"I am the voice of one among the silent who's tired of burning among the flames."

Happy Birthday, Liz.

Yusuf Islam, musician formerly known as Cat Stevens, author of such hit's as "Peace Train" detained on the grounds of National Security...

HahahahaAHahaHAha.

Here's another good one...

"Officials said Islam was on the watch list because of alleged associations and financial support for Muslim charities."

"The intelligence community has come into possession of additional information that further heightens our concerns of Yusuf Islam," Homeland Security spokesman Garrison Courtney told CNN. He would not describe the information further."

"Another official said the department is "extremely confident in the information" which "without a doubt" is credible. Officials will not say which charities are involved."

We've heard that one before, fellas. Something about very destructive weapons and a lack of intelligence. I don't know, I hardly pay attention.

I’ve been very disturbed and the political usage of religion. Some how people have brought to the forefront issues that have very little to do with the general well-being of the average american citizen. It is hard for be to accept that a Christian can support President Bush simply because he isn’t a peacemaker, he is a “war president.” I remember there was a time that a Christian read the bible, and perhaps read a little line that went:

Have confidence in God. This confidence in God will result in peace in every situation in life (Isa. 26:3)

And I remember a time when Christians cared about helping their neighbors. In the modern world, this is called communism. In today’s very political environment, people have come to believe that “war makers” are peacemakers. Once again I reflect upon a time when a Christian would read the bible, and perhaps chance upon something like:

Accept the vocation of a peacemaker from God (Matt.5:9)

And today, there seem to be only two stances that a Christian leader should take; pro-life and anti-homosexual marriage. After all, marriage is a union between a man and a women, and in allowing gay to marry, it would ruin that sanctification. I say that these issues are used as mere blinders for the Christian community, whom would normally vote for issues that would help the suffering of their fellow neighbor.

What many Christians (and most republicans) have forgotten is that it is choice that differentiates between the Christian and the non-Christian, and between moral (to use another buzzword) and not. It is because it is not compulsory to be a Christian or necessary to be moral that makes being so significant. Whether or not gay marriage and abortion is legal should not be the issue for Christians. It is perfectly legal to get intoxicated and make a fool of yourself, but it isn't very Christian-like.. Just because something is allowed does not make it moral, and at times vice versa. 

So why are so many people disillusioned? Why do so many people, despite repeated failures in the past, continue to believe that legislating moral issues is a good idea? Was the vastly expensive and entirely fruitless WAR ON DRUGS a good idea? The data on the subject points to a lot of money for a lot of nothing. How about the prohibition? A good idea? The data on that subject shows that it actually created more drinking problems AND spawned a generation of gangsters. What will happen if gay marriage and abortion is outlawed?

Well, we know a bit about what happens when abortion is outlawed. It still happens. The problem is that it happens in filthy, nasty places, often leading to (two) deaths. If you don't believe in abortion, then don't have one, don't advise people to have them, and do what you can outside legislation to stop it. I personally believe abortion is wrong, not something to choose to do to a life not yet lived. That doesn't mean I'm going to vote because I would never advise someone to have an abortion. I'm going to vote for the person that is going to do the most for America. I’m going to vote for the person who takes the action of issues that are truly important to the welfare of our neighbors.

So what are the issues that christian people should be worried about? Well, I don’t know. I would have to say they should be worried about social problems, like inequality, and healthcare for people who can’t afford it. Here are my thoughts on an article found on wikipedia.com.

Disproportionate Educational System

"The US educational system is compulsory; however, it is funded and controlled primarily by state and local governments."

What boggles my mind is that we have not come up with an adequate system to balance the unequal state funding of public education, taking into consideration that it is necessary for everyone to attend.

"Control of education remains firmly protected by state sovereignity, which causes the makeup of the local electorate to determines the funding and condition of the school system. In communities with large numbers of affluent childbearing families, the educational system tends to be well-funded and more effective. Communities with less affluent or non-childbearing families have less well funded educational systems."

What I'd propose is a slight intervention by federal goverment to help resolve inequalities in state funding that are out of the hands of the state, such as communities with less affluent families or non-childbearing families. It is hardly fair that the poor should be kept poor because of inadequate school funding. I'm looking for a candidate who is going to focus on school reform, a top priority in the battle against inequality and the income gap.

Poverty and the Inadequate Distribution of Wealth

"Throughout much of the 20th Century, US politics revolved around fighting communism. Many progressive efforts to provide greater economic parity and social justice for the poor and working classes were often defeated via equations with communism and socialism."

The demonization of communism and socialism is still very much alive today. In talks of politics that involve helping people who are poor or disfortunite, it is many times equated with communism. It is a sad day when helping out your neighbor is considered to be evil. Nearly (if not all) other democratic countries have better school systems and better heath care. Many even pay less taxes and have shorter work weeks.

Crime and incarceration

"The United States prison population is the highest of any world country, both in absolute and relative numbers. A substantial percentage of people behind bars are drug offenders, which is due to the so-called "war on drugs", a very rigid and controversial policy against selling and using drugs (some states have so-called "three strikes" laws, which lead to incarceration for life after three felonies have been committed, including drug crimes)."

Personally, I had never questioned the WAR ON DRUGS until last year, when I really started getting the figures of the policy. You see, I'm against drugs of most kinds. I don't even like medications unless I need them. I certainly don't believe in letting people deal drugs on the streets. However, I also know that the money spent to enforce the policy, the man-power whose attention is diverted from violent crimes (and alcohol related crimes, which by all extent cause more problems than drugs ever have), and the money it takes to keep these people in prison does not get balanced out by the results. By and large, the War On Drugs was a complete failure.

Access to health care

"Numerous issues with the private health care system have left 41.2 million people without health insurance coverage in 2001, including 8.5 million children. Political issues as well as business interests have lead to a stalemate on the issue. There is no consensus in the United States that having health care paid for should be considered a right, nor that this service should be paid for by the state."

I must say that after all these other topics, it is not surprising that there is no consensus for health care being a right, but I think it should be. Access to equal education and equal health care is the only way for people to be truely equal. If people don't have the same access to success (which, because of many factors like the Affirmative Action Movement, we don't have) then we aren't being made unequal. Better healthcare and better education makes a better, stronger workforce, which due to the failing Industrial and Farming sections, would be advantageous to the future of the United States

These are issues that are important to myself. I know that these things are the real issues that need voted on, not the age old abortion issue, or homosexuality. It is about peace and happiness. Morality, to me, will be when I choose the candidate who is most sensitive to these issues, the ones that affect people every single day.

I thought it would be interesting to go back in time to 2000 to see what Govenor Bush said during the debates against Al Gore. I didn't watch the debates in 2000, and didn't think I needed to, but if I had I might have been more impressed with Bush on certain issues at the time. Couldn't vote for him or against him anyway. I've taken voting much more seriously this term since I will be voting, and I think it is not only important that we watch presidential debates, but that we take the time to look at the last presidential debates as well.

So here you go:

http://www.debates.org/pages/his_2000.html

And a somewhat fair assement of what the candidates stood for last election. Be careful to note on Sept. 30th what was and wasn't accomplished and how many of these issues the president is still running on.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/resources/where.they.stand/

Blue Collar TV isn't funny. Saying GIT 'R DONE does not make you funny. Please make it stop.

I sat through 15 minutes (7 minutes minus commericals. Media bastards...) and I didn't laugh once. Except during the commericals. I think I laughed at a geico commercial.

So, I stumbled upon something I've been telling people for a long time. Bush is the true flip-flopper. Allow me to make my case. Kerry's Job is to vote on issues that require the careful reading of proposals. In these proposals, the smallest detail of wording could be the downfall of the issue. Let’s say the proposal was good overall, but due to ambiguity, the bill could be misused. Do you just vote yes because it sounded good regardless of potential misuse, or do you vote no?

I don't see what is so unreasonable about voting on issues in different ways. A minor change can make a questionable bill a great bill, or vice versa. Also, you have to admit that sometimes things sound like good ideas (like... a war to get rid of threats to our countries well being) and turn out to be bad ideas (like, Vietnam or the Iraq War). If someone doesn't change their minds in light of new information, it isn't exactly a good thing.

Bush, on the other hand, is a flip flopper off paper. Here are the first several web pages describing flip-flops, most of which I've noticed before, but some which are new.

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=118263

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43093-2004Sep22.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/21/opinion/main644838.shtml

http://www.independentsforkerry.org/uploads/media/bush-flip-flops.html

So yeah, I repeat for all to hear, how can you possibly want to vote for the man twice in a row, when he didn't do, or did the opposite of, everything he ran on in the first place?

Give someone else a chance to do nothing and get paid for it.

Unoffical repetition account:

Changing positions (AKA 'flip-floping') - seven times

 "Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" - seven times

"Mixed Messages" and/or "Mixed Signals" - seven times

Is seven the magic number that makes conservatives jump up and dance to the tune of the Bush campaign? No, he mentioned "Hard work" at least 11 times. Needless repetition has always rubbed me the wrong way. Come on Bushie boy, we heard ya the first time! And guess what? That wasn't the answer to the question!

Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way:

 "I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is."

Now, to me... there aren't many things in this world that gets me more than a person who points out the fact he is calling the shots from the safety of his campaign trail/ranch/hangout spots. It just doesn't do anything for me to be reminded of that.

And this is only the beginning of the debate. I can't wait to see what Bush is going to say when the issue isn't Iraq, Wars, Terror(ists), bad guys, killers, and evil-doers. I know that Kerry is all about these other issues, so I look forward to the rest of the debates. I'm even going to watch the vice-presidential debate, because it's going to be hilarious.

So what's this american system of election all about? Why DO we vote?

Did you know that "it is possible for a candidate to not get a single person's vote -- not one -- in 39 states or the District of Columbia" and still be elected presidet if he wins 11 or 12 key states? The candidates sure do. Why do these guys campaign like our opinions are the ones they need to sway, when in fact they only need to get the votes of a select group of people, a total of 538 single votes.

Find out here:

 http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/electcollege_2.htm

My thoughts on the debate: now THAT'S entertainment!

1st question Kerry: Do you have a reply to the people who think you are wishy-washy?

Kerry mentions Bush's tendency to use Advertisements full of lies to portray Kerry as inconsistent. Now, my favorite inconsistency that Bush keeps bringing up is the $87 billion dollars. Here is what I know about Kerry voting for and against $87 billion dollar resolutions for the troops.

First of all, Kerry voting against this resolution doesn't change the fact that the troops were under funded. The resolution passed whether or not Kerry voted for it or against it. Now, Kerry voted FOR a resolution for $87 billion dollars with the stipulation that the tax cuts for the rich were removed. After all, it isn't good policy to have tax cuts during wars. As you may have heard, this has never happened before. Kerry voted for a resolution with outlets to get the money. He voted against Bush's resolution because it didn't have the way to get the money. Remove the tax cuts, you get more taxes, you fund the troops. Which resolution makes more sense?

Second question Bush: No WMD in Iraq, but you still won't admit to anything close to the implication that you may have made wrong choices. What is the problem with you?

Bush has been quite consistent in his views. No one can compare to a man who doesn't even change his answers regardless of new information. Let's take this slow because I don't think Bush is really picking this question apart, or he would admit he was wrong, and then say that we all thought he has weapons. (Of course, I'm still pretty sure that before we went to war, the experts on the scene were questioning the reliability of the 'intelligence' used as reason for the War against Saddam)

Now, No WMD... but it was still important to go. We can't say wrong war, wrong place, wrong time even though it was true. Even though we had plenty of time to figure out that there was no threat, even though Saddam was cooperating with diplomatic efforts (because there were no weapons), even though we had other things to focus on, the president can't allow any of us to doubt that he made the right decision. If there was no threat at all to us, and since there was never a need to immediately go to war like we did, then how was the war the right decision? It's not like we didn't have any military actions going on at the time.

Don't listen to the reports that say the war was at the wrong time. Just believe everything the president says. Don't listen to the report that says there was not only was their no imminent threat, but a diminishing threat. The conservative interpretation of the report is a little different than the liberal interpretation. Liberals like to take a literal interpretation.

