada! To say it's not important? Eh... I won't say that. I think it is important, but the rest of the committee doesn't, and since I'm not part of the committee anymore, I don't think it's in anyone's best interest for me to go running around spouting internal information.

Let's just say that for a variety of reasons, my participation on the committee has become more stressful than I would like from a position that is entirely volunteer. I would prefer to spend that type of energy on something like a job or a political blog or something with a little more at stake for me personally than where the next location for Mysterium is or when the next communication is going to be distributed to the forum. I'm spending too much energy doing some very simple things.

So there you are... Now all you need to remember is that my @mysterium.net contact information is no longer valid and I have no idea who will handle incoming messages addressed to Communications, so just be aware that if you contact me from this point on, you will be talking to someone else if they don't deactivate all my accounts. I must add, though, that all forum accounts are my own personal accounts, so private messages and such will still work as intended. (I will remove my Mysterium signature in the future, but there are still some posts out there that people are actively reading, so I'll leave that up for a bit.)