Since it is the new year, let’s go over the rules:

1)  I don’t edit or delete any comments except advertising SPAM.  Period.  I also have no problem with leaving your comments up for the world to see what a fucking idiot you are.  Accuse me of it, and you go into the twit filter.

2) I’m a busy man.  If you write me, you may not get a response.  While I share some of my life with you, I don’t share all of it.  I have many fish in many fryers.  Don’t take it personal.

3) I take credible threats seriously.  In addition to being an old-school hacker, I’m pretty good with firearms, and accomplished with both armed and unarmed styles of combat.  So, I will have a pretty good chance of knowing who you are in short order, your local and my local gendarmes will be next. Pray Jesus God if you do make such threats that the police get you first.  They are interested in bringing you in alive.  I am not.

4) The above is for me; as for mine, that will provoke me to actively seek you out.

5) Heh.  No, I’m not going to whine about threats.  That would warn you.  Don’t be number 17.

6) While I welcome your comments, to be perfectly blunt your opinion is just that:  Your Opinion.  You’re entitled to it, and the more power to you, but don’t assume I really give a fuck what it is.  Leaven it with facts….

7) A troll is not someone who disagrees with me, a troll is someone who comes in, dumps opinions based on “fewwings” or some theoretical “facts” cobbled from soft “sciences” and then refuses to back up their arguments.  IOW, coming in as the feminist avenger spouting bullshit you learned in your “wimminz studiez” class will get you the same respect as some illiterate and inbred bible-thumper quoting the bible to prove the bible is true.  Same coin - different side.

8)  I have no respect for “studies.”  First, I refer you to the book “How to Lie With Statistics.”  It should be required reading in Junior High.  Second, it is an informal fallacy in the form of “Appeal to Authority.”  Third, I can spend a million dollars tomorrow and commission a study on any subject to get any conclusion I want.  And fourth, if I had a million dollars for every time I heard some egghead start their study with “I set out to prove….” Bzzt.  Bad toad.  You don’t set out to prove shit.  You go where the evidence leads, having an agenda taints your study beyond value before it gets out of the gate.

9) The only refereeing I am about to do in the comments section is “Don’t feed the trolls.”  Don’t be labelled one.  If someone is abusing you, cry me a fucking river.  Can’t run with the big dogs?  Stay under the porch.

10)  Yes, I do play favorites.  And no, I am not a gentleman.  I’m set in my ways, cranky, and bone weary of fucking idiocy in my life.  Expect me to not only call a spade a spade, but to call it a fucking shovel.  I have neither time nor desire to cater to anyone’s hypersensitivity, and in fact, if you’re of the left wing persuasion, I probably will get a tickle out of the idea that I have offended you.

11) Should be (10b)  Don’t like my opinons?  Don’t read them.  And if you think I should be silenced, far as I am concerned it’s proof you’re a Fucking Fascist.  And frankly, I hope someone kills you for it someday.  Harsh?  Suck it up.  It’s how I roll.

12) No outing of people.  Or I will out you.  In public.  With Name, place of work, address, phone number, et al.  Do you really think you are that private and anonymous, El Stupido?  This is non-negotiable, and the only abuse of a left-winger that will get a right-winger banned.

13) I have asked one person in six years to stop commenting here, which shows how much I believe in your right to speak, even if wrong and stupid.  Anyone ever tells you “Gonz Banned Me!” they are fucking lying.  If they don’t come here anymre, either I pissed them off, or their mouth wrote checks their ass couldn’t cash and they slunk off like the craven pussy they are.

14)  You get called out to “prove it” by me or anyone, do so, or you’ll be exposed for an empty windbag.

15) Lefties don’t get to call people out.  My place, burden of proof is on you.  You come here and assert me or someone is wrong, YOU fucking prove it, you liberal blowhard.

16) I am almost fifty years old.  I first ran into the person who refused to use grammar, punctuation, and capitalization before junior high school, as a character in a rather worn book in my school library.  So you are neither original, unique, or new.  Neither are your rationalizations for it.  You don’t look avaunt-garde, you look like a pretentious and ignorant dipshit.  Grow up.  Learn to communicate cogently and people might give a fuck what you have to say.