Now, both candidates have made many false claims. I heard many claims from both sides that were absolutely false. Kerry once again quoted a figure as $200 million dollars when its more around $120 million. Don't really remember what the number was attributed to at the moment. Which campaign do I think has told the most lies? I think it is Bush's campaign hands down, but the fact is they are both guilty. This is politics. When they lie, they almost always know they are lying. Sometimes they are using inflated figures, sometimes they are just making things up.

Now, when Bush says that "Kerry voted against this" it is probably true. But, when Bush says this, people don't understand, or it just doesn't come to realization, that the bills aren't just "are you for this issue, yes or no". Let's say that Bush says, "so-an-so voted against No Child Left Behind". You think, "What a horrible man, he wants to leave the children behind!" and not "he did the right thing because the president has no plan to fund the initiative."

I'll post more thoughts on the debates later, perhaps.

Bush: I have a timber company....news to me! Want some wood?

Me: Uh, sure I'll take some wood.

Bush: Wait... oh hell I do have a timber company.

Me: Then... can I have some wood?

This week, I'm going to show everyone why I don't post more often. As an experiment, I'm going to post every single day whether I want to or not. If I have nothing to say, I will say something regardless.

Day 1:

I don't, in fact, have anything to say, so as my rules go, I must now type stuff whether or not I want to. I've been thinking a lot about the upcoming election though. I realized that as the campaign progresses, more and more desperate acts happen by the candidates, such as Kerry bringing up the draft, or... Bush still saying the same things, like... the war in Iraq is a good thing, even if the reasons we went are completely invalid.

 Mooniethecat uncovered some interesting Info, for example. We all know this is a desperate attempt by his opposition to thwart is rock 'n roll image. (check it out, its hilarious)

Yeah, so I watched Airplane! last night, while talking to two people who haven't seen it. (you know who you are). I didn't think there were any such people left in the world, that hadn't seen one of the American Film Institutes Top Ten comedies. There are so many classic scenes in the movie, not to mention it was written and directed my Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker. These men have collectively made some of the most hilarious movies of all time. The Naked Gun series, Hot Shots!, Kentucky Fried Movie, etc.

Favorite part? There are so many hilarious scenes. You have Kareem Abdul Jabbar as the co-pilot. The Doctor is Leslie Neilson, or the Naked Gun movies. You can imagine some funny stuff happening already.

Heres a classic bit:

Rumack: You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.

Elaine Dickinson: A hospital? What is it?

Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.

And of course, the most famous line:

Ted Striker: Surely you can't be serious.

 Dr. Rumack: I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.

See it.

Anyway... this is what you will be getting for an entire week. A series of disconnected thoughts. God save you....

So, I am going to continue this little experiment.

By the posts so far, you can tell a few things, so here are some confessions.

1) I'm not sure about my religious stances, but have come to terms with the fact that I don't have to be. No one is going to hell because they don't do this or do that, but instead they will meet their ends according to the only one fit to judge them. I now feel sorry for those people who live their lives in fear of the judgements of man.

2) I have a problem with picking a topic and sticking with it if I haven't thought things out in advance.

3) Spelling Errors. Tons. Typos galore. This happens more when I'm writing spontaneously, but I have a bad habit of not reading over what I've written to check for errors.

4) I lied to someone the other day for the first time in...a long time.  To top it off, it was someone I care the world for. So, to them, I'm sorry. I didn't feel like talking about my problems when you have your own, especially since my problems are problems I just need to get over... though I was pretty sure I had. It just goes to show everyone what I actually know about myself.

Anyway, I went to the funeral today. It was sad as usual, but I just felt out of place. I haven't seen most of those people in 5 years. The reason I went is because... I hadn't seen them in 5 years. I also went because I figured my grandmother would appreciate it, and I think she did. It was nice to spend some time with good people, and my family are good people, even if they tend to the eccentric side. I think that one of these days, at one of these funerals, I will have an epiphany. I will finally understand what I've been on the brink of understanding.

RIP Renee.

Since the preacher took the funeral as an opprotunity to talk about armageddon, I want to say what I learned about Renee during the funeral. She was strong, for herself and for her family. She fought her disease for a long time, and in the end, she still beat it. She had strong faith, and it helped her in her life. She had a good marriage, and nobody had anything bad to say about her. She was the glue of her family. She was funny and left behind fond memories.

I'm sorry I didn't know her better.

mUST...post... 1 more tymE~!!!!!!!!

I had a sociology professor who would talk about how classroom dynamics had changed since she started lecturing in the sixties. And all i wanna talk about is how glorious my friday  was :-( I wanna talk about the sheer transitory perfection of the weather this past friday as it slowly changed from oppressive heat to seasonal chill.

Our nation will continue to besteadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives... Work is the majority of  life right now and probablywill continue to be until late august or so. And saying its only safe to nurse through half of your pregnancy is complete and utter bullcrap.

Short of following through with the promise of a 24 hour orgasm for everyone that votes for them no third party candidate will ever win a presidetial election.  Although of course there are many toys you can use if youre so inclined. You know there are many people who claim that they like a challenge and i believe many of them actually do.

I dont think she realizes that this is how i stay in touch with a great many people and by tellinghalf-truths here im telling half-truths to them. We live the now for the promise of the inifinite and we believe in the promise of love ;>  I would also very much welcome your comments as i believe strongly that art is something for everyone not just the arts establishment.

ARGgggggg thats itr!!!!!!

There is a questions arising in my heart of late. It asks "how did all my fellow christians arise at the conclusion that our current president George W. Bush is a righteous leader? How did they come to the conclusion that it is ok to approve of a war that didn't need to be fought?"

I know how I came to my conclusions. First off, I didn't personally like George W. Bush when he speaks. Some say this is not the way to judge a man (as if we should be their judge) but I say that the impressions you get from someone can tell much about a person. I am not a bad judge of character. I can look at the way someone speaks, and I can pay attention to their actions, and through this I can arrive at conclusions. The first thing I notice is that he is rude to other people. He puts himself above others. He doesn't know the first thing about being humble, his pride is evident to all. The problem is, I think, that culturally, people now admire these qualities that the bible tells us are bad qualities to have.

Think about this. When George W. Bush thought his microphone was off and he referred to that reporter as the equivilant to an anal cavity, we have to assume that when he isn't trying to make himself look good he is just a jerk. Some might say that because he thought the microphones were off this somehow negates the comment, as Cheney thought. I'm not trying to single out this one err in judgement, though. His appears rude in nearly everytime he is confronted with a view that is in conflict with his own. It is clear to me that he feels he is above questioning because he is George W. Bush, president of the United States, and what he says should be taken for undeniable fact.

Just yesterday my friend was accosted by a christian conservative for his views on politics. My Friend has on a Kerry pin and the guy just wouldn't quit. He was leaning into my friends face, finger pointing, and spouting the traditional garbage you'd expect. Quite frankly, they were just things that Bush had said, Bush the 13th apostle. Bush the 2nd son of God. I didn't stop the man at any time to try to convince him that the things he was saying were completely false, but I should have. The first three issues he brought up was abortion, healthcare, and John Kerry's voting record, while accusing my friend of "ignoring the facts"!

"How can you support a pro-choice (actually, the term he used was 'pro-abortion', a rather morbid term') when you are pro-life?" This is the easiest concept to explain, but perhaps the hardest for the Christian Conservative to comprehend. Abortion is murder. Yes. Killing someone is, in fact, murder. Passing a law against murder doesn't stop murder. There has always been the taboo of murder, and governments have also pointed out that it might not be polite to end someone's life. It goes to say that we probably shouldn't be killing each other, but it happens whether these laws exist or not. Rape happens, abuse happens, and no matter how many laws there are it won't stop.

The important thing to remember as christians is that we are to lead by our example. We shouldn't recommend that someone should have an abortion, but it is far from our christian duty to create laws. We have laws already, and they are the laws of God. If a person chooses to go against these laws, it is their choice to make. If christians want to get involved in this process somewhere, it isn't in the creation of laws, but in the guidence of the people getting abortions. Abortion will happen against the law, and it'll just be worse on everyone when it does.

This same concept applies to gay marriage. It is not the place of the christians to stop gay marriages because it goes against their beliefs, it is merely there place to not go against their own beliefs and, if they so desire, let people know that God doesn't believe this is right. Personally, I don't think the issue any of my business. People sin everyday by my own standards, and to not allow people to sin is not what I've been taught. I've been taught to not condone sin.

After attacking my friend on the issue of supporting a pro-choice candidate when you are pro-life, Finger-waving christian said, as if it were undeniable truth spoken from God himself, that the cause of high cost of healthcare is because of Malpractice lawsuits. This is far from the truth in many ways, but let's talk about malpractice suits and what the president likes to call "defensive medicine."

Aside from the fact that Bush's claims about the savings from capping rewards on malpractice suits is false, we have to look at what is gained by saying this. First, the president can say he attempted to solve the issue when it passes or  doesn't pass. If it passes, doctors won't be held as accountable for what they do wrong as they are now. Conservatives like to say that the quality of healthcare would go down if heathcare were nationalized, imagine what allowing our doctors to be sloppy will bring. I think what Bush really means by "defensive medicine" is "good medicine" or "careful medicine." This also goes to show you how much our president will do for the rich, who just happen to be the doctors that are getting sued.

This concept also applies to the Abortion issue. I'm going to lay it all out right here. It is my personal belief that, in light of more important issues, emotional issues like abortion are brought up to hide the issues that end up effecting us the most. Abortion has long been an issue on the political tables, and if anyone is really paying attention, no one is going to the extremes that it takes to pass legislation against it. Who doesn't get somewhat emotional at the thought of killing a baby? Our own president signed the partial birth abortion act... How many similar acts have been proposed?

This also brings up the conservative's argument that John Kerry's health insurance plan would give control of medical decisions in the hands of beaurocrats, which was also agreed upon to be false. This very abortion bill opens up the avenues that lead down the path to big government deciding on your medical procedures. How's that for hypocritical?

The next thing out of his mouth was about Kerry's voting record. 98 times for tax raises, he can't do what he's proposing without raising taxes. blah blah blah. He spoke all of this like there is no possibility this isn't true, and then when corrected he doesn't even pay heed to the fact that he was lied to.Talk about ignoring the facts! 98 times includes multiple votes on measures that didn't even propose to raise taxes. A senate voting record is a tricky thing to pick apart when you've been around as long as Kerry has, but deliberately using numbers like this to slander someone is wrong.

The fact is that we aren't ignoring the facts. I distrust all politicans, I don't listen blindly to the ideas of democrates. I don't follow party lines, and that bothers the christian right, who tend to have a serious case of groupthink going on. I don't think abortion is right, but I don't think I should make it illegal for people to have them. Sometimes you have to make the right choices on your own and not expect that because we aren't supposed to do something, that we won't. Laws didn't stop the use of alcohol, it hasn't stopped the use of drugs, it hasn't stopped prostitution, it doesn't do much at all. It deters some people, but the lesson to be learned from history is this: It is more effective to convince people that something is wrong than to pass law.

I am criticizing you for believing what you do and not changing when you know you are wrong. It is hypocritical to say we are ignoring the facts, when you are ignoring the facts. It is dishonest when you pass on the lies of your star politican as truth. It is sad that you uphold Bush as a good christian example when he himself is dishonest, arrogant, full of self-righteousness, and so many other things that our bible, what we say is THE WORD OF GOD, says we should not be. It is better to remain out of politics than active in it, if it makes you a dishonest person. It is better to cut off your arm is it causes you to sin, as the bible says.

But perhaps the scariest thing, said perhaps in jest but scary no less, was that we would be better off in times when you could be tried for treason for the things you say. In this land of assumed freedoms, what is worse than giving up our freedoms to obtain different ones? As Ben Franklin said,"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty."

I have to conclude my thoughts here. What were the answers to the questions my heart has been asking? I suppose that my fellow christians are enamored with Bush is because people say he's a christian leader and a righteous man, but it is not through his actions that he has earned this title. People whose opinions aren't likely to be "the man is jerk" has said he's a good christan man, people on his pay roll, the people he sleeps with, his family, and well... most of his friends work for him.  What I'm saying is that the people who say good things about him have a motive. He says good things about himself, but think about it. Who is going to say "well, I'm a pretty arrogant guy, I don't really deserve this job, but I'd be glad to do it. I'm not the best guy in the world, not the brightest, but this is me. Vote for me"

I've got to say that republicans, and people in general, are just taking his word on things. What else can we expect from most people, anyway? People aren't really good at questioning authority, as is showed in Milgram's experiments. I think this must be the answer to the war issue as well. People are having a hard time dealing with the facts that we went to war on false pretenses. I'm not going for all that crap that the intelligence was wrong, I'm going to tell you what I think. I think the intelligence came into existence with the purpose of being wrong. I don't think it mislead the president, I think it was just to mislead us. There is no other explaination as to why we attacked Iraq when we were fighting a war already.

My conclusions on the subject, though, are up to debate. I'm going to leave this up for a while, and perhaps a follow-up post in a few days. I don't have internet access for now, so please leave comments so I have something to do when I get internet access once again. haha.

Excuse typing errors and such, I'm in a hurry and can't check it over, not that I would anyway.

FACT(According to the NRA! hahaha): Kerry co-sponsors a bill that would ban all semi-automatic shotguns and detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifles, a gigantic step toward bringing Australian-style gun control to the U.S. [my emphasis]

I heard a hilarious radio commerical the other day. It said "JOHN KERRY WANTS TO TAKE YOUR SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS AWAY!" going on to say, "LOOK AT CANADA, AUSTRAILIA, GREAT BRITIAN".

OH MY GOD!!! KERRY WANTS TO TAKE OUR DEADLY FIREARMS AWAY! LOOK OUT FOR THE COMMUNISTS!

I think we have a problem here. Those other countries don't have semi-automatic weapons? Well, they do, but you need a permit. Are all republicans afraid of the boogey man? The imminent threat? The unknown? I think that someone is afraid that when they can't have their M-16s and AK47s, that they are going to be defensless during the impending revolution. I don't want my paranoid neighbors to keep weapons designed to fight crime in their houses. What does semi-automatic weapons have to do with hunting?

Nothing.

Well, this is it. My final plea for sanity. I know that most of you don't care about the facts in this election and would rather listen to the television ads, but the facts are availiable and I'm going to give you the most useful sites to use when you are voting.

One is http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/index.html, which is a pretty fair account of the issues at hand, though not as good as last time since the issues are still being clouded by the side issues of abortions, gay rights, and terrorism. The fact of the matter is that no president is going to make a difference on abortion, gay rights, or terrorism. It is an appeal to those who don't want facts.

http://factcheck.org/article298.html gives a run down of the biggest lies of the campaign so far. It doesn't seem balanced, but it is certainly fair.

Some points to look at would be:

"Bush continued to misrepresent Kerry's health-care proposal in a series of ads and mailings, telling voters that Kerry would take health-care decisions out of the hands of doctors and have "bureaucrats in Washington" making them instead."

"Kerry has stated unambiguously that he would not increase taxes on anyone making less than $200,000 and is promising additional, targeted tax breaks for some who fall into that category. Bush has systematically distorted, exaggerated and misstated Kerry's record on taxes since the start of the campaign. Initially, his spokesmen accused Kerry of casting 350 votes to raise taxes, which was flatly false."

"Bush has portrayed a Kerry deficit-cutting bill from a decade ago as a proposal to "slash" spending on intelligence in the face of a rising threat of terrorism. The fact is that what Kerry proposed and voted for in 1994 amounted to less than 4 percent of all intelligence spending at the time. Back then, the focus of intelligence spending was still the former Soviet Union, which was disintegrating, and Republicans were proposing cuts in intelligence spending, too"

"Kerry did oppose the list of weapons cited by Bush as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Senate in 1984, as then-President Reagan was pushing an enormous build-up in military spending.  But the fact is that once elected, Kerry didn't actually vote against many of the weapons on that list (except to oppose the entire Pentagon budget in 3 years). Kerry cast specific votes mostly against expensive nuclear and strategic systems such as the Trident missile, B-2 bomber and "star wars" missile-defense systems. After the collapse of the Soviet Union even Republicans were for cutting spending on weapons: Bush's father and his secretary of defense Dick Cheney proposed a 30 percent reduction in Pentagon spending. Kerry has supported Pentagon budgets in 16 of his 19 years in office, including every annual budget from1997 on."

There is so much depth in the article that I can hardly go into it here, but go and read for yourself if you really care about your vote and your country.

What is "morality"?

or if you prefer...

What do you think "morality" is?

(My thoughts on this at a later time, if enough people can answer this.)

Yes, I know. I should leave the current events stuff to the professional bloggers out there who do a good job at it, but for the past month or so this has been on my mind, and for the past week or so it has been waiting to be published on Mindsay. Since nothing else has come up yet, I'll post this.

Is anyone else worried about another arms race?

"Russia is developing a nuclear-missile system that is unlike any weapon held by other countries, President Vladimir Putin said yesterday, a move that could serve as a signal to the United States as Washington pushes forward with its missile-defense system."

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041117-094512-5574r.htm

Whether or not this is true about a new nuclear missle system that no other country can match, it seems to be a reaction to the building of our missle defense system, which is probably the biggest waste of money ever.. Putin made the connection himself:

"We understand that the moment we turn our attention from such elements of our defenses as a nuclear missile shield, then we will be facing new threats," Putin said.

"That is why we will continue to persistently develop our armed forces on the whole, including its nuclear arsenal potential," Putin said.

See, what I don't know is what is actually being done. I know the president thinks he knows something about Putin that the rest of the world doesn't. Perhaps they have a lot in common. Maybe they both like pretzels and a nice Austin Powers marathon. Maybe they both wish they could rule with an iron fist, and Putin is just in a better position to do so. How would I know?

It seems to me that Russia is taking on an extremely suspicious behavior considering their recent past. Our own United States is (or was) about to phase out some of its nuclear weapons by 2005. So far, the president doesn't seemed concerned, but I think it is clear that, while Russia and the United States are worried about N. Korea and Iran getting nuclear weapons, N. Korea and Iran are worried because the only country that has used nuclear weapons in combat, and the country that developed the biggest nuclear weapon ever, are now steadily increasing their miliary.

Hartman said Putin and his "KGB friends" have taken hold, installing a "virtual dictatorship." He said, "Somebody has got to speak out now about this misuse of power." Referring to Bush's assertion on first meeting Putin in 2001 that he was able "to get a sense of his soul," Hartman said U.S. policy should not be based on looking into another leader's soul and seeing good things there. "We have to be more mature how we deal with the world, and I would also say, much more honest in our public statements and our policies," Hartman said. "

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041130/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_russia_1

Hey, now there is a guy who is making sense for once. It's weird how every once in a while a person comes along, gets into a government position, and says something that doesn't lack the intelligence of a newborn goat. Too bad these bursts of insight are so sparse.

Maybe we should just go ahead and obliterate the human race with nuclear weapons and get it over with. No one would be fussing about weapons if we lauched them all at each other. Sure, we'd all be dead or dying, but if we are going to kill people, we mind as well be fair about it and stop picking on the little guys. Let's bomb China first, just for fun. No one likes the Chinese. Heck, I think its written somewhere in American policy not to like China, but to tolerate them because they can over power us by sheer number.

Then, we'll bomb Russia, because we all know they don't have the balls to bomb us first. And when they are still melting, we'll settle the Ukrane election with another bomb. Screw these attempts at "trimming aid". That's a good excuse to save money for our government, but getting rid of some of these bombs lying around here would be cheaper. We won't have to make more, cause we'll all be dead! That's cheap, cheap, cheap. If we bomb Russia with a big enough bomb, though, we'll kill two (or more) birds with one stone. Talk about a fantastic deal!

Seriously though... does anyone think that progress is made with military agression? It worked great in WWI, right? We won! Then we placed crazy punishments on Germany and... SURPRISE, WWII came along. Back then, we knew how to drop real bombs. We dropped two nukes on the same country. I guess we didn't think they'd get the idea when the first bomb was plastering their civilians to walls. No time for word of mouth in war, especially when everyone is too busy dying to spread the word.

What peace will come from wars? None. And we all know that regardless of what comes out of the presidents mouth about democracy, liberty, freedom, and peace, that one doesn't insure the other.. Because in the same breath that someone says that war will bring peace, they will say that war is a neccessary evil.  I say that there might be some way to solve conflicts without fighting.

Then again, maybe the strategy is killing us all, because unless you kill everyone, there is always going to be someone pissed off about the guys waging war. And that someone is going to grow up to be little War Lord, and he's going to think that because war happened before, it can happen again, but to their advantage. In a time when war is the answer to every conflict and issue, will we ever be able to set an example of peace? 

What is Switzerland up to these days? They have a pretty interesting setup....

I decided to do a search on google to find out what the United States is number one in. I do not know how factual all of the comments are now, for some of them are outdated and some of them are probably opinion. Instead of trying to sort through fact and fiction, I thought I would just lay it all out for you to see.

The Top Nuclear-Armed Nations:

1. The United States of America 10,656 nuclear weapons
2. The Russian Federation 10,000 nuclear weapons

Here it is, the last installment in my discussion of health care. There are a hundred other things that probably should have been said before this, but every time I write another installment, I run the risk of repeating the same things over and over, especially when dealing with the problems of health care. It is easy, when feeling particularly passionate about a subject, to find yourself stuck on the the things that bother you the most. That is where I stand. But there are some things that need repeated.

As long as we stand for the selling health care in the same fashion as appliances, there will be no permanent solutions. The longer we continue to hold conflicting ideas about health care, the harder it will be to fix. We need to take some logical stance on health care as a necessity, not as a commodity. All of this is based on the assumption that it is a right.

It is important to understand that criticism of the United States health care system is not the same as criticizing our medical care. Doctors and nurses are not generally out to exploit human suffering to make a dollar. Such is not the case with many of the companies and organizations designed to pay for health care. Essentially we have a system that keeps costs lower than what they could have been, but is transformed by the inherent nature of the business approach to medical care. What's good for the business is not necessarily good for the consumer, and where human interests are in question is this really the best approach? If we assume, like other developed countries, that health care is a right then the answer is no.

Changes to our system need to take place in order for us to seriously treat health care as a right and make it affordable to everyone. There are solutions to some of the problems without scrapping our system and starting from scratch. These are obviously the only considered solutions, so a look at more drastic changes would be pointless at this time. We like the thought of a better system, but we don't want the fuss that goes along with turning away from market-based health care.

Some solutions include tort reform and reform of medical financing, AKA insurance reform. Tort reform is what President G. W.  Bush is proposing. However, without significant reform in the financing side, there is nothing to gain from tort reform aside from taking power away from the victims. It has been tried, even in my own state, and nothing significant has come from it.

Here is an excerpt from a news clip:

"Doug Wojcieszak, a spokesman for Victims and Families United, an Illinois advocacy group, said Bush was 'playing with the facts for political purposes' in singling out Madison County.

The group said that out of 720 medical-malpractice and wrongful-death cases filed in Madison and neighboring St. Clair Counties from 1996 to 2003, just 14 resulted in jury verdicts, and six of those verdicts favored the plaintiffs.

According to the group, there has been only one medical-malpractice lawsuit in Madison County that produced a verdict in the last seven years that would have been affected by Bush's proposed $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages."

Read more: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/10577777.htm?1c

On the other hand, President Bush outlined a nice plan to "computerize" health records which would decrease cost and increase efficiency:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/technology/economic_policy200404/chap3.html

But these aren't solutions, these are ways to cut costs for the hospitals and organizations. This doesn't necessarily mean savings are passed on to patients and it has even less to do with quality and spreading access to health care, so let's talk about some other proposals.

Some people, myself included, have proposed spreading Medicare-like coverage to children under the age of 18. Children have the most need of health care access, and around ten million children are not insured. During these critical years of development is when children need care the most, but when you aren't poor enough to get Medicaid coverage and not wealthy enough to afford to get preventative care for your kids, it leads to health problems later on.

Here is an article on similar proposals: http://www.familiesusa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Medicaid_Index

There are other reforms in the medical community that have been offered. One has to do with the shortage in access to physicians. In the United States, there has been a trend of training more specialists than general practitioners. Another problem lies in the fact that physicians aren't equally distributed based on need. A solution would be to offer incentives for doctors to work in areas that need them as opposed to where they'd normally make the most money. The incentive would ideally cover the cost of moving to an area to practice and the difference in income it would cost them, but whatever incentive works would be best.