Last but not least is Gonzo’s Great Unifying Theory of the Internet:  You can be who you want, even someone you aren’t, and this isn’t necessarily a Bad Thing.

Folks, I’ve not lied to anyone about who I am, but you don’t have the whole truth on me.  I reserve shit for myself - some is protection for me, for mine, and some because it is just none of your goddamn business.  For those who don’t like me, FOAD, for those who do, I say it with the greatest love.  Because you shouldn’t care.

I have eight sheepskins hanging on my wall, and have taught at the college level, and the only thing this has proven to me is that a PhD is no guarantee of having the plain common sense to spit downwind.  Myself included.  At one time I thought a membership in Mensa was a BFHD, and in short order I realized what a tedious bunch of self-absorbed pedantic assholes I had surrounded myself with. I got good shess games.  That was it. I’m bored to tears by many people who are educated and well read - and frankly because you take that away, and they have nothing.  No soul. No passion.  They have nothing they are willing to die for, so how in hell can they possibly have anything to LIVE for?

You don’t need studies, affirmation from a book, an institution, or a piece of paper to know things.  Open your eyes, go ou.t in the world every day, and see it for what it is.  Listen.  See.  Watch, and observe.  Let it speak to you.  See what works and see what fails.  That is where truth lies, and I have found that such things are profound in their simplicity.

I’ve learned more watching and talking to one old man and his cat working in his garden than I did in any college class I ever sat in.  And I knew I had something to learn there because he had taught his cat tricks, and the cat followed him around like a puppy.  Anyone who can do that with a cat is a bad motherfucker indeed.

The upshot is that your bona-fides, your pedigree, your qualifications, certifications - they are not important.  I don’t care if you lie about them.  Because they are nothing.  They mean nothing.  Even if true, they are knowledge, but not wisdom. What you actually do, what you say - that is where the rubber meets the road.  All else is window dressing, and superficial in the extreme.

I’ve been and done a lot of things.  Chances are, if you claim to be something you’re not, I’ll figure it out.  I will really only give a fuck if you use it to claim illegeitmate authority.  For example, I have trained men and women alike in combat arts, both armed and unarmed.  There are physiological differences I HAVE SEEN.  I train them differently to account for this, and have success to back it up.  So - claim “Ain’t so!” doesn’t impress me.  Claiming “This study” (Especially when put out by Femherroid University Skool uf Wiminzes Studdees) says different doesn’t impress me.  I know some people in the Martial Arts World claim different, and their failures underline the fact they are wrong.  You claim to be a Black Belt Uber Ninja Krav Maga Artist of the Secret Octagon and you know different - well, my bullshit meter will go off and you go on the twit filter.  As Galileo said, “Nonetheless…”  I have seen it work.  Your theory is shit.  One school of thought produces champion martial artists in the women’s leagues, and the other lets a woman stomp dog-shit out of a man half again her size intent on doing her serious bodily harm in the real world.  Guess which is which?

Next?

The upshot to this ramble is that the internet is the great equalizer.  Claim to be a woman - maybe, but you might be lying (Gee, 46 year old chubby closeted homo named Bruce from Cleveland claims to be a woman?  Never seen THAT before.).  Don’t expect the kid glove treatment or of having your femininity stroked.  Samed with your self professed “blackness” or your “Doctorate” or your “Decorated Combat Veteran” status.  Bully if you are.  But your “claim” has no authority; nor does your ability to use 98-cent words and still not have two coherent trains of thought in succession.

I know of no person who knows - and truly understands - anything who can’t break it down into fundamentals easily understood by a human being of average intellegence.  In fact, the only people I know who refuse to do so fall into two groups: (A) People who don’t understand it and are just parroting, or (B) People who are showing off to the end of “Baffling them with Bullshit.”

I value succinctness and forthrightness - direct and to the point.  If it becomes coarse, oh fucking well.  This is an opinion blog, I reserve flowery language for other endeavors.  This isn’t my only writing gig, and that is all I have to say there.

Happy fucking New Year. I don’t celebrate it, it’s always just been an excuse to party, and not even that anymore.  If I want to drink, I don’t seek the excuse of an “occasion” to do so.