The lack of government involvement, a dream of businesses, has run its course in health care. It is to the point that government involvement would be beneficial, if only to oversee ensure medically appropriate treatments are being used, and not just whatever is cheapest for HMOs and for-profit hospitals. Federal management of the medical industry would also be beneficial. There needs to be a better Patients Bill of Rights as well.

All of these reforms would work towards expanding coverage and fairness, and decrease the human exploitation that takes place in the health care industry. It would go a long way to insuring that the United States' health care system doesn't continue to rank 37th, and it wouldn't do anything to crush competition. It would also decrease costs by increasing efficiency, and reforming areas of the system that need it, not just tort reform which doesn't affect the costs of health care significantly. Over half of the states now have caps and it hasn't lowered health care prices significantly. As long as we take rational and logical approaches to medical treatment, we can get to the roots of the problems.

But I certainly haven't got all the facts and figures. I don't have all sides of the argument, and I certainly didn't list all the solutions of half of the problems. What I have is a beginning of something to get people to think for themselves. Don't assume that I'm right or wrong, figure it out. If you think I'm absolutely wrong, show me. I don't want to go around believing lies and more than you do.

So I ask you to leave your two cents. Add whatever you think is important to add to the discussion. If you want some ideas, here are some "tough questions" from PBS.ORG. If you answer all of these, you are a superhero:

1. Do we have a moral obligation to provide healthcare to everyone as needed or is healthcare a commodity that should be subject to the same marketplace influences as other commodities?

2. What should the government's role be in providing access to healthcare for Americans?

3. According to a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association, nearly 40 percent of physicians have manipulated insurance reimbursement receive needed care. For example, physicians have exaggerated patients' symptoms to allow them to stay in the hospital longer, and changed patients' diagnoses for billing purposes. In our current healthcare system, is this justifiable or unethical?

4. Do insurance companies and HMOs use unfair practices to control spending?

5. Should employers be required by law to offer health insurance to employees?

6. Should employees be required by law to participate in employers’ health insurance?

7. Should everyone be required to have health insurance, much as drivers are required to have auto insurance?

8. Our system of health insurance is linked to employment. Coverage is usually provided by the employer, with some contribution from the employee. We now have many people working part-time, or freelance, or working through other nontraditional arrangements.

Should health insurance continue to be linked to employers (our “employer-based system”) or is there another preferred approach?

9. Who should decide when a healthcare service is medically necessary: the doctor who is treating the patient or the insurance plan who is paying the bill?

10. “Evidence-based medicine” tries to reduce variations in practice, reduce inappropriate care, and reduce waste by using results of studies of large groups of people as the basis for medical guidelines. On the other hand, some feel that it is bad medical policy to apply general rules to all cases and that medicine requires that the physician use his or her knowledge of the particular patient in deciding on the course of treatment along with the patient. What do you think?

11. Some feel that healthcare is a commodity like VCRs or computers and that it should be distributed according to the ability to pay in the same way that consumer goods are. Others feel that healthcare is a need and that it should be distributed according to need. What do you think?

12. Currently, individual health insurance policies are much more expensive and/or do not offer the same services as group insurance. However, in most states the law does not allow people to form a group for the purpose of getting health insurance. Should individual policies cost the same as group policies? Who should pay the individual’s additional cost? (the individual? the government? the insurance company?) Should it be legal for people to form a group themselves, such as through the Internet, for the purpose of getting a group insurance policy?

13. How much, if anything, would you be willing to pay every month so that everyone could have access to basic medical care? Nothing? $25/month? $50/month? More? What should “basic medical care” be? Who should decide?

And that's all folks. Boy am I glad. What an anticlimactic ending, but let's face it. I'm tired of typing.

I watched Dodgeball last night. It wasn't good. The only part I laughed at was the part where Rip Torn (AKA Patches O'Hoolahan) is smacking people with wrenches. Then I felt bad for laughing because A) The movie is crap and B) I was laughing at people getting a face full o' wrench. The cast of characters was clever, but sometimes a bit cliche. Out of all the characters, the man who thinks himself to be a pirate may be the most off-beat.

There were moments in the move that shine. The scrolling letters at the end were a real relief after the tourture my brain suffered from the experience. Other than that this movie is... rather dull. You can tell that the director is either really stretching a horrible script, or trying to rely on wacky concept characters to provide for content the script never had. Ben Stiller plays the antagonist, a fitness freak who plans to buy out Vince Vaughn's already ailing gym. Vaughn's character is about as interesting a protaganist as Vaughn's character in... the other movies he was in. Vince seems out of place when he isn't playing a Psycho.

But, worst of all was the actual ending, the one that happens before the credits. The alternate ending on the DVD is the orginial ending that was cut because the antaganist (Ben Stiller's character) actually wins the dodge ball contest.The commentary said that this orginal ending was the best artistic choice. I disagree. The artistic choice would have been making a better movie.

It is always nice to take responsibility for our lives. When I write something on my blog, I like to stress that we are the only ones that are going to get us where we want to be in life. If we aren't there, I like to think it is because we aren't trying enough. This is my tendency to underestimate the power of social influence and control. In other words, some things beyond our control effect us, too. And even though in the end it is still the individual that has to make decisions, sometimes that individual is pushed to make those decisions.

When I talk to a person who is having a rough time and they feel helpless, it is hard to tell them that it does no good to sit around feeling that way. The truth is that things happen in life that really get us down and then when we try to stand up something else happens. Sometimes it is all we can do just to get out of bed, and then people want to blame you for feeling like there is no use in trying. And sometimes we fail in life so many times that we just don't feel there is any use to attempt to try again.

This is what learned helplessness boils down to. It can happen to any person given the right circumstances. All you need is to get knocked down one too many times, eventually you'll not feel like getting back on the horse, so to speak. If you felt like you couldn't affect the outcome of a situation, what would be the use in continuing to struggle with the situation? This sort of situation happens all the time. In drug addicts, you might see a person who is doing well with abstaining from drugs and then they give in. They feel bad. It happens this way a few time and they feel like it is no use even trying to quit.

A better example, perhaps, is with people who don't do very well in school for some reason. They may try and fail one too many times and feel like it is no use to even try any more. So they don't and they fail. They feel inadequate because of their inability to succeed where so many other people do, so they may rationalize it by appearing not to have ever been concerned. The labels placed on these people, stupid, ignorant, slow, etc... they carry with them. Homelessness is the same way. You have people who seem to not be trying to rise from their position, but in reality they may have tried one too many times and failed.

The classic experiment done by Siegman et al to illustrate learned helplessness was a series of experiments on dogs involving shocking the animals. In these experiments there were three sets of dogs. In the first set, one dog would receive a shock that it could stop. The other dog received the same shock as the first but, having no control over stopping the shock and therefore the shock appeared to stop at random. This dog received the inescapable shock. The other dogs in the experiment received no shock.

In the next phase of the experiment, the dogs were placed into a box that had a low partition that could be jumped over to avoid being shocked. The dogs in the first and third groups, the ones that received the shock that they could stop themselves or received no shock at all, jumped over the partition. The dogs that revied the inescapable shock didn't even try to jump over the partition to avoid the shock. In other words, the dogs became indifferent. In the uncontrollable environment, the dogs learned that there was no use in trying and when placed into a similar situation decided that it was still no use to try, even though there was now a way to avoid the unpleasant consequences of the situation.

This is very comparable to the mussulmen. In the holocaust, this term was used to describe people who had endured so much suffering that they became indifferent to it. You can read about them here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mussulmen

And to a lesser extent, it is easy to see how the same concept applies to many who people just consider apathetic or indifferent by choice. Instead of instantly blaming the victims, perhaps we should first ask ourselves how a person could end up where they are. Each one of us can probably think of someone, if we try hard enough, that has suffered learned helplessness to some degree. In realizing this it would seem that a lot of problems need to be approached differently. Instead of assuming that everyone can pick themselves, we need to also think about why they might need a hand and when.

Or at least I think so.

You know the types of assignments. Pick something, an object, a concept, a word, anything at all, and tell how you think it symbolizes America. This one is for my ethnology class. I have a really hard time coming up with ideas to write about, and a really easy time writing them once something comes to my mind. It seriously is hard to take this sort of assignment seriously when you know that everything that comes after the title is going to be a load of crap just so you can grab the grade.

Well, I wrote a real humdinger. Actually, it was just complete crap. So bad, my friends, that I'm embarassed. I didn't really follow the assignment, I didn't write anything worth committing to paper, and I turned it in an hour ago. It shames me very much, but tonight, as a lesson in humility, I will be posting this very paper. At first I vowed it would see no eyes other than the teacher, but I figured it would be best to show the world just how bad I can do.

Prepare yourselves.

Ok, so here it is. It might now be the worst thing I've ever written, but it's bad enough that I don't even way to post it. And that is exactly why I'm posting it To read more about what I was supposed to be doing, check out the last post.

Yes, I really did use all of those tags. I may never use them ever again, however, so pay attention. During the rather heated debates about homosexuality that a person can get into, it is not uncommon to hear the slippery slope argument "Well, if we allow homosexual marriage, we'll have to allow all sorts of things, like, pedophila, bestiality, etc." Yes. It's a weird argument, and some how distrubing because it seems so many people argree with it that its likely it'd turn out to be true.

Another comment you may hear is how natural homosexuality is. Animals do it, so naturally humans will do it. It must be biological, a product of evolution. Some scientific phenomenon that can only be explained in a very biological basis.

Well, here's an interesting story that reminded me of these arguements: http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1432991,00.html

Apparently a duck performed a homosexual act with a dead duck. Technically, it was rape.

I'm sorry folks, it's just natural. If one animal does it, it must be normal. We're going to have to legalize it all now. I mean, if animals rape, kill, steal, cheat, have sex with dead animals, etc... then it is perfectly natural that humans are going to do the same thing. Heck, let's advocate rape. Evolutionarily speaking, rape must be the best thing since who knows what. What about those poor creatures that just can't pass on the genes they want to pass on. FORCE IT. Geez, it makes sense right?

***In reality, I am in no way advocating anything. I'm not disapproving of anything, either. Do want you want for all I care. I am, however, making fun of silly reasonings and arguments. Morality means very little to a duck, who has no sense that what he is doing is unacceptible behavior to the human onlooker, who finally got disgusted and froze the "crime" victim (as evidence, obivously). Animals may very well have a sense of what is unacceptible for their group, just like a dog can come to know that pooing on the floor isn't keen to their owners sense of acceptible behavior.***

That is all.

You know what makes our lives seem more outrageous than anything? Reading the world news. Comparing it to our news, it is odd to find the difference in priority. In our world news, there needs to be a revolt of some sort, or perhaps just a little scuffle where a few fundred people die. That is of course not including the areas that we invade. Invasions aside, though, it takes something political to catch the eye of our news.

What you aren't likely to hear about is this:

[World News]: Hisar, Mar 10 : At least 73 sheep were killed when lightning struck them in Adampur village, about 40 km from here, reports here said today.

Eightyeight sheep were standing under a tree in the village when lightning struck, killing 73 sheep on the spot.

These sheep were recently purchased by shephered Balbir at a cost of Rs two lakhs. The injured sheep were being treated in Adampur mandi

Anyway, that's the News From Around the World. Sheep dead. More casualties in the war on terror, no doubt. That weather machine that our government has knows no limits. Tremble men and sheep alike. You cannot hide your treachery.

http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=83424

In other news, I've posted twice in a row about dead animals. Interesting.

Lately I’ve been fascinated with the ability of fellow human beings and I to forget. I don’t mean a simple forgetting of the location of the ever-elusive car keys, either. I brought it up in a few posts in the last couple months in various ways, but I’d like to simply focus on it for once and see what other people think.

The forgetful tendency I’m talking about is what allows us to forget that the state of the world hasn’t always been what it is today, it won’t remain this way, and it doesn’t have to get worse. At the most inopportune times, we forget reality and fall prey to being manipulated by false information. We forget the significance of what is happening in the present, why it is happening, and even why it is important not to let these things slip from our mind.

Recently I had to interview my grandparents about how they grew up. During the interviews I found myself shocked at all the changes that have happened in the last 60 years. I was more shocked at how very little I think of it in the course of my life. Even though I know how they lived, hearing about it was still like a new experience. I know that the television isn’t gain popularity until the 1950’s, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is commonplace to see a household with 3 televisions. So many of the things we do now we take for granted. We don’t realize that things change as much as they do.

I mentioned in an earlier post about our tendency to sugar coat the past for future consumption. Some people feel these lies and omissions to be essential in bringing up loyal, productive, and conforming citizens. We profess the importance of learning from our past while giving the masses only the information that is felt to be important while leaving out anything considered to be too liberal, harsh, or radical in our past unless in has worked in the favor of our country. In the end, it is like hiring an accountant and only giving him the numbers you want him to see. The result looks nice on paper, but it is neither accurate nor useful. I don’t think the process is always direct. The revisions happen through various counsels and from the textbook selection process that out the undesirables.

I then brought this up again after reading Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell. In that book, in case you have read neither my amateur review nor the actual book, history is constantly being brought up to speed with the present. If something is said in the past the contradicts the way the present is, there are revisions to be made at the Ministry of Truth, which is, by the terms of doublethink, a branch of the government that deals in lies, propaganda, and such. It is evident in our own society as well is a lesser degree. Our country doesn’t need to change every detail of the past, it merely needs to change the way they currently talk about the past. Regardless of a wealth of knowledge that still exists, few people actually take the time to look at it. Therefore, you see the trend that people tend to believe what they are told whether or not it is true.

The Schiavo controversy is the result of the forgetfulness I’m talking about. I’ve changed my position recently on the case of Terri Schiavo several times. I became frustrated with the conflicting information I was receiving from the opposing sides. Initially I heard she was in a coma, then I heard a vegetative state, and I heard many people questioning whether she was brain-dead or not. I read up on it a bit and realized that I was falling prey to the proponents of ignorance. I’m not calling anyone stupid, but I’m definitely commenting on the ability of people to ignore facts and listen to whatever people tell them. I did it, and I don’t usually consider myself unintelligent.

I felt rather stupid as I read about the facts of Terri Schiavo’s condition, though. I was always sure that pulling the tube out was as humane as making her live. I think that as a parent Terri’s condition would be very heart wrenching. But I’m not her parent and I don’t look at Terri and see my daughter. It is my position that with or without the feeding tube, Terri is starving to death. Her higher brain functions are inoperative. She cannot process information; she will never make another decision for herself. She will never act like the old Terri, nor does she remember being different than she is. In fact, there is no memory. She is most likely not aware of her self. The part of her brain that houses the things that make us sentient, aware, and represent the things we think of as human are no longer active. What are active are her lower brain functions, which accounts for the blinking, smiling, the tears, and so on.

Yet, because she blinks and she looks like she’s frowning and smiling at people we can be deceived by anyone who comes along. I want to say that I do believe Terri deserves to live. We all deserve to live after those nine months in a womb, but living is more than breathing. Terri has been starving to death since she went into a coma. Not physically, but in terms of what we think we need to live. Terri will never do anything at all that you associate with being alive aside from her body functions. The emotional pleas of the parents are touching, but if they would be honest with themselves, the parents would realize that they aren’t looking out for Terri, but attempting to assuage the guilt they have over not being able to help their daughter to get better, now and before she went into a coma. I think that no one should have to go through what her parents want her to go through.

But yes, I found myself flipping and flopping like a politician. Forget that scores of doctors agree that her condition is hopeless. I was swayed by people who have no idea of the reality of her situation. Lawyers and politicians with no medical backgrounds, with no contact at all with the situation other than the news and word of mouth are not people to take at face value. Terri has been examined by more doctors than most people see in their lifetime and the ones that weren’t hired by the lawyers agree with each other. I’m not trying to advocate taking the word of authority as truth, but if you can read an MRI, I’m sure you could double check the results.

Everyday we are being pushed and pulled by the same sorts of arguments. We forget to question the motives of people in authority. We know that the media has motives. They need to get ratings just like any one else. They need to attract attention to whatever is deemed important. The media isn’t bad in itself, but it isn’t hard to imagine why it has became what it is today. It was bent, shaped, and prodded until it is what you see now. That is the influence of advertising, government, and corporations. They show you what they want you to see, and what they think you want to keep tuning in to see. Like high profile court cases, missing children, and special interest stories that make the news seem like the Lifetime Network.

In the end, though, the result is disinterest. We’ve heard it all before so now we can ignore what happens next. Don’t worry about dealing with problems because these problems have been around forever. No need to talk about them because it’s commonplace.

But there is a need, my friends, because once we let things out of focus they become subject to the manipulation that comes with sugar coating the past and pretending that things have always been bad, will always stay the same, and can never get significantly better. We let the human condition degrade and stay the same all because of our forgetfulness. If only we had a better memory….

Bear with me. Every once in a while I'm going to post something about my nearly neurotic quest to find a good graduate school. Here you can see where I've started the quest, and hopefully before too long you'll see me find several schools to apply to. However, this is mostly for me.

I'm trying to figure out where I want to go to graduate school. It's a hard decision because chances are that I'll get a job where ever I end up going, and that means taking up residence there. And, yes, that means a big decision. I've been looking at charts for about half a year now that sort data on various criteria, but I found one I particularly like (http://www.morganquitno.com/srml91-05.htm).

Rankings are based on the 44 factors listed here. (http://www.morganquitno.com/sr05mlfac.htm).

I went through the data taking off the states where I don't want to live which just happened to not be rated very well anyway. In the end, I came up with 19 possibilities based on state rankings for the past 10 years, which I've listed here from closest to furthest from my current location.

1) Virginia, 2) Maryland, 3) Delaware, 4) New Jersey, 5) Connecticut, 6) Massachusetts, 7) Vermont, 9) New Hampshire, 10) Maine, 11) Iowa, 12) Wisconson, 13) Kansas, 14) Nebraska, 15) South Dakota, 16) North Dakota, 17) Colorado, 18) Wyoming, 19) Utah

I ranked the above by distance from my home state because that is as important to me, but its also important that I think about specific factors, such as the percentage of the population that has a bachelors degree or better, and what the average salary is like for the school teachers in that state, because I'm planning on working in the school system as a counselor and, though I'm not sure, I assume that school counselors get comparible pay to the teachers where they work. The reason it is good to know how many people have degrees is so I can judge the competition for jobs. The less people with degrees the less competition for me in the job market. The census data found here (http://www.census.gov/statab/www/ranks.html) has this information and more.

Ok, so maybe that is just thinking too much about it. I probably don't need to worry about how many people have degrees, but I figure it pays to be cautious.

Next up: I'm attempting to piece together various online personality tests and similar things into a AskJesse profile. I have already completed several, but if you know of any that you were particularly impressed with or would like to see what I score, leave me some links!

Sorry, Sandi. I'll never be president. Why? There has never been someone like me in the White House according to http://keirsey.com/presidents.html. Perhaps I should just buddy up with someone who can be president. Vice President Jesse? I dunno.

Update: It turns out there may have been at least two presidents that have similar personalities to my own. Guess who.

I'm still planning on a rather extensive look at the psyche of Jesse. It'll probably be the next post, but maybe not. I keep finding interesting online tests and such, but I can't decide which to use.

Written this time last year; Earth Day 2004. Edited.

I awoke this morning to find it had rained, but no longer did the rain fall to the ground. Thus it was that I prepared for my journey across the vast campus to find the one who fills my head with old, dusty literature. Stepping out into the rain; oh yes, now it's raining. A light rain spatters the ground all around tweaking the landscape only slightly with its gentlest of touches. It caresses me as I slow down and walk in its cold, but comforting embrace. Nature is never closer to you than when it rains. It permeates your clothes, your hair, your skin. Do not hind yourself away.

As I walked I could see it gliding off trees in big drops as the smaller droplets gathered forces to assault the ground. It was now a full on attack as the rain grew heavier and unrelenting in its fervor. The dirt, doing its part, would not surrender to the rain even if it should persist forty days and forty nights. It would hold its ground till the rain exhausted itself, and though the soil would never be the same, it would not be defeated in this age old battle.

Combat raged on, and the musky smell of mulch assaulted my nose. It surrounded the trees only to assist, not to trap or threaten. The trees benefited greatly from these timeless battles, I knew, but do they feel the same pleasure as I do? Can they sense that without the rain they would perish? Do they understand that I will be gone long before them? Certainly not! These are just trees, but I feel like they should understand better than I how short life is. Oh the wisdom I could amass if I was a thinking tree, but if I could not speak, all would be but for my own benefit, and I would grow weary of my long lifetime. I do not envy the Trees.

Leaving the shelter of the trees I came upon an opening. It brought me no joy this day, as it sometimes does. To my left was a building; the work of men and machines. It does not exist in nature; it dulls us and makes us fear weather. To my right was a fountain. It imitates the sounds of flowing water but is an eye sore today as nature showed us what water is supposed to do. Under my feet the ground is suffocated by brick, lain down as much for aesthetic reasons as to keep mud off the feet of those passing through. Oh, the harm a little mud can do. Today, the brick glistens from an inspiring war, but the grass does too, and the bricks pale in comparison.

What have we done to this world? We have trampled Mother Nature and paved over her trodden corpse. We spew pollutants into rivers, streams, and the air we breathe. Yes, we breath the poisons that make the products we desire and pretend we don’t care. We don’t care that our vegetables are tainted as long as hormones are added to our animals so there is enough to go around. We are a breed of hypocrite the world has yet to see, and we’ve spiraled down so fast that people cannot see the cause of all the trouble is our desire to make ends meet in unnatural ways while nature, if alive, would writhe and pang with hurt. Will we ever stop? No, but perhaps we can slow down.

Well, here it is. This is part one of the AskJesse Profile. I realized that this could get rather long if I put it all together, so I'm going to post them separately. This will also allow me to write other things in between these posts. Below is the first personality test. It is supposed to identify five strengths. Should you decide to take this test, your results may look completely different. And, if you do take any of the tests in this segment, I'd be very interested to see how your results compare to my own. After the personality test, I've written my critique of the test and a critique of the results. Enjoy!

 ##
  

1. Integrity [authenticity, honesty]

 You speak the truth and present yourself in a genuine way. You are without pretense. You take responsibility for your feelings and actions.

2. Perspective [wisdom]

  You are able to provide wise counsel to others. You have ways of looking at the world that make sense to yourself and to other people.

3. Prudence 

 You are careful about your choices. You don't take undue risks. You don't say or do things that might later be regretted.

4. Open-mindedness [judgment, critical thinking]

  You think things through and examine them from all sides. You don't jump to conclusions. You are able to change your mind in light of evidence. You weigh all evidence fairly.

5. Humility/Modesty

 You let your accomplishments speak for themselves. You don't seek the spotlight. You don't regard yourself as more special than you are.

 http://positive-psychology.org/perl/VIA_Surveys.pl 

 You know, the test above was an interesting test. Mind you, the results don't mean that this is the type of person that I am, but the type of person that I think I am. That is the flaw of all personality tests, though for the most part they work out rather well if you answer them honestly. I think there is a fair percentage of accuracy in the results, but the descriptions of the results sound very absolute and all very positive. The reason is that this particular test is supposed to identify five strengths.  

I'd argue with these results very little and on small points. I don't think I am these things or do these things all of the time. After all, I'm only human. There is the same possibility of bias here as with all personality tests due to the possibility of you choosing the answers that you like as opposed to the answers that truly apply to you. This test does have merit in that it effectively identifies the traits that you want to see in yourself, even if they aren't traits that you possess, it still identifies traits that you'd like to possess. The results could be better if is also shared some areas of personality that need improved.

But, yes, these are definitely things that I would like to see in myself and for the most part, I do possess these five strengths, and sometimes I possess them to the point that they become my weaknesses, as well. For example, I can be overly modest. This isn't so bad when you are with friends and family, but when you are trying to make an impression on someone who wants you to tell them all of your accomplishments and strengths and you hold back and tell them you aren't really that great, the guy who isn't so modest is likely to walk all over you.

The same goes with taking responsibility for my feelings and actions. This is a great quality to possess when you are around other people who do the same. But the fact of the matter is that when you are with people who can't take responsibility for their actions and feelings, you end taking much of their blame upon yourself. 

And while not taking too many risks that could later be regretted is a great quality to have, it is also not a desired quality to have in all things. Sometimes, if you are like me, you don't take a risk that you probably should have taken. I'm not without the ability to take a risk, though. I tend to take way too much time to take a risk, though, and this can lead to missing an opportunity as often as not. 

So, this was the first segment of the AskJesse Profile. How do we compare?

Have you heard of Mindsay's "partnership" with Blogexplosion?

Well, I signed up to see what it is all about, but they require an interesting description of my blog that is 255 characters or less in length. The problem is that I don't know what to say about my blog. I decided to open the job up to people who come by to read my blog to explain why it is that other people should read it. What I need from you is ideas for an eye catching title and a brief description that is 255 characters or less. I'd prefer it to be less so I can use more than one response as the answer. Thanks in advance for the help. You guys are great.

Anyway, in other news....

I'm hungry.

I

LUV

FINALS

WEEK!

YAY!

The next couple of days are going to be interesting. The up side is that it is supposed to storm tonight and tomorrow. The down side is that I probably should be studying for the next few days non-stop, and I won't. I don't study like normal people should study. I look at some notes for about an hour or so before a test and then I do pretty good. If I study for 3 days straight and don't study in that hour before I test, I'm screwed. I usually end up waiting.

The problem with finals week is that I've got to decide which classes need the most studying. And I've got to work harder than I have all year because the teachers usually rush the last part of their classes.

I'm going to get a laptop soon, though.... That should cheer me up. I'm looking at http://www.exactchoice.com.

That is the lamest update I've ever made.... NOMINATE!!!! hahahaha.

• If I were a stone, I would be: grey
• If I were a tree, I would be a: good bit taller
• If I were a bird, I would be: a penguin
• If I were a machine, I would be a: robot
• If I were a tool, I would be a: wrench
• If I were a flower/plant, I would be a:camellia sinensis
• If I were a kind of weather, I would be: snow
• If I were a mythical creature, I would be a: Thoth
• If I were a musical instrument, I would be a: piano
• If I were a color, I would be: a highly disputed shade of grey.
• If I were an emotion, I would be: Amusement
• If I were a vegetable, I would be a: potato
• If I were a sound, I would be: Pow!
• If I were an element, I would be: Samarium
• If I were a car, I would be: Nardi blue ray
• If I were a song, I would be: Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes
• If I were a movie, I would be: Young Frankenstein
• If I were a food, I would be: tasty
• If I were a place, I would be: inhabited by babes
• If I were a material, I would be: soft
• If I were a taste, I would be: bittersweet
• If I were a scent, I would be: lemony
• If I were a word, I would be: esoteric
• If I were an object, I would be a: book
• If I were a body part I would be: neck
• If I were a facial expression I would be: a smirk
• If I were a subject in school I would be: psychology
• If I were a cartoon character I would be: Freakazoid
• If I were a shape I would be a: polygon
• If I were a number I would be: 42
• If I were a month I would be: September
• If I were a day of the week I'd be: thursday
• If I were a time of day I'd be: 10:00 pm
• If I were a planet I would be: gasy
• If I were a direction I would be: North
• If I were a piece of furniture I'd be a:  bed
• If I were a sin I would be: sloth
• If I were a historical figure I would be: Abe
• If I were a liquid I would be: water

私の悲しい生命について叫んでいる間私はパンジー音楽 を聞くのを好む。

The working poor are the group of society that I am most interested in, if it hasn’t become clear yet. Poverty is universal; it crosses lines of race and gender and unites them under the working class poor. There isn’t an equal distribution of race and gender that live in poverty, but the same solution that would help one should help many. If we could impress upon the masses the importance of a working towards a solution

If it were possible to will a population out of existence, the working poor would disappear in a puff. The working class poor are the most ignored. We can see a homeless man walking down the street, we know that there are people benefiting from shelters and food pantries, but the working poor are invisible, and we want it that way. Who wants to believe that you can work and still be poor? These people certainly aren’t lazy, sometimes taking as many as three jobs to support their families. These people certainly aren’t living a life of luxury at the expense of taxpayers. Yet, there is a group of people who live lives of luxury at the expense of taxpayers. You probably know these people as the upper class. They get tax breaks designed to make their lives of making lots of money and hoarding it easier for them to do.

Our society is supposed to be unsympathetic to the poor. Anything else is some communist scheme to turn our youth into devil worshipers or some other conservative mumbo-jumbo. Do not dare pay attention to the horrible conditions that these folks must live in, they say. It is only because they aren’t working as hard as the rest of us that they aren’t Donald Trumping the hell out of life, they want us to believe. This is a conservative idea, of course: the acceptance of blatant inequality on the basis of Social Darwinism while claiming to be the compassionate, and caring because they are clever enough to point out that abortion is bad. You know what? Yes it is bad. It is bad that people feel the need to have abortions and it is a product of our society. That is the real reasoning behind the pro-life campaign. And it is the same reason we try hard to ignore the ugly parts of society and thrust them into the shadows. It is all just to hide our collective flaws.

Dear hate-filled people:

I watched a video called Hate.com and it was all about hate groups using the internet. After class, I went to the library and started searching information for a debate on conservatism and the first thing I found was one of the websites featured on the video. There are tons of these websites and they are almost all completely ridiculous, even aside from the fact that they are professing irrational beliefs about the importance on their race. How can anyone that is sane take a website like this seriously? http://divinerightorder.com/ 

Notice, if you will, the complete lack of design. This looks like a website that I could design myself. Notice also that the guy just happens to be from West Virginia, and I randomly selected this. If you guys weren't so stereotypical and predictable, you might get somewhere. I know that at any given moment, I can search google and find some white power representative standing in front of a confederate flag, a bald person, someone holding a gun, any combination of these.

 If you want to be taken seriously, and believe me, someone who is as nearly braindead as you guys have a hard enough time being taken seriously, you need to make yourselves presentable. Stop with your riculous screen names! This goes for you AryanDude420. Stop letting your children make your stupid white power graphics. I hate to tell you how to do your job better, considering I couldn't disagree with your mission more. What we obviously need is to work the power towards some other end of the spectrum. After all, white people have had power for a long time and they never have been able to accomplish anything that great.

It's true that I don't understand the mission that you guys are on. I'm white, and have been for most of my life except that akward period when I was sort of pinkish. I know all of the advantages of being white, but for the most part the whole mission is illogical, especially when it involves the Christian Religion. I don't know how one can so twist the words of God to support hate, hate-crimes, killing of innocents, etc. Christian Identity groups, these white power churches of yours... maybe they just need bible donations and someone to teach you guys how to read.

Polly likes Crackers.

http://www.american-pictures.com/gallery/ku-klux-klan/Pam.child.parrot-a.jpg

Crackers look real smart in these t-shirts!

http://www.nsm88.com/merchandise/tshirts.html

Anyway, give me a break, people. You guys need to take a lesson from political speakers. Hide your ugly nasty people and put the pretty people who can read out front. I have yet to see a genuinely intellegent white power representative. Then again, it is probably impossible.

Matt Hale, for example, is supposedly intellegent. He passed his barr exam and Illinois denied his licensure. He is also an outspoke racist. Inside of his tiny, little hate-filled mind, he cannot understand how this isn't a violation of his civil rights, and he is a lawyer! You see, Mr. Hale, you cannot be trusted to fairly represent anyone. After all, any white person who disagrees with your personal mission is a mongrol of some sort and sudden unworthy of your fair representation. You clearly don't believe in upholding the constitutional rights of American citizens because, believe it or not, non-whites are people, too. They can even be citizens! Yes, I know, it is shocking when you've lived in a cave all of your life to find out that the world is more than  just shadows on a wall.

So, Mr. Hale and all those web-illiterate, stereotypical, white power folks out there: if you can't beat them, join them. Give it up. Learn to live with your hatred like a normal person should. Deal with it, beat it, over come it. Stop being so weak.

Just trying to help out,

Askjesse

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right."

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

"Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force... If we assume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has the right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war."

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."

"We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means."

"The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood."

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people"

"The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."

Where am I at in my life? Am I on the road to success? Am I on the path to destruction? Highway to hell? All I know is that this is my last semester as an undergraduate student. I will, after this semester, have a bachelors degree in sociology with a minor focus in psychology. Basically, I'm your typical, run-of-the-mill confused, in-the-transition, adult male who doesn't know what he should do with his life.

Sure, there are plenty of options for me. The problem isn't that my sociology degree isn't useful.On the contrary, my options are too broad. It isn't like graduating with a degree in education where you pretty much know what you are going to do. I have too many options. My degree says to people that I am interested in the world and people, it tells them a have a semi-solid base in liberal studies, and that I can stand to be in school for 18 years of my life. Perhaps that last part is the biggest advantage a college graduate has over high school drop-outs. Dedication to education... resistance to punishment, coping with stress, handling evaluation and the ever-so-important ability to keep at it regardless of the fact that you have a nagging feeling you are wasting your time. In the end, I could acquire jobs in government, social services, mental health, criminal justice, business, and so on.

I am proud of myself for having made it this far. It must be akin to the jubilation that mountain climbers have when they reach their destination, exhausted, but with a feeling of triumph. There have been many times I've wanted to call it quits. I transferred schools, transferred back, but I remained focused on my goal of graduating, even though what degree I was aiming for changed several times. Now, I'm faced with another "real world" encounter as I prepare to graduate. I can't say that I'm really... "scared". From both experience and observation, I've come to believe that all things eventually find equillibrium in the sense that, you find that you are satisfied with the way your life is going. At that point, you've found a balance. Everything that happened prior to that were just foot holds to get you to that place.

And then you have to ask yourself, where do I go from here? And you climb down, and you either be happy that you climbed the mountain or you look for another mountain to climb. Some people settle into a career, which I don't think I'm ready for at my age. Others get more education and try to either make more money or do something new. I'm not mentally ready for more schooling.

So that is where I am in my life. I'm trying to think of an appropriate way to celebrate the end of my undergraduate days, and make the difficult transition from student to cog-in-the-wheel, working stiff. I'm thinking about taking some time off to sort things out, then entering into Americorps for a year so I can travel somewhere new, live a little differently, make some connections, and get a feel for something outside the student life that isn't a lifelong career choice. I'd also get to write about what I'm actually doing, and not what I'm thinking. I'm not interested enough in my own life right now to actually write about it.

(Not to mention, I could get some money to pay off my loans and such.)

After that, who knows? Plenty of time to figure it out. I'm young, and unless I die suddenly, I've got more time than I know what to do with. If, by chance, I do die suddenly... well... I suppose I won't be worrying about working all this out.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks, let me tell you.

Last week, I blogged a little about what was bugging me at the moment. That night, my stepdad's father had some very serious issues arise at the hospital. He hadn't been doing very well at the time but was making progress. So much so, in fact, that they were preparing to release him. Needless to say, it didn't happen that way.

 I don't completely understand the process, but from what I understand of dialysis, there are tubes that run into certain places on the body. He had his in his neck, but in order for him to go home they needed to be in a more secure area, such as the chest. I don't know that this is true, but I know that something had to be put in his chest. Unfortunitly, they couldn't get the area to stop bleeding afterwards, and they ended up calling all of his family into the hosipital, I assume because they feared the worst.

He is doing much better now, though.

Then, Sunday morning, my mom calls to give me some bad news. This is how she delicately put it:

Her: "Hey, are you sitting down?"

Me: "Yeah... sort of... why?"

Her: "Your uncle has been shot"

She went on to tell me that apparently they were out in the parking lot of a bar when two men supposedly were going to try to rob him because they believed he was alone. This, of course, wasn't the case and the guys shot him and his interviening friend. Eventually I had to stop and ASK HER IF HE WAS OK, and she said, yes he was ok. He was shot in the pelvis and caught the helicopter to the hospital, but despite needing pins in his pelvis and the removal of the bullet, he would be fine. The people who committed the crime have, of course, not been caught.

So, we've been having a very busying and trying week. I feel perhaps more lost than ever on my quest because these sorts of happenings put certain things into perspective. In the grand scheme of things, how much is a life worth? What is truely important when at anytime, we could die, or someone that we love could die? It shakes me to my bones. I want to know what I should do with my life so that, when my time comes, I won't have to regret that I wasted my life on trivial pursuits.

Very predictable statements. Basically a patchwork speech from Bush's previous State of the Union addresses, which indicates to me that we obviously haven't come that far. 

Creating a million new jobs is easy, when you cut pay, benefits, and hours to do it. It doesn't pay for many employers to have full time employees after all. They get benefits, and sometimes... the dreaded overtime pay, which means that paying two people to work 20 hours is cheaper than paying one to work 40. Further more, most of the growth in jobs is merely making up all the jobs lost during the first few years of Bush's presidency. I wouldn't go boasting about that.

A lot of nice things were said during the speech, but as has been the norm for some time, the State of the Union was more of a "going about the motions" rather than anything of substance. For those who didn't tune in, you didn't miss much, except for lies, exaggerations, and pointless claims.

Crash is a film unlike most other films. It takes a group of people, less than 15 main characters, and actually presents a somewhat realistic representation of race relationships. Social exchange theory is, according to wikipedia.com, "a social psychological perspective that explains social change and stability as a process of negotiated exchanges between parties." When watching Crash, you see many situations where Social Exchange is taking place. It is, essentially, what makes the movie so realistic.

A very powerful example of social exchange is between Sgt. Jack Ryan, Christine Thayer, and Cameron Thayer. The relationship between these characters first starts when the Thayer couple is first pulled over. Sgt. Ryan, the "bad cop", is set on taking advantage of the very attractive wife. There are a number of exchanges in this initial scenario. First, it is clear where the power lies. Mr. and Mrs. Thayer both initially see the cop as having legitimate power. He is a police office, after all, so they naturally go along with his wishes. This is itself, a weighing of benefits and costs. The cost of not complying with the officers demands could be much more serious than doing so. The benefit is avoiding a severe fine, or jail time. Therefore, he pulls the car over.

After the Thayer couple is out of the car and the cop is feeling up Mr. Thayer’s wife, Mr. Thayer has to weigh the costs and benefits once again. Sgt. Ryan knows that he can do what he is doing because he is aware of the power he wields. Mr. Thayer, however, must think about what he wants to risk for his wife. Does he want to risk jail? Would this affect his job? Should he take the fine rather than put up with the humiliation of his wife? All these are valid questions in this exchange transaction. In the end, the officer gets what he wants. The husband meekly backs down to the dismay of his tipsy wife. The officer did not even have to take these people in and, he did not really want to take them in to begin with. That would complicate things. There would be no payoff for him that way, just paper work and a lot of explaining to do about the claims of molestation that would come from hauling the couple in.

Another great example would be between Sgt. Ryan and Shaniqua Johnson in the scene Ryan goes to see her in the office. The reason Sgt. Ryan was there in person was to enter into a relationship with Ms. Johnson in order to reap some reward from the exchange. It is safe to say that Sgt. Ryan is used to having the balance of power in his favor. Earlier in the movie he successfully molested a woman, was accused of racism by his partner, and because of seniority and authority, there were no repercussions. The balance of exchange was in his favor. Now, Ryan finds himself in a situation where Ms. Johnson has the upper hand. She has the power in this situation; she has the power to give and withhold rewards. In this case, she can choose to either help Sgt. Ryan’s father, or not. Sgt. Ryan, knowing this and seeing the futility of his aggression towards this woman, begins to plead his father’s case, outlining carefully for her consumption the costs and rewards of her actions. Instead of giving in, and engaging in reciprocity, Ms. Johnson throws him out of the office without helping him.

In the scene with Sgt. Ryan and Mrs. Thayer, when Mrs. Thayer finds herself in a terrible predicament in an over-turned car, we see another powerful example of social exchange, and weighing costs and benefits. Mrs. Thayer is adamantly opposed to being rescued by a person who, not but a night ago, had molested her in front of her husband using his superior position as a shield from all repercussions of that action. Mrs. Thayer now must re-evaluate the situation when Sgt. Ryan explains that he is not going to hurt her and he is the only person there to help her. What is the cost to Mrs. Thayer of giving him the power to save her? Pride, perhaps. The cost of refusing this help is death. The payoff of his help is living to see her husband. The comparison level of alternatives is not looking good. It is a simple calculation, here. The significance is mostly in the change in behavior. The situation changed, now Sgt. Ryan is her savior, and she is willingly succumbing to his will.

The last scene I would like to discuss is probably the most interesting, at least to me, in terms of exchange. The scene between the young cop and Det. Waters brother. The balance of power was somewhat ambiguous to both men. The relationship was not completely understood. On the one hand, you have Officer Hanson, who knows that he is a cop, though off duty, and therefore feels to be in the favor of the balance of power. What Peter Waters does not know is precisely this; he believes that he has been picked up by a regular Joe, not a member of "the trigger happy LAPD." The movie makes it clear that Officer Hanson has sized up Peter. He looks at his shoes, which are dirty, and his shirt, which was torn as if he had been caught on something, he was picked up in the Valley and it was freezing cold outside. Being a cop, he has just accurately assumed that this man was up to no good in the Valley. So far, so good. What the officer does not get is that this man is no threat to his safety. He erringly assumes that the man is pulling a gun and, in effect, Peter Waters was shot and killed.

Officer Hanson’s decision was to shoot. Why would he do that? If Peter Waters were pulling a gun out of his pocket, as he assumed he was doing, then he would be benefited most by acting first. The cost of not being quick on the draw could mean death, or at least being shot, which is not supposed to be a very fun thing to have happen. Regardless of having accurately identified Peter as a criminal, his misinterpretation of the threat cost him everything. We don’t know what happens to young Officer Hanson, but we can assume that he won’t be able to go back to work and live out his life.

#4-- I'm rooting for Taylor Hicks. 

#5-- Yes, I watch American Idol. Taylor Hicks looks a bit too old to be on American Idol, but even so... he is terribly out of place and singing the kind of music I actually like for once. Top notch, though not by any stretch of the imagination a American Idol. When I think of an American Idol, I think of Justin Timberlake. That is, someone who's albums are listened to and quickly discarded after 15 minutes and, as time passes, the purchase is quickly denied until the next album comes up. Repeat if necessary.

Well, we're in Toronto now. Have been for a while, of course. Walked around the city last night. There's nothing like a huge building with an advertisement on it. It's really a very primitive way to advertise, like painting tobacco advertisements on barns.

Last night was Smokeless Joes. It's a bar with more beer than you can drink. Well, me anyway. I can say now that my first two beers were in Toronto. My first was actually in a place called Duke of Argyle. I think the waitress got quite the kick out of me not drinking beer. I have no idea what it was I drank, but a couple people recommended it to me. It wasn't that good, but I don't really think I'm a beer man. The atmosphere of the bar was nice, and you can't beat the name... DUKE OF ARGYLE!

Smokeless Joe's was cool. Smokeless Joe was cool. The girl at the bar was once again happy to recommend a good beer. It tasted the same as the last beer, so I guess that kills my chances at being a beer tester. I tried my friend's stout, but it tasted like someone left a battery in it. I tasted something else..  and it tasted like someone forgot their banana in it. I don't know why they'd do that.

Today it's raining and my umbrella is... less than useful. It must have a malfunction. I guess child labor isn't all it's cracked up to be.

"The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined."

"The world’s billionaires come from 49 nations. Two countries are home to more than half of them."

Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

At the Monterrey Financing for Development Conference in 2002, world leaders pledged “to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7%” of their national income in international aid. In today’s dollars, that would amount to almost $200 billion each year.

In 2005, total aid from the 22 richest countries to the world’s developing countries was just $106 billion—a shortfall of $119 billion dollars from the 0.7% promise. On average, the world’s richest countries provided just 0.33% of their GNP in official development assistance (ODA). The United States provided just 0.22%.

More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day...300 million are children.

Of these 300 million children, only eight percent are victims of famine or other emergency situations. More than 90 percent are suffering long-term malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency.

How bad is it to be malnurished and slowly starve to death? Can anyone reading this fathom the suffering of those 300 million children? The worst part about this is that this is completely preventable.

"Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent US economist and a special adviser to the UN secretary general, argues in a new book that extreme poverty could be eradicated by 2025.

In an excerpt from his book published in Time magazine, he says there is little evidence that corruption has been the main obstacle to development in Africa, where extreme poverty is concentrated.

Rather, he blames the geographical and climactic conditions that have contributed to drought and disease.

He quotes World Bank figures showing that more than a billion people suffer extreme, or life-threatening poverty, and sets out nine broadly defined steps that should be taken to address the problem.

One is: "Redeem the US role in the world."

He writes: "The richest and most powerful country, long the leader and inspiration in democratic ideals, is barely participating in global efforts to end poverty and protect the environment, thus undermining its own security."

Yes, I do believe that we can make such a big difference in the world if we are but committed to the goal. Consider what eradicating severe poverty means to the world, and compare that to all the trivial things our countries pursue. We are talking about dramatically changing the lives of over a billion people.

Consider what we can do.

I firmly believe that juveniles cannot be held fully accountable for their actions. Much of sociology and psychology tells us that we are products of our environment. To say that a juvenile, regardless of his crime, is completely to blame for his actions ignores hundreds, if not thousands of years of human knowledge. Where is the wisdom in placing a juvenile delinquent, who’s whole life is still ahead of him, into an environment that is quite possibly worse than the one he came from? I mean, youthful offenders housed in adult jails verses juvenile confinment have some pretty tough conditions to contend with. They are "eight times more likely to commit suicide; five times more likely to be sexually assaulted; twice as likely to be beaten by staff; and 50 percent more likely to be attacked with a weapon." Also, "spending time in an adult prison (surrounded by adult convicts) tends to increase the future criminality of youth. A study comparing Florida juvenile offenders housed in adult prisons versus those confined in juvenile corrections facilities found that youth in adult prisons were six times as likely as similar youth in juvenile lock-ups to anticipate committing new crimes after release (18 percent vs. 3 percent), and far less likely to say they anticipated remaining crime-free (55 percent vs. 34 percent)."

 Travis Hirshi, a social control theorist, wrote of social bonds or, the bonds we create with members and institutions of society. The relationship of the juvenile criminal with his social environment may be weak or dysfunctional already, predisposing him to the criminal behavior that leads him to court. At this point, placing him into the harsh prison environment that adults must face is counter-productive. Social learning theory states that criminal behavior is learned through socialization, which makes the concept of placing juveniles in with older, professional criminals outrageous. Juveniles have unique needs compared to those of adult criminals; needs such as education, special nutrition, care and supervision and the right to be separated from adult criminals. Juveniles are an unnecessary burden on the resources of the adult criminal justice system. That burden could be lifted by empowering our juvenile justice system and abandoning the “get tough” philosophy with children, as it has yet to work with adults.

Children who have been tried in adult courts because of committing what has been perceived as an adult crime are still just children. Regardless of the sophistication, regardless of the extreme nature of some of the crimes, the mind of a child does not work the same way as an adult. Think about some of the outrageous things that you believed as a child. Think of what was important to you: the drama of school life, the next big dance, borrowing the car, surviving another year of school. The end of the world was missing a party because you were grounded, or you got a bad grade on your report card. Looking back, it obviously wasn't the end of the world. Life goes on, our big problems were rarely the catastrophes we made them out to be. This is where the experience of age counts. Most children don’t have the capacity that adults have to make rational choices. Adolescents are famous for not thinking about the consequences of their actions before they act. The values and motives of juveniles simply are not often comparable with adults, so trial as an adult, without the possibility of a jury of peers, is cruel and quite possibly unconstitutional.

The reason we sentence juveniles to adult courts is simply because we have given up on helping people in our “great” modern American society. The reasons range from our misconceptions of human behavior to the perceived cost of fixing the problem.  Even young people, who, because they have had less time to be socialized into adult life, are more responsive to rehabilitation strategies, are abandoned. Many of these children were abandoned all of their lives because they were perceived as hopeless causes and finally found their way into the criminal justice system. Their journey is one of hardship, marked by neglect and stigmatization, and unfair labeling. According to labeling theory, adolescence is a crucial period for the development of self-identities. Entering an adolescent into the adult criminal system would clinch them into the role of the criminal, degrade them, and potentially make them more dangerous to society. The juvenile justice system understands this, and helps juveniles avoid stigmatization after release by not putting their offense on their record, something that adults are not afforded.

When thinking about what approach is best for sentencing juvenile delinquents, we must keep in mind the age of the offender. In almost all cases, bar the few life sentences that are ever dealt out to juveniles, the young offender will be released into society once again. Because of this, rehabilitation and reintegration are prioritized. The adult system does not focus on reintegration into society, yet another failing of our adult criminal justice system. This is evidenced by the fact that, "according to a 1996 Florida study, youth transferred to adult prisons had approximately a 30% higher recidivism rate than youth who stayed in the juvenile system."

Yesterday, more than 20,000 people perished. Tomorrow, the same thing is going to happen again. These people are dying right now, and they will be dying as we are commuting home from work, and while we are tucked into our beds reading. You don't hear much about it day to day, because they don't die in war, or for a righteous cause. They don't die American heroes, or a successful business people. While their lives are wrought with tradgedy, their stories mostly go unheard for whatever reasons. You won't pick up your paper tomorrow and read about their deaths. You won't turn on the news and hear of their plight. And, worst of all, there is nothing but inaction that allows 20,000+ people to die each day of some preventable death.

How does this make you feel?

I've been tagged by... jestar  She runs like the wind. Very good reflexes. I'm not so quick, so it took me a few days to get around to it.

INSTRUCTIONS:


1. Do the following WITHOUT complaint. (You whiny monkeys)
2. Choose 3 people or more to do this after you completed yours.
3. Leave a tag on the person's page to say he/she have been tagged.
4. Start your post with I have been tagged. then do this (copy and paste!).

FAVOURITES:
Favourite Colour: Blue
Favourite Food: I like peanut butter. shut up.

Favourite Movie: Shaun of the Dead
Favourite Season: Fall
Favourite Icecream: Chocolate

CURRENTS:

Current Clothes: Err... I might be in my boxers.
Current Desktop: Plain Black. I like it like that.

Current Time: 1:00am
Current Surroundings: My bedroom
Current Annoyances: That I have to pee and I''ll have to put my pants on.
Current Thoughts: I need a bathroom in my bedroom. A sort of... bed and bath.

FIRSTS:

First Best Friend: Stanislaw  

First Crush: This girl that everyone liked. I wrote her a note and she ripped it up. 

First Movie: I don't know. I've seen a lot of movies.
First Lie: Can't remember...
First Music: Don't know.... but my first CD was The Beach Boys

LASTS:

Last Drink: Water

Last Phone Call: Amie

Last CD played: Probably Bruce Springsteen's We Shall Overcome (The Seeger Sessions)

HAVE YOU EVER:

Have you ever dated one of your best friends: I'm going to say no.

Have you ever broken the law: It's not breaking the law if you don't get caught.
Have you ever been arrested: No!
Have you ever been on TV: Probably.

Have you ever kissed someone you don't know:  No, I think that'd be impossible for me. haha.

THINGS:

5 things you are good at: reading, writing, procrastinating, losing things, and juggling. Well, I can juggle, anyway.

4 things you did today: I slept, kissed a beautiful girl, watched The Interpreter, and ate at Bob Evans. Very lazy today.

3 things you can hear right now: My air conditioner, an instant message I just recieved, and the History Channel...

I'm going to have to tag.... johnalism , misterghoulie , and wendyinchicago 

Happy New Year, fellow bloggers and friends! Oh, and since I missed it... Merry Christmas (known as Happy Holidays to you miserable Atheists) as well!

There isn't much to say about me, but what about that George W. Bush? What a great president!! With little more than a year left till we have to bid farewell to one of the best presidents we've ever had, now is a good time to both look to the days passed and those still left to go.

Let's talk about the advances he's made for your and I. Let's talk about what he can do for the rest of his presidency. Let's... *gag*.

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right."

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

"Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force... If we assume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has the right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war."

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."

"We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means."

"There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it."

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people"

"The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

"Today the poor are less often dismissed, I hope, from our consciences by being branded as inferior or incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty. The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available"

Here's the situation: I'm scanning all of my family's photographs into my computer. Thousands of photos are now on my computer. The idea is to be able to make a photo album of the family for everyone in the family. I have a very basic organizational system in place made entirely out of labled folders, but this is not a very attractive, nor easily navigated. It is intuitive, yes, but it isn't all that it could be.

The problem I have is this: I need an attractive solution for a photo album with a vast amount of pictures with dozens upon dozens of people in them. When I copy the photos, I'm be putting them on DVDs, so it wouldn't hurt if I was able to view and navigate the photos on a DVD player. This is basically, though, an archive of all the photos I could find, so organization is the key. Right now, with my folder system, I worked from parents>their kids>their kids>and so on.

If anyone has any ideas about what sort of software could help with my situation, I'd be very grateful.

What I wish I could do would be sort of a system like facebook uses for their photos combined with a sort of archive system like I already have going, when I could tag all my photos with the names of the people in them and be able to click on them and find all the pictures that has that person in it. Being able to tag the photos like that would make everything better, but of course, that wouldn't be very navigatable by remote control if I wanted to export it to dvd. I just don't know what the best thing to do with these photos will be.

There just isn't an excuse for it, except perhaps actually being a drug addict child missing a few fingers. Even if your blog is just for you,, do you really want to look back at what you wrote later in life and wonder what the hell was wrong with you?

This is commonsense. As with numbers one and two, I'm not going to work to decipher what your blog says, and I'm certainly not going to risk a seizure or permanent brain damage looking at your text. It is all about contrast, people. Light text on dark backgrounds, dark text on light backgrounds. Simple.

The E8 group, which dates to 1887, is the most complicated Lie group, with 248 dimensions, and was long considered impossible to solve.

"To say what precisely it is is something even many mathematicians can't understand," said Jeffrey Adams, the project's leader and a math professor at the University of Maryland.

Alcohol 'is more dangerous than ecstacy'

Anti-Porn Law Loses Out to First Amendment

Mice given 'human sight' in colour blindness study

World's first 'spinal transplant' carried out

U.S. lowers number its says have no health insurance

Spider-Man 3

The Tripper

Network (1976)

"Sirens of Titan is just one of those books – you read it through the first time and you think it's very loosely, casually written. You think the fact that everything suddenly makes such good sense at the end is almost accidental. And then you read it a few more times, simultaneously finding out more about writing yourself, and you realize what an absolute tour de force it was, making something as beautifully honed as that appear so casual."

"Sometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so. By the same token, though, I suppose that boulders and mountains and moons could be accused of being a little too phlegmatic."

"Her face, like the face of Malachi Constant, was a one-of-a-kind, a surprising variation on a familiar theme-- a variation that made observers think, Yes--that would be another very nice way for people to look. What Beatrice has done with her face was actually what any plain girl could do. She has overlaid it with dignity, suffering, intelligence, and a piquant dash of bitchiness"

Universal Blood

Red blood cells have complex sugars on their surfaces; it is these sugars that determine whether the blood is type A, B, O, or both A and B. People with type A red blood cells carry antibodies against type B blood cells. If they are given a transfusion of type B red blood cells, their body will attack and kill the cells. Similarly, people with type B blood will mount an immune attack against a transfusion of type A blood.

Researchers led by Henrik Clausen of the University of Copenhagen have discovered two enzymes that efficiently chop the A and B sugars off of red blood cells, making them universal. The company ZymeQuest, based in Beverly, MA, has licensed the enzymes and developed a machine that can simultaneously treat eight units of blood with the enzymes in 90 minutes.

Why are 600 girls in Mexico suffering from collective hysteria?

In November, a mysterious illness began to affect girls at a boarding school in Chalco, Mexico, near Mexico City. The school, which is run by Roman Catholic nuns, is one of 10 in Asia and Latin America operated by a charity called World Villages for Children in Asia. The girls, ages 12 to 17, showed strange symptoms: difficulty walking, fever and nausea. After the girls returned from a 10-day Christmas break, the illness spread. Eventually 600 out of the 3,600 girls at the school showed symptoms. Still, no one could figure out what was making the girls sick, and public health officials were called in.

After conducting numerous tests, surveying the facilities and interviewing some of the afflicted girls, doctors have decided that a psychological disorder is responsible. Its official name is mass psychogenic disorder, also called collective hysteria, mass psychosomatic reaction or mass hysteria.

Mass psychogenic disorder is a rare -- but not unheard of -- phenomenon. The disorder is usually characterized by the mysterious spread of a variety of symptoms without a discernible cause. It frequently occurs in closed, insulated communities, such as schools and factories, and among teenagers and girls. Collective hysteria can spread when a fear exists of exposure to a disease, combined with a contained, stressful environment.

Lyrid Meteor Shower

"...the moon – bane of meteor watchers for its tendency to wash out all but the brightest meteors – will be approaching the first quarter phase during the shower’s peak. That means it’ll set in the middle of the night, leaving the hours before dawn dark for watching meteors. That’s a good thing.

The Lyrid meteor shower is usually more of a trickle, with a typical rate of 10 or 15 meteors per hour. Still, in 1982, the Lyrids ramped up to over 100 meteors per hour for a few minutes. See what we mean? A gamble.

If you want to watch the Lyrids, the same rules apply as for other meteor showers. Most important rule: get away from city lights. Find an open area in a country location. Lie back. Relax. Look up in a casual way, with your eyes roving over all parts of the sky. When you spot one, it’s fun to alert your companions by yelling out “meteor!” It’s fun to count how many you see in an hour.

Most meteor showers are best after midnight, so the later you can stay out the better. Or get up in the wee hours and do your meteor-watching before dawn."

Source

...Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.

-Douglas Adams

"Bill O'Reilly may proclaim at the beginning of his program that viewers are entering the "No Spin Zone," but a new study by Indiana University media researchers found that the Fox News personality consistently paints certain people and groups as villains and others as victims to present the world, as he sees it, through political rhetoric.

The IU researchers found that O'Reilly called a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night."

"Using analysis techniques first developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, Conway, Grabe and Grieves found that O'Reilly employed six of the seven propaganda devices nearly 13 times each minute in his editorials. His editorials also are presented on his Web site and in his newspaper columns."

Read more...

And read the study...

The Political Compass -- My Results

Economic Left/Right: -4.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.33

• "Pulled" doesn't refer to the explosive demolition of a building.
• Many steel structures have collapsed due to fire
• And more!

• "The premise behind all these messages is inherently flawed, because consumers' not buying gasoline on one particular day doesn't affect oil companies at all. The "gas out" scheme doesn't call upon people to use less gasoline, but simply to shift their date of purchase and buy gas a day earlier or later than they usually would. The very same amount of gasoline is sold either way, so oil companies don't lose any money."

•  What the "gas out" calls for isn't consumers' swearing off using or buying gasoline, even for a short time, but simply shifting their purchases by a couple of days at most. Because the "gas out" doesn't call on consumers to make a sacrifice by actually giving up something, the threat it poses is a hollow one.

• Simply changing the day one buys gas, however, imparts no such threat, because nothing is being done without.

I know what I want to do. At least, I know what I want right now, at this precise moment in time. The problem isn't knowing now what I want to do then, it is wanting to do then what I want to do now. That has always been my problem. I wonder sometimes if it is a sign that I'm not trying to do what I ultimately should do. I'm now past the first quarter of my life no matter how you slice it. I don't have stability. I don't really have a plan. Planning only makes me feel more ridiculous for thinking that I would want something for myself on a long term basis.

Does anyone else ever feel like this?

Of course they do. I suppose for as long as people have had choices they've had indecision. I've wanted to do so many things that I can't even count at this point. I probably couldn't list them to save myself. And right now, I'm once again lined up to do one thing, and I find myself wondering if I'm not just wasting time and money trying to achieve something for the wrong reasons. But really, what else is there to do? It isn't like I don't have approximately 40 - 60 years to satisfy myself....

 ...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Without naming any names, I've found three common kinds of vandalism.

1. Wholesale removal of entire paragraphs of critical information. (common for both political figures and corporations)
2. White-washing -- replacing negative/neutral adjectives with positive adjectives that mean something similar. (common for political figures)
3. Adding negative information to a competitor's page. (common for corporations)

The Key to my House (is inside of my house)

I closed the door upon my leaving

so no one would wonder in

if only I didn't fear being burgled

by other nerdy, white men.

The door was locked and

I walked away

to use the computers at school

O, was I ever a fool.

The instance to leave and

go home to my nest

was at hand so off

I went on my quest

I thought that the key was inside my pants

but in that I was surely proved wrong

inside the house was the

key to my house

and there it had been all along

.........................................................................

Another lovely poem, and day, mangled by yours truely.

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

"... no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

"Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together"

"To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself"