My thought processes are scattered. I think a lot, I read and come up with new ideas and hypothesis. I jot them down here and there, random pieces of paper, voice memo's, journals. I still haven't meshed them together, I still haven't come up with a manifesto or one great unifying theory. And I guess that's my goal, is to eventually be able to get a point across that ties in all the odd ends to form one complete work.

 But obviously I don't work/think/try hard enough at this point in time because I don't have the urgent desire or need to sit down and do this. And I know I could do this if I would just have this desire to do so. Since about 25% or more of my freetime is spent wanting to hang out/party/lose myself in whatever moment I happen to be in, that cuts down on my "productive" time. Then add on another..oh, 25-30% of my time that I'm thinking about SEX, that further reduces my productivity. So, to be productive and successful, logically I should cut out these useless things that really do nothing but please me. Instead, I should grow up and really focus on getting things done, helping others, always contributing.

 And there's an interesting tie-in...a good socio-cultural answer of to why sex and general fun and pleasure are usually frowned upon by religion. Those things are good and enjoyable for the individual, and don't lead to progress and can lead to apathy and instant gratification. With a "delayed gratification" hanging over your head, you'll be more apt to pursue the path they want you to pursue.

 I used to drive myself nuts with always thinking I was sitting here wasting my life away, not getting things done, not doing enough NOW. I couldn't sit outside in the sun during a beautiful day without thinking I should be doing something. I should be productive and not wasteful.

The ride of life has been like a pendulum. A bit too hectic and scattered thinking I should be getting things done - then a bit too crazy and wasteful, just hanging out and having fun - then back, then forth, then back... But it's moved to a gradual middle equilibrium - where the pendulum doesn't swing as radically, where it balances itself out.

So, when I feel the need to be getting on with it and cranking out some work, I won't deny myself that feeling. But I don't feel that way this moment - so why fight it? Why do something I don't want to?

That time will come.

My heart goes out to those who will never be able to stand on the shore of an alpine lake and hear nothing but the wind.

My heart goes out to those who can never watch the setting sun play shadows on the mountain tops.

My heart goes out to those who will never get to experience these moments of beauty for they are just less fortunate than I.

My heart goes out to those who can never be more than they are.

My heart goes out to my brother who was never able to become the person he should have been and now will spend the next few years of his life paying for it.

My heart goes out to all those whom I can never help because I am lacking the ability to do so.

This is the burden I carry.

I've decided I want to run the National Park System. Fran P. Mainella (the current director) looks a bit old and weary and was probably put there by Bush and his lackey's. Most likely she has some energy company in Texas. After I obtain that goal, then I can move on to be director the department of the Interior. Excellent.

PS - After further research, she was indeed appointed by Bush, most likely at the *suggestion* of his brother since she was first director of the Florida State Park system. Looks like she might have done some good stuff so far - except the whole privitization of the parks that is going on right now.

First woman director, too. AND she graduated UConn and is a Connecticut native. Someone find me that nice lady's email address.

Well, as usual, there is a bunch of nonsense going on in the world today.

That garbage that went on in Russia was digusting to me. Horribly, horribly disgusting. People who have politicals goals and then have the audacity to bring innocent children into the mix deserve neither those said goals nor life. That is a situation that really is black and white - you can't negotiate or even talk when they are willing to go to the extreme by bringing children into the mix. Target the army, target the leaders - but specifically targeting children....the Russian mother who left a sign there at the site of the carnage said it right - "Children, please forgive us adults."

It's pretty farcical the things we do.

Cheney's at his smear tactics again - likening a vote for Kerry as a vote for Terror. A long as ALL the Republican's keep up their "be disquieted, quail, QUIVER, SHUDDER" campaign, a good portion of the population will be inclined to vote for them. I had some lady tell me at my brother's football game that the reason for the 2nd ammendment was because terrosits could be lurking in the woods behind our house and we need to have many, many guns to protect ourselves. Yes, I see where the Republican's prey on those lacking perspicacity.

The new Republican candidate running against Obama didn't waste any time throwing in insults, smear tactics and Jesus into the campaign. Keyes said something along the lines of "Jesus Christ would never vote for Barak Obama if he was alive today." Indeed. And I'm sure these intransigent views are very good for a debate. We'll see soon enough.

Finally, I'd like to address swearing and using words such as "fucking dumb-ass conservatives"  and "dumb-fuck Republicans" in some of my past entries. According to JOHNALISM, in his usual haughty and swaggering way, using swear words somehow equates to non-intelligence and is not proper nor very conducive to a debate. Well, at least I'm not so full of my own self-importance that I don't parade around with some fake Dr. title given to me by a play-station game, nor do I nominate myself for the Bestof Mindsay, nor do I think people want to follow my dumb-ass around parading as "Champaholics". I think I've shown that while I may use "curse" words, my vocabulary and powers of ratiocination far outweigh yours. I'd be happy to debate you anyday. Feel free to look up any of the words I used to add to your limited vocabulary that usually just contains the words "Jesus, God, Good, Evil, Black, White"

Oh yes, and fuck you, good sir.

Man, everyone needs to chill out about Mindsay. Just be happy you get network with all these people for free. Sure, they shoulda called, sent a letter, told you that pretty soon it would be a revolution and you might lose everything, but hey, no one is perfect.

Give it time. Deep breath. Have a beer. Some drugs.

That's better.

Now that the nonsense is over, I think I figured it out. If you update very, very recently - then leave one of the last comments on a crazy 40 - you get the crazy 40. I could be wrong but someone try it because Insomnia got it back again.

Oh yea, and evolution happened. Why, you may ask?

Well, first of all humans themselves are capable of evolution that they cause. One only need to look as far as - oh, lets say bacteria. It's not like some magical conscious effort by these bacteria - it's just the nature of things. Some bacteria are slighty different then others, so when we add an antibiotic to the mix - some will perhaps survive due to the genetic diversity. Humans have introduced a type of natural selection to these bacteria and have caused a form of evolution.

Dogs? DOGS! One only need to look as far as the canine to see what selective breeding can do to an animal that has it's roots from a common ancestor (wolf). Look what our conscious effort does to pass on some genes and not pass on others. LOOK AT THE DIVERSITY OF THE DOG AND THEN TELL ME THAT IT'S NOT POSSIBLE FOR NATURE TO HAVE DONE THAT WITH ALL THE SPECIES GIVEN BILLIONS OF YEARS.

Hmmm, how about crops? Corn, beans, squash all have wild ancestors. But these wild ancestors are small and really hardly interesting. But given years of cultivation, growing, cross-pollination - look what we've done. Huge tracts of corn, sqaush, wheat, beans, etc. Now we're even tinkering with the genes of these crops to make them even better without having to go through the whole breeding process.

So...offer me a good argument why evolution didn't happen. Show me evidence.

"The Nobel Prize winning scientist Linus Pauling aptly described science as the search for truth.  Science does this by continuously comparing its theories objectively with evidence in the natural world.  When theories no longer conform to the evidence, they are modified or rejected in favor of new theories that do conform.  In other words, science constantly tries to prove its assumptions to be false and rejects implausible explanations.  In this way, scientific knowledge and understanding grow over time.  Religious explanations for the order of things are not science because they are based primarily on faith and do not subject themselves to be objectively falsified.  Because of this fundamental difference in the approach to understanding the natural world, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1987 that the Biblically based "Creation Science" is not a science and cannot be taught as such in public schools as an alternative or in addition to the mainstream evolutionary theory of the biological sciences."

And rightly so. Teach it in theology class or history class, but how dare you try to teach it as truth when it has NEVER been put through the rigors of a scientific theory. Well, it has, and it has been shown to be incorrect - but old ideas die hard. What a shame.

If every animal in the world was on the ark, and there were indeed only 2 of every animal (musta been plants on there too since they couldn't survive a world-wide flood), what did these animals eat when they got off the ark?

 For example - when the bears were released from the ark - what plants and animals did the browse on if every animal alive at that time was in the ark? You couldn't have the bears eating the 2 last remaining slugs, could you? Or the last remaining plants?

 What about the tigers and lions? Did Noah keep them as pets until there were enough of them to permit predation?

 There's a problem there.

After some more enlightening comments and further research, I concede that indeed there are more questions lurking below the surface that I had failed to consider concerning evolution. I mistakenly pointed towards certain examples saying they proved evolution when in fact they simply proved natural selection - something that many creationists even tend to believe in (all encoded genetic information is there leading animals to simply fill up and adapt to an ecological niche).

How a species is formed, how they diverge, and how new information is encoded - still is a science and theory in its' infancy. I've done some good research that has a few tidbits that can explain some, but I'll need more time to try and put anything together. But now I'm happy I understand exactly where the other side is coming from.

But the question still remains. How did a fish become a human? Just chalking it up to a God seems like the easy way out - afterall, if you do believe in genes and divergence and natural selection - shouldn't there also be an equally plausible scientific answer to this as well?

Just because we haven't proven it yet - doesn't mean it isn't true. (ahem, I've heard that argument before - but at least we're trying to prove it, not just saying it's true and lets leave it at that) Our knowledge base as a species as shown an upward curve over the course of history - and I don't see it stopping as long as there are people to question the world we live in.

Logic is interesting. It's logical for a pack of wolves to subjugate and basically terrorize the lowest member of their pack. They maintain strict order and social cohesion that way. It allows for them to survive. Is it "wrong" for these wolf pack members to treat one of their own so poorly? Perhaps, but it is only wrong in our eyes based on our perspective of the facts.

Humans in a way do that but we fight to end such "unjust" practices. Emotion many times trashes logic and we do things that we deem "moral" because that gut feeling (emotion) tells you it must be so.

 Obviously wolves have some sort of emotion, but they don't follow the same guidelines as we do. Or is it that intelligence, which could be highly influenced by our strong emotions, trumps what we logically should do. Is it logical to keep people alive who are serverly hanicapped? Is it logical to spend millions of dollars and many years hunting down your enemy who no longer is a threat?

 In some ways, it seems emotion is both a blessing and a curse. Emotion has a reason, but have we become so intelligent we no longer need to follow certain emotional yet illogical practices? Once again we go back to what I deem right and what you deem right could be at odds with each other - so who is right? And if there are true "morals" then they must have gotten there by our evolution along our social path. Those morals were shaped by humans, but our imperfect emotion. But perhaps if they have gone on an evolutionary path, they are more right today then they were in the past because humanity somehow seems to act like a big colony of ants- organizing, evolving, growing. In a way, we are ants in a really big colony called the world. Nevermind that ant part....just rambling. 

But what IS emotion exactly?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=655&e=2&u=/oneworld/6573937651094806675

 Indeed. More areas under rebel control than before. Huge tracts of the country that even United States troops won't go into. And yet we're winning the war. What a mess. Stupid idiot Bush.

A cooked rat is about the same length as an ample hot dog bun. It sounds delicious.

Afterall, a rat is meat and probably no worse for you then a regular $1.29 pack of hot dogs. Mmmmm. Yet I really am digusted at the thought of eating a rat. I'm not sure why, but it's not because a rat tastes bad, is it?

 I don't like women who don't shave. I'm turned off by women with hairy legs, armpits, too much hair on the arms. Why? It's natural for all women to grow hair in many of the same places men do (minus facial hair...well, for most women anyway).

I love olives. Many people don't. Soooo, do olives then taste good or bad? I like them, you don't. You can't define what tastes good and bad. Dung beetles eat shit. It must taste good enough to them because they keep rolling up those shit balls.

 Society trains and shapes us to accept certain dogma's as fact as we're brought up in them. They teach us our own little world-version of the truth. And after they're done with that form of brainwashing, they start making their children go to church. You don't need a book (Bible, Koran, ancient Sumerian tablets, etc) to tell you how to act and what to do. It's really matter of looking in yourself. Turning to religion has clouded your mind and made you complacent by never questioning anything. Your logic revolves around a circular path of proving your point "scientifically" on an un-provable book. Never do you take into account third, fourth, fifth party sources.

2 things:

1) It should be illegal to take your children to church until they're old enough to make decisions by themselves.

2) Jesus would be ashamed of all of you.

Iraq looks just about ready to be handed over to sovereign control about now. Everything seems to be calming down, democracy is taking root, there's really not that much fighting anymore. It's a glorious thing how they want freedom and the United States there.

Yes, and if you believe that, then I got another one for you.

Bush has somehow managed to get ahead in the polls!

No, I'm actually not lying on this one. The fact that now over 50% of Americans support Bush doesn't give me much hope for the other half of this country. That means about 50% of all Americans are too retarded to think for themselves and believes the lies and toads that come hoping out everytime one of them opens their mouths. The Bush administration uses a) fear and b) scathing personal attacks to discredit to get c) Stupid southern and midwestern Americans to support them. Lets try that math again.

A + B = C. Very simple. A very simple equation that the Bush administration uses for very simple people. And since no one really wants to be intellectually elite anymore or learn anything on their own, the administration realizes this and capitilizes on the inherent flaw in democracy - the tendancy for stupid people to vote very stupid ways.

A democratic populace must be intelligent in order for it to survive. Only with a well-read and informed population can you expect them to make choices that make rationale sense. But since Bush supporters can't read farther than Ann Coulter or watch anything else besides Fox News.

And just that fact speaks for itself.

	The Red Queen:
	Many say that our culture is obsessed with sex, and uses sexual references to sell everything from fragrances to cars. And wouldn't life be dull without it? Yet from the viewpoint of evolutionary theory, sex isn't the most efficient way of reproducing. In fact, scientists have been asking for decades, why does sexual reproduction even exist? If the goal of life is spreading one's genes far and wide, asexually reproducing organisms seem to have the edge. They do not have to invest time and energy finding a mate. Asexual individuals can pass on their genes twice as fast as those reproducing sexually, because they pass on all their genes -- and only their genes. When reproduction is sexual, half of the genes handed on to the next generation are those of the other parent. The offspring may lose some of the genetic traits that made each parent successful. There are many hypotheses but, until recently, little hard evidence on the advantages of sex. They stem from the notion that the genetic variation created in sexual reproduction is worth the cost. And at least in some environments, that variation must give a competitive edge over asexual organisms that can spread their genes efficiently, but vary little from one generation to the next. One explanation is the increasingly popular Red Queen hypothesis, referring to the huffy chess piece in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. In Looking Glass Land, the Queen tells Alice, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." According to the Red Queen hypothesis, sexual reproduction persists because it enables many species to rapidly evolve new genetic defenses against parasites that attempt to live off them. Scientists from Rutgers University in New Jersey have tested this idea by observing different groups of small fish called topminnow in Mexico. Some populations of the topminnow reproduce sexually, while others reproduce asexually, so they provide the perfect opportunity to test these ideas. The topminnow is under constant attack by a parasite, a worm that causes something called black-spot disease. The researchers found that identical populations (clones) of the asexually reproducing topminnows harbored many more black-spot worms than did those producing sexually, a finding that fit the Red Queen hypothesis: The sexual topminnows could devise new defenses faster by recombination than the asexually producing clones.

Glorious. Adopted from PBS.org.

Have you ever noticed how things tend to repeat themselves (history nonwithstanding)?

 I'm talking about how nature and all things metaphysical seem to follow certain "laws" on almost all scales.

 Look at a soap bubble. Most people never question why a soap bubble is round. Well, it's obviously round because that's the most efficient shape for it to be in. Then we can take that a step further and see that there is an easy explanation as to why the earth is round, and the sun, and all the stars, etc.

 Nature is repeating itself on almost every scale (quantum physics is another thing all together).

 I've always loved visualizing a tree. In essence, a tree is the same both above and below ground. Someone once said a tree, to them, were the "roots of the earth" that shot skyward. In reality, they aren't that far off as both parts of the tree are equally important. A tree follows its growth for a certain reason - mainly it's the most advantageous for the tree to grow in that fashion.

 I've also noticed how other instances in the world will follow a tree-structure (fungus, blood vessels, neurons, axioms).

So, if humans are a product of nature, and we follow the laws of nature, we must think and use our brains along the same line. I came to this conclusion last night during a conversation where Stacey brought up a certain memory that I hadn't thought about in a while. Once I recalled that certain memory, a whole flood of related memories would start coming to mind, each branching off in another direction sending me to remember whole periods of my life. It was like that particular memory was an index, triggering the base of the tree and leading each successive thought down the various branches. Then it occured to me that I've seen something like that before.

 In a computer.

 Which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense. It stands to reason humans would unconsiously create the most efficient form of computing over the generations. A tree in the mind is most easily represented by the structure of the file system on a computer.

So, if you want to know how your brain probably works, look no further than the thing you're typing on right now.

Ever hear this before?

Of course you have. We point to the destruction of our culture and blame God and Christian teachings being taken out of everything. We yell and scream about them ending prayer in school, having God on the money, in the pledge, etc. Too bad the God in money AND the pledge weren't actually added until the 1950's, but people easily forget that and think they've been there since the founding of this country.

The first settlers in this country indeed did begin to establish theocracies, with Anglican in the south, Congregationalist in New England, and some form of Trinitarian Protestants in Rhode Island which excluded voting rights for anyone but members of that said group. So then, the founding fathers must have been Christians intent on establishing a Christian based nation?

Wrong.

Washington, along with at least Jefferson and Franklin (probably Adams, too) was a Deist. A Deist: "believed in the supremacy of human reason over faith and revelation, and disdained the supernatural. They opposed both government suppression and government establishment of religion." So while they would believe in a Deity of some form, it was more of an embodiment of the whole of natural world, not to be confined to one book or form of teaching. Their main religion was their thought process.

When the Constitution was first drawn up, many complained that there was no mention of Christ in it. To this, Washington simply responded: “...the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.” John Adams, although realizing the need for a religion and morality in maintaining freedom said: “Nothing is more dreaded that the national government meddling with religion.” In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, he also said: “I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”

Indeed. More often than not, in both public address and private letters, the founding fathers stressed that religion should be a completely private matter - between man and his God. By no means should it be included in any public institution or by no means should any religious church/institution be funded by public funds. Our good friend Jefferson said:

 “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and 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 there,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

Also, claims again of a basis for this country being founded on either the Ten Commandments or other religious priciple's can be very easily discounted. First of all, what makes our country extremely unique is the careful treading around religion as to not include references nor laws giving special status or recognition to any religion in particular. Our country was founded on many principle's, but most were not religious based - most were based in part on Locke, Hume, and Rousseau enlightened thinkers and philosophers of the time.

Of course, there were people who did want Christianity to be the state-sponsored religion, but they all lost these battles with Jefferson and Madison (most notably Patrick Henry). The government obtains it's power and laws through "We the people..." and no one else.

So before you A) Blame today's country on us straying too far from the founding fathers' of this country or B) Say that we are a Christian nation, realize C) That you are wrong. This country never was or was intended to be a Christian nation, so before we go so far down this road of evangelicalism, realize that we are indeed taking a step back from what this country was intended to be.

It's amazing how a message can be so distored by radicals.

"The evangelist John wrote, 'You must not love the world or the things of the world, for those who love the world are strangers to the love of the Father.' Then, just two sentences later, he wrote: 'Children, the final hour is at hand! You've heard that the Antichrist is coming. He's not one but many, and when the many of him are among us, you'll know the final hour has come.'

"John knew what he was talking about. He was right to warn his followers against those who LOVE THE WORLD. We are the ones he was talking about, and this is the final hour--but it's their final hour, not ours. They've had their day, and this is indeed the final hour of that day.

"Now our day begins."

First, I would like to thank all my religious...no wait. I would like to thank all my literal-Christian religious friends out there for getting me all riled up right before the end of work. It gives me excellent fuel for the gym and a good 2 hour lifting session helps me keep in shape and alleviate stress.

Second, I would like to say your points make absolutely no sense and border on pure lunacy. To believe in documents written before...oh, lets say almost every form of modern science is testimony to the weakness of your character in throwing off the most basic of human behaviors.

Not that I can blame you. It took a few hundred years before the Inca's stopped executing people en masse in their temples. It took a few thousand years of advancement before people stopped scalping and putting others through the guantlet for a nice form a torture. It took hundreds of years before they proved the earth was round, or not in the center of the universe.

It took a few thousand years for us to finally realize angels weren't pushing the planets through the heavens with their wings because it was an ether substance. Or that Neptune and Poseidon didn't cause typhoons and freak killer waves. Or that Osiris and Amun Ra aren't guardians to the afterlife.

But somehow you still believe in Noah's ark. And his age of 972 years old. And of talking Bush's (haha) and fire coming from the sky (could that have been METEORS??). When asked for proof, you simply say "oh, well it's because God made it that way. How dare we question it."

What kind of fucking proof is that??

But it's OK. It really is. It's easily shown that everything in human nature follows a progression. We've gone from polytheistic religion to monotheistic to a monotheistic religion concerned with only humans thereby elevating us above this very world which we came from. The natural path of all this is to finally believe there is no God and live for each other and for today.

But wait! Christians have a beautiful loophole built into their blatherings. A self-fullfilling prophecy of Armageddon. Once it looks like the masses have strayed too far from God, they will start a marvelous rebellion because of some "anti-Christ" who has come to power. This anti-Christ will speak "the truth" and be attacked for it because it strays too far from the "true" Christian teachings. More likely, this truth will indeed be the truth, but idiots in religion don't want to hear the truth anymore than they want to accept themselves as part of the natural world.

By Zeus, I can't wait until we get you people out of here. You've done an excellent job ruining the world so far.

"Every scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next, they say it had been discovered before. Lastly, they say they always believed it."

-Palentologist Louis Agassiz-

Tootboy brought up a quick rant about global warming, and how we've only been keeping track of climate so many years (200, at most) and how there is no real evidence to show human interference in the global climate pattern. Wellllll....

There have been many studies done, especially from Greenland ice cores that show just about conclusively that humans have been affecting the climate for thousands of years. Not just our industrial society today, but increases in CO emissions coincided nicely with about the accepted time we began to become a more agrarian society. From about...lets say 420,000 years ago (an accepted old age for ice cores drilled in Russia) there was the expected up and downs in global temperature, CO2 levels, O2 levels trapped air bubbles, etc.

About...10-12,000 years ago, all of a sudden CO2 levels rose to their highest levels ever recorded in the past 500,000 years. Scientists were amazed at how out of flux 12,000 years ago to the present the climate seemed to be compared to the past hundreds of thousands of years. Something obviously was affecting this - namely human beings beginning to congregate together, clearing and burning large tracts of forest, forming cities and societies.

SO, before we take the Bush stance that humans couldn't possibly induce global climate change - lets get real. We've been changing the climate ever since we've been on the planet. We've been doing it from hunter-gatherer times, to the first societies, to today. It's not necessarily an evil or bad thing - it's a product of life.  Hell, if you want to get technical about it, ALL life influences climate. ALL LIFE. Even the SMALLEST of organisms such as blue green algae that provide us with the majority of our oxygen.  The only reason there is oxygen in the atmosphere is because of plants and those miniscule oranisms. Oxygen is a very posionous and corrosive substance (but just not to us). If you were to look at the chemical signatures of our atmosphere, it would seem out of flux with what normally should be there - thanks again to life.

We all influence the planet we live on. We are increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. I'm sure many forms of life (Dinosaurs) have done the same thing in the past. Only difference is they didn't have cars and trucks and factories.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040916/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq&cid=542&ncid=716

Proof to all you Bush supporters that your leader isn't the magnificent and glorious warlord that'd you'd like to delude yourself into thinking. Even the Senate Republicans are disgusted by the obvious lack of any planning or foresight. It's like letting a bunch of mentally challenged children run our country.

What the fuck.

If you're not mad and you still support Bush, you must not be paying attention.

Touching more on the lack of foresight in the Middle East problem...

President Bush made a point to name 2 countries in the Middle East as his 'Axis of Evil' - Iran and Iraq.

Following years of precedent, we first went after the weaker country, Iraq. A country so ravaged by years of sanctions and absolute dictatorship - it gave us a testing ground for our new, more surgical military. It was another necessary piece of the puzzle. First comes Afghanistan, then Iraq, then...

People in the administration KNEW that soon after, there would be those of us asking 'Did we attack the wrong country...?" They would wonder why Iran, a country that takes bold steps to actually enrich uranium and build new nuclear power plants, was not first on the list. But that administration has a plan. A plan for a bold new America and an Americanized Middle East.

The problem is, like everything else they've done, they failed to take into account many intangibles.

We were not greeted as liberators. We've opened the borders on both ends to allow foreign fighters to stream in. Iran no longer has a counterbalance with their arch adversary in Iraq to somewhat keep them in check. Iran knows the only way to force us to the diplomacy table is to practice an outright flamboyant attempt to gain Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The Shia majority in Iraq is no longer repressed, much to the delight of the hard-line rulers in Iran. The war against al-Sadr wasn't all just about an internal Iraqi rebellion - it was as much about Iran as it was anything else. Sure, we've encircled them, have troops on all their doorsteps, but they too have infiltrated us. They have agents and fighters in all the places we are. They are gleaning new intelligence that otherwise would never have been accessible. They can learn and test our tactics through insurgency armies that no doubt they actively fund and participate in.

"Some military commanders in Iran", said the defence minister, Ali Shamkani, "are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly. We too are present from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan, in the Gulf, and we can be in Iraq, where US forces won't be an element of strength, but our hostage."

By parading this and being downright blazen, they seek to deter immediate American action on their nuclear ambitions. And it seems to be working so far. The clerics want to control the process of any better relations with the United States. They have no desire to see the reformers come to power and win any concessions.

The problem the administration has now is that any attack or direct strike on Iran will now lead to an all-out war in the Middle East. With not only a combination of the better organized insurgency armies, but the support of Hezbollah and Syria, the Middle East is a powder keg waiting to go off.

Even if Israel did indeed use a first-strike tactic like they did in 1981 in Iraq, the political fallout would be far greater. People in the Middle East would not see it as simply an Israeli strike - but an American one. Our armies in Iraq and Afghanistan are spread out, fighting urban and streetside warfare, attempting to peacekeep along the way. We are spread out and vulnerable, not a solid line of M1A1 Abrhams tanks supported by Apache helicopters that we'd like to picture.

And now there are no answers on what to do. We can't attack, Israel can't attack, and Iran uses this time to build it's weapons and encourage rebellion in Iraq. What better dream can you think of if you are a cleric than having the entire body of Shia in the region united under a common banner - the destruction of America and Israel?

If I can come to this conclusion, why can't the administration? Why are they not held responsible for this?

Sad day.

I love frogs. I had many pet frogs for a while. I've caught just about every frog catchable in the northeast save the Spadefoot Toad (close enough to be a frog, I lump toads and frogs in the same category). I've been catching frogs even since I was about...I dunno, 4-5 years old. I wonder if my love for frogs is because of my upbringing or perhaps my genes. I know lots of people who were exposed to frogs when they were younger and don't share my love for catching them.

Perhaps there is a frog gene?

Man, I'm hungover.

But it was such a beautiful night last evening. The sun came out after a whole day of overcast skies. It felt much more like spring than anything else, with the warm southern breeze and the slightly heavy air. There's this place down a dirt road off a typical New England street where on one side is a huge swamp, on the other, an endless field surrounded by ancient stone walls. As the sun sets, the fog settled low, hovering just above the ground. The only sounds were frogs and ducks and birds calling for the sheer joy of it. You could almost imagine being transported back in time, sharing the past with the first few settlers who came to the area to eek out a living. No sounds of cars, planes or buses. No rush, no worries.

The radio in my car wasn't playing. It didn't need to be. It's amazing what you can hear when you turn the sound off.

To me, that is beauty.

But to someone else, a city skyline lit up at night, the humm of the streets and traffic below, the metal steel and glass - that is beauty.

What a strange, wonderful world we live in. Be happy, life's too short to be otherwise.

Wanna feel the warm breeze
Sleep under a palm tree
Feel the rush of the ocean
Get onboard a fast train
Travel on a jet plane, far away (I will)
And breakaway...

yea, that's about all I can think of to say. I spend all week thinking and ranting and raving, then all weekend destroying those newfangled neuron connections that I just made. I wonder how many brain cells one beer actually kills. And is it possible to kill enough of them to retard your learning ability for years to come? Drinking is fun, good social atmosphere, you meet new people whom you prompty forget 2 hours later, and then you have to spend a good portion of the morning recovering with an egg sandwhich and 3 gallons of water. They say that new drug that was really designed by the KGB can stop hangover by actually stopping the production of the toxins in your system - which would be amazing, because it would actually halt almost all the negative and long-term side effects associated with drinking.

But I hear it takes like the equivilant of 10 pills or so to really do any good after a full night hanging out with the boys. The last thing I need is to spend any more money on alcohol related activities.

Oh well, that's it for now.

There were no international terrorists in Iraq until we went in. -- British ex-foreign secretary Robin Cook

How true. When will the argument then stopped being used about this being a war about terror? When will people realize there isn't a plan and there never has been? How convienient the administration caused this paradox by giving themselves an excuse to fight this war by causing the "problem".

Poor confused Bush supporters.

Read this very excellent article about the dissapearing middle class and the growing gap of workers who can't find jobs regardless of experience or education. It's interesting to note how once a high school degree was enough for the middle class, then a Bachelors', now it seems like a Masters degree will just barely get us into the Middle class and job security. This isn't about a Presidential candidate, this is about an upheaval, a change that's needed and it won't be solved by the worthless rhetoric on either side.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/washpost/20040920/ts_washpost/a34235_2004sep19

I want you all to go to this website and watch the video that is available of the latest beheading. Today was the first day I've ever seen one of these beheading video's in its' whole form, with sound included. I am convinced our media does the public a horrible injustice in sugar coating everything we receive. If I was to believe what I read or see on the news, a beheading is quick, painless, merciful - routine.

It's horrible. It's really beyond words. I almost got sick to my stomach after seeing it - so beware, it's not for the weak of heart.

But it is important to see the reality of the rest of the world - the terrible inhumanity that is wrought upon us by a clash of cultures and a clash of religions. This should infuriate you. People like this have no business being alive. It's human culture repeating the savageness of our bygone era - things that should have died out as we've progressed. Unfortunately.....we haven't. I don't know what else to say. I'm sick and pissed and fuck them.

http://www.ogrish.com/

We live in a wicked world made so by our very nature.

We also live in a beautiful world for those very same reasons.

I’m reminded of the song I quoted a while back that went: “I love this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life..."

Which is true, however, the singer was simply reflecting on *minor* occurrences in his own life- fights with his wife, being sick, being happy watching the game with his family.

He never took into account the bigger picture. The bombs, the beheadings, slavery, genocide, general intolerance. Somehow I doubt those people suffering through these things would be saying they love this “awful, beautiful life”.

We have it so much better here, more so then I can even fathom. Are you hungry? Go down the road a mile in your car and get a hamburger. Wanna see a movie? Go down the road some more. Tired? Go home to bed not fearing tonight you’ll be abducted or bombed to smithereens. Do you want to get away from the mundane? Jump on I-95 and travel to Florida.

In this country, the only ceiling we have is the one we put on ourselves. Our possibilities are endless.

Which is why you should love this country regardless of how much you disagree with it. The fact that we are able to question, to shape and change our world is testimony to what we’ve built.  The fact that you can protest, be disgusted, and get angry with this country is beautiful in itself.

It’s not perfect. It never has been. Too often we lose sight of that and attempt to judge others and the system on what we know now. We want change, an end to the injustice - but a change to what? What would you anarchists have us do? What would you like to overthrow this system with?

Do you think that if we just say “I’m sorry” to these terrorists and throw in the towel that all will be right with the world? Do you think they are any better than any leader in office right now and really have noble and peaceable ideals in mind? Power corrupts. Add that to a religious fervor, and you have a volatile mix on your hands.

These people who maim and kill innocent civilians on purpose with the expressed intent to cause terror have no noble goals, no moral legs to stand on  - and I’ll say it again  - no right to live.

To those of you who will equate our country’s actions today with that of terrorists, I say simply - Fuck you. You have no idea what you are talking about and you obviously haven’t thought beyond your own emotional process.

This problem in the world  - a problem that has roots as far back as humanity - shares an equal burden with all of us.  We are not 100% responsible for today’s world. If we could only learn to each take an equal share of the responsibility, then perhaps we could finally overcome our most basic of tendencies. If we’ve come far enough to put ships on other planets and a space station in orbit, then maybe it’s time we stop acting out these brutal tribal tendencies towards one another and bury it in the past.

But that won’t happen, at least not right away. Those of you who compare equally us killing civilians in bombings to these terrorists are failing to look at the intentions behind the actions. Pacifists suffer from believing the rest of humanity can and does think as ideally as you do. In fact, the whole of Europe suffers from this - one only need look as far as what happened in Kosovo for an example of what it took to finally bring action.

Killing is wrong, it’s sad, it’s primitive, and it’s still necessary.

I am convinced that by looking to the past we can see our future and make the appropriate choices. Our culture is not “right” in a sense that we can do no wrong.

Rather, we are more right than these terrorists we are locked in a struggle with. They are a relatively young religion, still wrought with the same fervor and devotion that the earliest sects of Christianity were. Most of these cultures have an educational system that is based completely on the Koran and religion. There is no secular teaching, no tolerance, no outside the world view.

History is repeating itself again, as it always does. It’s amazing how we can realize that concept and yet do nothing about it.

Barbaric people must be dealt with in the same fashion as they attempt to deal with us. We must attack not only with the military, but with reform, civil projects, ideas, books, new education, and tolerance. They must understand the history of humanity - something they may be totally in the dark about. It’s a scary proposition when you realize they believe they have the truth just because the people in power only brought them up with that slight version of it. They’ve never had the opportunity to learn history as we know it.

This is humanity. We can look at it and become disenchanted, or we can look at it as an evolution -never perfect, but slowly moving towards the world we want to live in. History has shown a general progression towards a better way of life. It will still be wrought with war and strife, but if you have faith that the collective will eventually reach equilibrium, then you have faith in yourself.

It really is true - We must be the change we want to see in the world.

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

-Steve Weinberg

"The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible"

-Oscar Wilde

"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock"

-Will Rogers

You'll enjoy this synopsis on the various stances and stats on both candidates with regards to various issues.

Research Spending

Bush:

• Can claim that research spending has skyrocketed 44 percent, with 26 percent going to basic research. National Institute of Health doubled their budget to almost $28 billion a year. Sum exceeds biomedical research of all other nations combined. White House requested 4.3 percent increase in overall research and development to $132 billion.
• However...Most of these plans were begun during the Clinton administration and were laid out in budget plans of years past. Also, these huge increases are highly skewed towards military and homeland security spending. While the overall numbers are increasing, it is the military getting the funding while the civilian research and development will be prepared for major cutbacks in 2006 due to the $400 billion dollar deficit.

Kerry:

• Has a solid record for science spending - due in large part to him coming from a state that took in over $750 million in one year alone for research (Harvard, MIT, BU).  Proposes major cash prizes for new research breakthroughs to stimulate discovery. Backed the doubling of the National Institude of Health and supported a 9.2 percent increase in budge for all institutions while Bush wanted 2.6 percent. Said he would be a "president for science."
• However...Where's the money? The current administration warning of budget reductions reflects true economics. Kerry is opposed to such things as the Star Wars Initiative, but now with contracts spread all around the country, it would be political suicide to try and undo SDI immediately. The combination of tax cuts, Iraq, domestic security spending have put pressure on science and education (and Veterans' benefits). It doesn't seem possible to sustain the recent growth in science spending.

Environment

Bush:

• Reversed countless policies established by the Clinton administration. First set off a political storm by rejecting a Clinton plan to reduce the levels of arsenic in drinking water. Had to eventually retreat on this matter. Administration is still witholding names from the Cheney energy task force. Policy was ordered recommending 105 different points from this meeting - few of which have been implemented. Sought to relax standards on industrial smokestack emissions but another uproar led to yet another retreat. Then reveresed ban on building roads in 60 million acres on National Forest. Adminstration follows a cost-benefit analysis in these matters.
• However...it remains unclear who benefits from these rollbacks. One can state the direct cost of an environmental policy, but potential benefits cannot be seen until we're far into the future. All too often cleanup after the fact becomes extremely more cost prohibitive than simply initiating a policy before the problem warrants action.

Kerry:

• Since entering the Senate, Kerry has supported 96 percent of all environmental legislation. One of the stronger environmentalists in the field - even moreso than Clinton. Wants to establish EPA task force to identify toxic dangers on a case by case basis to pep up the lagging Superfund cleanup program. Wants to strengthen the Clean Water Act and also realizes that poor people and minorities often bear a disproportionate share of the environmental problems in the country.
• However...Never has won approval for a major environmental law during his 20 years on the Senate floor. He has introduced or cosponsored over 40 bills and ammendments in the past 15 years, but the Senate has been Republican controlled for nearly have his tenure. He will run into similiar roadblocks should he become President.

Integrity

Bush:

• Administration denies that it screens candidates for science/environmental posts based on their belief systems. Also denied the fact that is suppressed reports that would offend its' antiabortion backers. The President's science advisor, John Marburger, says critics are just making a political move based on science that isn't exactly clear. Also called the bill or particulars against the administration by 60 scientists (20 Nobel laureates included) 'clearly a politically motivated statement.'
• However...The number of scientists who say research is being influenced by the right-wing idealogy is increasing. Although prior administrations have been accused of tinkering with what should be scientific independence, the number and fervor of scientists that are fired up about this administration is unprecedented. Very few scientists have spoken out in Bush's favor and even the journal Nature called the trends 'disturbing.'

Kerry:

• Kerry basically seconds all accusations thrown at the administration, calling Bush one of the most "antiscience adminstrations" ever. Accuses Bush of throwing out science to pander to his right-wing backers. Kerry says he would judge science soley on professional merit - not idealogy.
• However..this is nothing new except for the scope of it. All Presidents seem to favor scientific advisors who share their political and ideological preferences. Many scientists have spoken out in favor of Kerry, and his record in not throwing politics in to trump science when it suited him.

Climate Change

Bush:

• After taking office, renounced the Kyoto Protocol. Argued it would impair American growth and exempt countries such as China and India. Totally discounted warnings of global climate change DESPITE near-unanimous findings by both U.S. research bodies and international agencies. Adminsitration called for more research and climate agencies such as the Department of Energy and NOAA have experienced record budget growth due to these research initiatives - from $41 to $238 million. All initiatives passed by this research must then be approved by a review committe convened by the national Academy of Science.
• However...The increased research is widely regarded as a diversion from the steps that are seriously needed to reduced CO2 emissions. The National Resources Defense Council said that the administration has done "no analysis to substantiate its claim that the Kyoto Protocol or domestic policies to reduce carbon dioxide pollution from power plants would seriously harm the U.S. economy."

Kerry:

• Participated in the Kyoto conference. When the President refused to follow the protocol, Kerry attacked him during a speech on the Senate floor. Accused him of asking whether the threat was real or not was simply a diversion to use more time to research to appease his energy buddies. Pointed out the Bush's position conflicted with that findings of every scientific body, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - something that was helped to founded by Bush's own father. Introuduced the Global Climate Change Act to restratin, reduce emission - but a Republican controlled House and Congress killed the bill.
• However...Kerry did join with 94 other senators in support of a nonbinding resolution that insisted that developing nations agree to emissions reductions in the same time frame as the United States. Also specified that the agreement could not cause serious economic harm to the country. Although it was advisory, it created the impression that the Senate might reject the treaty - which they would not have. Kerry backtracked later saying he would have worded things a bit differently and concluded the recommendations were not a treaty killer.

Energy

Bush:

• Proposes to meet rising energy demands by simply increasing supply - drilling in Alaska for oil and gas. Met oppositions by will return to the issue if reelected. Nuclear power is also widely regarded as a positive in the administration. Spent a billion dollars on hydrogen power research. The administration relies heavily on marketplace mechanisms to promote energy efficiency.
• However...even with the help of the marketplace, America's thirst for oil will still continue to rely heavily on foreign imports - making the Mideast still a valuable commodity. The administration is not addressing the root causes of the problems, instead looking for a quick fix that would last but a few years. Even if ANWR was opened, it would only cause a dent on foreign reliance by about 6%, and that is not counting the need for more refinieries and pipelines. Also has resisted imposing higher mileage on all vehicles.

Kerry:

• Proposed to make America self-sufficient on energy within 10-15 years. Would increase use of such fuels as ethanol and insists that standards for auto mileage be raised substainstially. Opposed drilling in Alaska, advocates tax credit for high fuel-efficient vehicles. Backs development of Hydrogen powered vehiles. Joined with 50 other sentators to appeal for a budget increase for the Department of Energy's Office of Science - where most energy research takes place. When a conflict arises between oil production or the environment - Kerry opts to support the environment.
• However...A decade ago when gas was around $1 a gallon, Kerry spoke favorably about a 50 cent tax to discourage use. Republicans have exhumed this proposal to attack him for political gain. Proposes a gradual reduction on middle east oil but has not said much about it in his campaign. Talks of nuclear power but not without being able to safely dispose of the waste.

Mmmmk. That's all I have time for now. Hope you enjoyed. Many thanks to Discover magazine for the recent article detailing all this.

"...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

"My religion consists of a humble admiration for the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds."

-Albert Einstein

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

-Aristotle

Quick - what has 4 'eyes' and still can't see? How about this way - what has four 'I's' and still can't see?

Mississippi.

Haha. Of course I got that from the very power movie that I just watched last night called 'Mississippi Burning', which if you haven't seen - is a must see, just like 'To Kill A Mockingbird'.

One of the characters in it who came across a black man that the KKK had tortured summed up what I'm feeling lately about some of the people in the world.

"What the hell is wrong with these people?"

Yes, what is wrong with these people indeed. But more than that, the movie from a historical standpoint showed that not very far back (1964), we had people in THIS country doing things just as terrible as the beheadings in Iraq today.

And I'm slowly beginning to realize that people have been doing terrible things to each other pretty much since day 1. This makes me wonder even more - Instead of just saying "Oh well, that's human nature..." I seek to understand what makes people tick in this way. What in our evolutionary past makes us so different and unique from the rest of the life on this planet?

You don't see any member of the animal kingdom going out of their way to kill, torture, maime, or destroy others that are different. It just doesn't happen.

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that our high degree of organized intelligence and corresponding emotional states must play a huge role in our instability. There IS a tradeoff for everything. Economic systems have tradeoffs, evolutionary advantages have tradeoffs, coming into work late has a tradeoff.

You never get anything for free, and we are no exception.

The woman in the movie near the end summed it up so well. She said something along the lines of:

"People aren't born with this hatred, it's taught. Starting out at 7 years old if you're told something enough, you'll believe it as the truth."

And it's so sad, but so hard to overcome. Many of the people in rural Mississippi were devout Christians during this time, quoting the Bible and deriving their narrow version of the truth from it. On the outside, they didn't seem like horrible people. They had families, loved their children, went to church, socialized...

But they were taught that the Bible taught them to hate other races and keep them seperate from the Anglo-Saxon's. They were taught it was a way of life. It really did take religion to make good people do evil things...

Since race is such an abstract concept, it's horrible to think that slightly different skin tone or belief system can alienate us as if we were all from a different planet. I'd like to think our intelligence and social understanding has evolved far enough to overcome these sectional differences we harbor only in our minds.

I guess we can all still strive for utopia, no matter how unreachable it seems...

P.S. I have to whine here like Mooniethecat for a NOMINATE NOMINATE NOMINATE. Well, not really, I don't care...I just like to make people think about something that maybe they hadn't entertained before.

Back to the misery of it all....

And although work isn't that bad and there are many times I actually enjoy being here - I would, of course, love to be somewhere else doing something else.

The only problem is I'm not sure what I'd rather be doing.

See that picture on the top of my blog? Well, I'd much rather be there. But who wouldn't? And what exactly would I do there? I'd have to find a job that allowed me to be outside, productive, and making money...haha, good luck with that.

You spend 5 days a week at your job for the most part. Usually during the prime hours of the day. This is most of your life. Many of us will look at the clock - waiting for it to go by so we can leave our job and go home - back to our families, friends, social clubs, etc.

We wish our lives away. We settle. We hope for the weekends and for freedom.

And in the meantime, in all this wishing and bordem and non-excitement - your life gets lived in the meanwhile.

I see my co-workers - many much older, concerned about this and that in the working world. The only difference we all make here is that we keep the machine running. We're not helping the poor or feeding the hungry. We're not ending injustice or getting rid of dictators. We're mere pawns in the social ant colony of it all.

Is that our destiny? Are we no more than giant ants, each reglagated to a certain meanial task meant to keep the entire society running?

Once again, we're nominated back to being slaves to our own intelligence and self-awareness. Perhaps this is the way it should - it HAS to be, but since we're intelligent, emotional, ethnocentric - we don't want to settle for it this way. It seems unfair to have to do something most of your life that you'd rather not do.

As for me, I'd rather be outside in the woods breathing the fall air, talking about the world with my friends around a campfire. Reading a book in the waning light of the day or making love in the moonlight on a lake shore. I'd rather laugh for the sheer unadulterated joy of it instead of groaing because I have to be back to work the next day.

It's too bad humanity has made themselves slaves to green pieces of paper worth no more than the value we place on it only in our minds.

It's amazing the power an idea can have...

War.

Consisting of feuding, raiding, and open warfare.

Many behavioral specialists are convinced that human beings are by nature aggressive animals. Only one other primate shares this outward aggression (the Chimpanze) and they happen to be our closest living relative. They may be the only other species on this planet that practices genocide.

That aside, to survive as a species we must have had a reason to be aggressive. Since primates are not physically very equipped as predators, we needed to be aggressive in order to move up the hierarchy...in order to survive.

Leaders spend much of their active time in politics. They intimidate, scheme, form short-term alliances with others to further their own goals and standing in the ladder of society. The reward can be food, sex, land, or the dominion over others.

Sounds a lot like today's world. However, I was just describing a basic Chimpanze society.

Warfare gains more access to what our society values. It's exceedingly simple when you look at it from a historical and anthropological view.

Feuding is about revenge. The old additive is true - and eye for an eye. No one wants to look weak in the eyes of their neighbor lest more people take advantage of them. A feud usually doesn't involve an entire community - just members within the community who have a dispute. This was a common form of revenge within the earliest societies when disputes could not be settled by the members of the community. Murder was sometimes the number 1 cause of death in hunter-gatherer societies.

A raid has more economical implications. Very early agrarian socieites (Plains Indians of North America) used this predatory attacks against neighboring communities to gain plunder and then escape unharmed. Stealing cattle, goods, women and children was a prime reason for this. Once this was done for the betterment of the victorious society, the leaders (young men) would gain prestige and glory for their acts - thus elevating them to the status of leaders and encouraging the cycle to continue with more young, aggressive, warlike men. This behavior keeps young men trained to protect their families and can also be influenced by a simply scarcity of natural resources.

Open warfare is almost non-existent in small-scale socities. This may be due to the fact that the economic implications of fielding an army are extremely difficult. Add that to very small population densities, and small societies cannot afford to maintain extended and open warfare with each other. Of course it doesn't mean they never fight with their neighbors - but they would often practice fighting under strict rules and break off if the casualities became too great.

Since the first evidence of large scale warfare wasn't until about 5,000 years ago, it should come as no surprise as this was simply a continuation of previous quarrels human socities have been having with each other. The only difference now is that 7,000 - 5,000 years ago, large scale civilizations began to appear - thereby putting a whole new and violent face on warfare.

The reasons why warfare and modern warfare are not much removed from our basic tenants of war in general. They are usually complex, but always consist of at least one of the following:

Revenge, more control of land, religious or political ideals, growing population pressure that led to a scarcity of land, water, or other essential resources (OIL). Every society going to war has thus believed they were morally justified or that the gods were on their side.

So, if anyone asks you today why we're in Iraq, don't listen to the regular blatherings coming from the short-sighted politicians or the media. We're there for reasons as ancient as humanity. And of course...God is on our side.

Right?

It's raining outside. Still a joyous New England-type fall. Tree's haven't changed color yet here in Connecticut.

Some of your out there in the bloggin world are completely insane. Concerned only with being nominated or the best of how many "friends" you have on your list. Some of your out there use stupid symbolisms too much =D or :) and way too many god damn !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND PLEASE STOP ALWAYS TYPING IN CAPS FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DO IT. IT'S REALLY GOD DAMN ANNOYING.

SEE? GETS OLD DOESN'T IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One more tidbit. Beauty is totally relative - not only through culture and distance, but through time as well. There were times in the 19th century when Europeans liked big fat large hipped rolling hippo women. Today we call those same women fat and digusting, but there was a time when that wasn't so.

I mean, seriously - can you really imagine thinking Roseanne Barr as being a desirable mate?

And if beauty is relative, what does that say about our reliance on genetics as a beauty factor? It makes no sense. Beauty is a reflection of culture.

Maybe I should start a revolution and start dating the fattest woman out there with the most rolls. Yum.

Tithing to churches has to be about as intelligent as giving to Pat Robertson or anyone else closely resembling the 700 club.

Most churches use this money to support their own operations of filthy outdated lies, to support their idiot congregations who spend entire summers going door to door spreading these rumours about Jesus and their version of the truth, or perhaps to give money to their own congregation when they can't quite afford to go on that church cruise to the Bahamas because they decided to have 8 more kids.

What's that you say? Your church gives money to the church food bank? Or the community food bank? That's great, but what's to stop you from going to that said food bank and giving food and or money yourself without letting hypocrite hands touch it first?

Instead, you should happily tithe 10% of your money to organizations who actually give a shit and don't keep things under lock and key until you profess to love Jesus and promise never to have an abortion or use birth control because Jesus wouldn't approve.

Try Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org) or the International Rescue Committee (www.theIRC.org). Those are just two of the organizations who actually give a damn and get out in the field and help people, not become missionaries and hide behind a chartiy organization to try and spread this disease of religion any further.

I can't wait for the day one of your fools happens to blindly stumble upon my house with intentions of converting me to loving Jesus as Lord and God almighty. I'll stand there and smile, nod, then proceed to beat the shit out of you and crucify you upside down at the bottom of my septic tank.. Maybe then you'll get my drift.

Religion is such a disease. Grow up and start making a difference in the world instead of perpetuating this plague.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=3&u=/latimests/20040928/ts_latimes/anattackonthewilltolearn

Administration justifies going into Iraq now for this exact same reasons...even though those weren't the reasons a few months back.

But they balk at going in Sudan with a coalition of the willing in order to enforce the will of the world and international law?

AND YOU FUCKING RETARDED BUSH SUPPORTERS AREN'T PISSED AT THIS DOUBLE STANDARD?

Hence my point is proven that you are like parrots - just repeat what they want you to repeat so you can get your $300 tax break cracker. Morons.

A new poll from USA Today/CNN/Gallup showed similar results. Bush leads Kerry by eight points — 52-44 — among likely voters and by 11 points — 53-42 — among all registered voters.  Nader claims three percent in both cases.

And a poll of  registered voters from the Pew Research Center gave Bush a 48-40 lead with Nader garnering 2 percent.

In conducting their poll, the Post and ABC found that Bush has built his lead by through "relentless attacks on Kerry" that have "badly damaged the Democratic nominee. ... Voters routinely describe Kerry as wishy-washy, as a flip-flopper and as a candidate they are not sure they can trust, almost as if they are reading from Bush campaign ad scripts."

Because they are. This administration has shown througout history this is exactly what it does. It plays on character assassination.  People who support Bush have no idea why.

Bush supporters are scared, stupid people cowering in the corner pissing and shitting themselves while praying to Jesus.

That about sums it up nicely.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&ncid=1802&e=2&u=/washpost/20040929/ts_washpost/a58183_2004sep28

Yet another bleak intelligence assessment.

Oh that's right - terribly biased liberal media. We built a school somewhere in there and some roads and people want us there, love us, don't try to bomb us.

George Bush and his administration didn't rush to war...no, no, no. They had a plan, clear cut, get Saddam out of power and then...

Roses at our feet! Simple as that. Pump some oil, oil prices go down to 30 dollars a barrel, Iraq is an ally, rich country again, the Middle East changes to a democracy overnight.

Somehow take everything they've said, and then say the exact opposite - and you'll have the truth. Come on now - I'm still waiting to hear why you support Bush?

Perhaps you want the draft so you can be the first thrown into a war with Iran. Or maybe Syria. Take your pick. I'll be laughing at you from Canada while you die a miserable death in the desert.

Have fun.

I was at my friend Vic's last night drinking a few beers, watching that 'Origins' special on PBS through Nova - which is extremely interesting if a bit elementary...

And his fiance came home - very nice girl. She works as a nurse all day, everyday and see's people dying on a regular basis.

Of course we all got into political discussions at first. Everyone agreed on voting for Kerry (but because of the electoral college, it doesn't make much of a difference here).

And then she wanted to talk about religion. So we did. Vic said something along the lines of "The more I learn, the more educated I become, the less and less I believe in religion or a God...at all."

We were agruing nicely the factual points of it all to his fiance, but the funny part about it was - she wouldn't listen. She'd hear us, nod, then say "I don't care what the facts are, I need to believe this, I just can't believe that a person just ends and doesn't go anywhere. I don't care what you say, I need this."

More and more debate, talking about how everything that religion believes a God to be is totally contradictory. An all powerful God would not make a hell. He would not allow all this injustice and murder to go on. Or beheadings. Or anything for that matter. If an all powerful God was indeed concerned with the fate and actions of men - he could easily just pick up his God finger and put an end to it. How about that guy killed in Iraq? Did God answer his prayers or screams? Does he believe in a God now?

No, of course not...

But it didn't matter. She kept saying she didn't care and it didn't matter what we said, she couldn't accept the fact there was no afterlife.

Amazing. Now I see firsthand that you can never argue logically with people who have faith. Some people simply aren't strong enough to face this world without religion. It's sad, but true. If they use it to enrich their lives - fine...

But many don't. Many wear it on their sleeves, judge, then try to impose their version of morality upon the rest of us. There are those out there who worship people like John Ashcroft and George Bush.

It's a scary prospect those people who can be told the truth but won't listen.

Oh my dear God....

I just watched the debate, and my first impression is...

If you still support that bumbling idiot Bush...you belong in a dumpster. Good God, Kerry was decisive, strong, straight-forward, and didn't rely on the typical Bush 4-point plan of terror and fear. Bush didn't know what the hell hit him. Kerry said exactly what we all should be thinking right now, and even I haven't been a huge or ardent Kerry fan. But man...what a nightmare it is listening to Bush. He definately could get lost in a paper bag.

Wow....

Really...now I can use this weekend to get myself away from reality.

First, let me apologize for being overly judgemental, hypocritical, brash, etc this week in regards to other points of views. I got myself especially worked up and have a lot of stress going on at work that seems to reflect itself rather unkindly here. If I want change, I have to be part of it to.

Secondly, just a few points about the debate. There will be spin now from either side - who said what, who was more decisive. There are those out there who still call Kerry indecisive and think somehow he is going to sell out our national security to the rest of the world and other alliances. Come on now. No President has ever nor has the power to do that. Kerry is speaking about rebuilding alliances - because like it or not, you can't win a global war on terror if everyone hates you. In fact, there has never been any war without a complex series of shifting alliances. This country will never sell itself out to the policies of the EU or Asia. To think that, one is becoming entirely too alarmist.

What I liked is how Kerry explained his changing positions per my quick post below. New facts do come in - that while they don't affect your core values - they do make a new approach to a problem seem reasonable. Once again, to believe that he has no convictions and is just  a slave to public opinion is kinda absurd. He has shown consistently that he can change with the times - something that is very necessary in this ever-changing world.

Bush was extremely one-tracked, locked into a repeating routine. "I KNOW how the world works." Now, I remember just yesterday I was jumped all over when I claimed to know the "truth", so one should also jump all over Bush for the same thing. No one knows how the world works nor what everyone else is thinking. Once again, this is different from being strong, decisive, and having a core belief system. We need look no further than to the banter about Iraq. Time and time again we hear "We're staying the course in Iraq" while nothing gets better. There is no plan. This is not being decisive or strong and steadfast - it's stubborness, unwillingness to realize the gravity of the situation. Bush should be shaking up his cabinet and getting new, fresh ideas in - something he has never done.

It's the issues that should be addressed. Go to the drudgereport and see that they're  happily attacking away at Kerry misspeaking about the Subway's in NY or a square somewhere in Germany that I've never heard about. It's typical. I don't give a rat's behind if he messed up a figure that should have been 140 billion dollars and instead said 200 billion. That's still a hell of a lot of money we've pumped into Iraq and what really has gotten done? Don't skirt the issue here and say "Look what Matt Drudge said, Kerry LIED about the Subway's in NEW YORK!!!"

Please. That doesn't strike down to the core values of either candidate. Look at their character, their presentation, their demeanor. Realize neither one is perfect and they both mess up. Look and see who was decisive, who seemed more intelligent, who seemed more with the times and in touch with reality. Define "inconsistent", "flip-flop", "indecisive" for yourself  - don't fall prey to ad-campaigns.

yay!

Read this good article and see why it isn't always about left or right.

http://www.indystar.com/articles/0/182591-1310-021.html

I wish life was always this simple

somedays...

but somedays I dont

strange

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6159637/site/newsweek/

And how could you not? I said it before, this is the first time that I've ever seen Kerry and could honestly say I can see him being President. Glorious indeed.

So I can indeed be fair and balanced, do read how the tax projections get subjected to various schemes by all parties and all individuals (including myself perhaps if I made more than 200,000 dollars a year)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=1&u=/latimests/20041002/ts_latimes/senatorstaxplanmaynotraiseallheexpects

It's been a rough few days...

A couple of weeks ago I had a bought with what I guess would be called a panic attack. It subsided after a few hours, and I decided then and there I would quit doing any type of illegal drugs (pot) because perhaps this was the cause of it.

So, this past friday, I had another one - not onset by anything as I could figure out. The only way I was able to bring myself back from near insanity is to drink a few beers to sedate myself - which helped for the rest of the night.

Saturday, I woke up feeling weird, uneasy...tightness in my chest. I quit coffee that day as well, to take another factor off of it. I felt somewhat OK for the rest of the day, we hung out with some friends, cooked food, drank some beers. Still a nagging, weird feeling, tightness in my chest, sweaty hands.

When I woke up with much the same feeling yesterday, I had my roommate bring to the the Urgent Care Center. They hooked me up to an EKG, checked my heart, did like 3 blood scans. Besides the thyroid test - which isn't due back until tomorrow - they found nothing. Heart seemed find, whatever else they tested in my blood seemed fine.

Rest of yesterday was OK, sleep was fine, I woke up fine...but I got to work and started getting the same old feeling again - like impending doom for no reason whatsoever. Thank God doc perscribed me some sedatives, which help immensely - but they aren't solving the problem whatever it is. So, I called the doctor they referred me to and somehow I was able to get int at 11:15am this morning - which is a relief because whatever is going on is extremely debilitating not to mention downright terrifying.

I beginning to think I've developed a chemical imbalance somwhere in my brain, serotonin levels off, I don't really know what. I'm eager to see what Dr. perscribes me after I go through the routines of this and that. I obviously need something...why now it developed - I have no idea. It's all very baffling to me, but I hear chemical imbalances and aniexty can be this way often.

Well, thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

I keep saying this to myself:

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its' path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

How those words have more meaning than ever right now.

*TRUST WALMART*

One day, in line at the company cafeteria, Joe says to Mike behind him, "My elbow hurts like hell. I guess I better see a doctor."

"Listen, you don't have to spend that kind of money," Mike replies. "There's a diagnostic computer down at Wal-Mart. Just give it a urine sample and the computer will tell you what's wrong and what to do about it. It takes ten seconds and costs ten dollars...a lot cheaper than a doctor."

So Joe deposits a urine sample in a small jar and takes it to Wal-Mart. He deposits ten dollars, and the computer lights up and asks for the urine sample. He pours the sample into the slot and waits. Ten seconds later, the computer ejects a printout: "You have tennis elbow. Soak your arm in warm water and avoid heavy activity. It will improve in two weeks." Thank you for shopping @ Wal-Mart.

That evening while thinking how amazing this new technology was, Joe began wondering if the computer could be fooled. He mixed some tap water, a stool sample from his dog, urine samples from his wife and daughter, and a sperm sample for good measure.

Joe hurries back to Wal-Mart, eager to check the results. He deposits ten dollars, pours in his concoction, and awaits the results. The computer prints the following:

1. Your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener. (Aisle 9)

2. Your dog has ringworm. Bathe him with anti-fungal shampoo. (Aisle 7)

3. Your daughter has a cocaine habit. Get her into rehab.

4. Your wife is pregnant. Twins. They aren't yours. Get a lawyer.

5. If you don't stop playing with yourself, your elbow will never get better.

Thank you for shopping @ Wal-Mart.

I was contemplating the proposition on the ballot in Colorado this November that would make their electoral college votes go to a "proportional allocation" instead of  a winner take all system. Since the issue will affect this election if it passes, you can surely bet this could become a Supreme Court case and make Colorado the next Florida.

Basically, a proportional allocation system would give each candidate a comprable electoral vote based on the percentage of votes they get in the state. If Kerry gets 30% and Bush 60%, then Bush would get somewhere around 6 of Colorado's 9 electoral votes while Kerry gets 3. Proponents say this would really make every vote count, would be more fair, the people who really did the best nationwide would get elected, etc.

At first, I was all for this - but then I realized there is another side to every story.

If the electoral system were to change nation-wide, the entire aspects of the Presidential race would change as well. You would have these smaller swing states losing out from the current system. Candidates would spend more time in the biggest states - the biggest cities, for that matter - with the biggest media markets. This would totally overthrow the current style of the Presidential race. You would have mass marketing in the biggest urban areas instead of the door-to-door campaigns in states such as Iowa or New Hampshire. Candidates would be picked almost on a Big-brother aspect - those who could bombard the masses with an endless media campaign. There would be hardly any human interaction.

Before we cry that Bush lost the popular vote - (only by .5%) lets look at the facts. Bush carried 30 out of 50 states and 228 out of the 435 congressional districts. As for counties, Bush carried 2,480 to Gore's 674. Bush, as a candidate, was indeed picked because of his broader national appeal - and regardless of what we say, it was a national election - not a regional choice.

The electoral college hasn't been changed in 200 years and I'm not sure now that it really need reform.

I'm bored, so here's a quick list of the best National Parks I've been to.

1. Glacier National Park - Northwest Montana

• Nowhere else can you find indescribable beauty and tranquility, with plains of wildflowers turning into 10,000 foot peaks in a moment. The lake water is the bluest and clearest in the world, the waterfalls are abundant and towering. The whole place it out of a dream (see picture on top).

2.  Olympic National Park - Northwest Washington State

• In terms of diversity, you'd be hard pressed to find anything close to this. Roads barely touch the park, almost the entire place is pure wilderness and backcountry. You can go from Glacier capped Mount Olympus (9,000') to the largest temperate rainforest in the country, down to foggy and sea-stacked Pacific beaches - all while not leaving the same national park. I highly recommend backcountry camping here.

3.  Mount Rainer National Park - Washington State

• In my opinion, nothing will make you feel as insignificant as standing next to this massive volcano. It's capped by over 27 glaciers year round - and even though the temperatures in the summer often times get into the high 80's, it's very easy to find a big snowfield to cool off in. Rainer rises to 14,411', and climbing it is one of my goals. The backcountry hiking through the alpine wildflower trails and around the waterfalls melting from the glaciers is surreal.

4.  Crater Lake National Park - Oregon

• Deepest lake in the United States - 1,942' deep. Formed when a volcano erupted 8,000 years ago blowing off the top of the mountain. Frequent snow (300-400 inches a year) quickly filled the lake to the present depth. The lake has no inlet - thus the water is pure - and blue. Unmatched blue, for that matter. On a clear, sunny day, you'd think it was a painting. You can drink straight from the lake.

5.  Mesa Verde National Park - Cortez, Colorado

• The first park dedicated so because of the archaeological ruins. Contains some 600 ancient Anasazi (Pueblo) dwellings - many of them the spectacular cliff palaces built right into the canyon walls. On many of the houses, you can still find the fingerprints of the builders along with discared corn and char marks from fires. Pretty amazing when you consider the builders lived between 500-1100 AD. Not only rich in archaeological sites - also an amazing canyon untouched and unspoiled by development.

It's hard to pick. I know I left out some like Yosemite, Yellowstone, Great Smokies, Acadia...but even before I rated them, I'd put Canyonlands and Petrified Forest above them. And I almost forgot about the Badland of South Dakota. Those are amazing as well.

Do you remember the days when politicians would assure their respected public that their fear was unjustified and to perservere, we only had to overcome it? For example:

"The only thing we have to fear is fear it'self - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
-FDR

Or perhaps"

“If you're going through hell, keep going.”

-Winston Churchill

Maybe...

"The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of the final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy A man does what he must-in spite of personal consequences; in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures-and that is the basis of all morality."

-JFK 

I was looking for some more Abraham Lincoln quotes on courage and fear because he had to reassure the public many times in spite of the adversity they faced - to carry on in the face of fear.

So, what happened to this precipt? Why do our politicians in office (namely the GOP) insist on their fear-mongering? How do you reassure the public and win the war when you constantly and consistently bring up fear as a tactic to scare people into voting for you?

This flies in the face of every precedent set before in our history. We are building not a stronger country, but a more Orwellian society run on scare tactics. Equating votes to the other party as a victory for terrorists, raising the alert levels constantly for politican gain, making the less educated among us (many I've seen from my hometown) actually fear that terrorists are lurking in the woods ready to come out and behead their children...

There's a difference between courage and fear. And this administration only know fear. Fear makes you weak.

If you have half a mind, you'll vote them out of office this November.

I remember learning in school about Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, Animalia - the delightful 5 kingdoms of life on this planet.

Of course, after I got into high school, we learned that it was really Archaebacteria and Eubacteria that should constitute the kingdom Monera because of inherent difference in the way they live in their structure.

Now, children are learning instead about 3 domains of life - Eukarya, Archaea, and Bacteria - then further divide into the Kingdoms and into the Phyla, etc, etc.

What will kids be taught tomorrow? This is why it's extremely important to always pay attention and change as our knowledge base changes. Just a few months ago, scientists stumblied onto a remarkable discovery. Remember those little choanoflagellates you used to look at under a microscope in high school? Those single cells with the little thread like tail sticking out their hindquarters that moved them along?

Turns out the earliest and most primitive step they next took was to form colonies together and act like an animal was in a sea sponge. Sponges are composed of these cells, acting together, eating other things - but with no tissue, muscles, organs or nerves. They were, in essence, the first step towards complex animal life.

Actually, they really were the first type of animal. Their linage can be traced back through RNA to Fungi (your common mushroom for instance). Fungi is more closely related to an animal than a plant.

But a spong holds the distinction for possibly being the first to take those steps towards animalhood by developing specialized cells.

I bet you'll never look at a mushroom or a sponge the same again. 

How do you fools like your administration now? Hmmmmm? They're not all into big business and corporate interests? 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041008/ap_on_el_pr/cheney_iran

It's interesting we get off Columbus Day considering the rather large Native American population in this area. I, for one, think we should also get off the day the Vikings discovered Newfoundland, the day the first Eurasian people crossed the Bering land bridge, and maybe the controversial day that Polynesians did or did not happen to cross over and land somewhere in South America. All predate Columbus by thousands of years, and we'd get more days off from work.

Secondly, being childishly accused by hypocrites such as Tootboy of having romantic intentions towards farm animals, I would like to dispell such rumors right now. I don't agree with farming practices by these huge corporations, so I keep my lustful animal intentions reserved for purely wild fauna - such a deer and caribou. Moose were another favorite, but they tend to get a bit ornery.

Third, to easily dispell such agruments again by people such as Tootboy, lets speak for a moment about Bush's tax cuts. While they are touted by helping the middle class by saving you - oh, let's say between $800-$1000 a year, they also similiarily save the upper class and business owners anywhere between $5000-millions of dollars. The argument goes that if you give huge tax breaks to these business's, they will then use it to expand their said business, hire more people, give a boost to the economy.

No, no, no. First of all, business's and rich people are extremely adept at finding loopholes in tax codes to get out of paying much money at all. This money that they are saving goes nowhere except to increase and pad their portfolios or be able to buy that extra 500 dollar a plate meal at downtown Manhattan. You argue that we get all this money back every year and what a glorious thing it is. Are you so shortsighted not to see how much the average prices for GAS, and HEATING OIL, and HEALTH CARE have risen in that same time period? Any tax cut to give us back a mere pittance is easily offset and probably taken over by the huge increases in necessities while Bush has been at the helm. To think it's a happy coincidence that these prices of every single oil based product have risen to record levels when an administration is in office that has oodles of ties to every major oil company and family in the world is as absurd as believing Noah's Ark is on top of Mt. Ararat.

Oh yea, and our "foreign policy" is a sham and has been ever since the end of the cold war. I was listening to an excellent commentary from a Congressman in Washington yesterday saying and admiting the obvious - any foreign policy decision we make is based on economics - not on these "reasons" the administration uses now for being in Iraq - Saddam was bad, terrorizing himself and his own people, freedom to Iraqi people, etc. To repeat that as good and ample reasons for being in Iraq can and should immediately be discounted as absurdity good only for the less-educated masses. Clinton went into Somolia and Kosovo - but skimped on Rwanda and publicly apologized for it. Name me the economic reasons for being in Somolia?

Let's see Bush apologize for not going into Sudan. The idiot wouldn't even send troops to help Liberia - a country that wanted us there, begged for us to help them stem the violence.

Bush has shown again and again that he's a slave to the all-mightly dollar. And you who support him are no better.

Interesting perspective of someone on the ground. I guess it doesn't matter whether you are conservative or liberal when assessing the gravity of the situation in Iraq:

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=72659

With the elections near, we hear more and more about getting the "black vote" or the "hispanic vote" even maybe the "asian vote". It's too bad our politicians won't take a leap beyond themselves to realize race is nothing more than cultural.

With the divergence from Africa happening only about 150,000 years ago - a mere blip in the geological timescale - there simply isn't enough time to allow widespread genectic diversity that would term "race" as we define it now.

A few weeks back I informed my Grandfather that an old childhood friend of my fathers had married a black lady. Without hesitating, he immediately said: "Well, he better not bring her up here to meet me." I had to bite my tongue but my heart wanted to scream out: "WHY the HELL not? She bears no more distinction from your white neighbor next door or his previous wife! There is no difference except for her skin color!"

It's a sad and horrible ignorant fact that people still draw distinctions that aren't there. We might as well start lumping all the tall people above 6'-3" into one category and call them a race. Or the people with blue eyes and dark hair. Or fat people. Maybe short people should be a "race" too.

Ideas, ideas, ideas. Muslims killing Jews. Christians killing Muslims. What's the difference other than an idea? Look at Palestians and Israelites. Can you tell the difference? Does it really matter?

An insight into genetics and evolution will tell you it doesn't.

Maybe we can get beyond the squabbling of the last post that turned inadvertently into a Bush-bashing campaign and a religious debate. I was just *trying* to show that skin color really has no more bearing on a person than the genetics that make up their height, eye color, prepensity towards heart disease, etc.

Secondly, interesting article linked off Drudge that I heard about on Thom Hartman's show about a fradulant voter-registration company that has been gleefully registering voters and then tearing to ribbons any registration that had the slightest stink of belonging to a Democrat:

http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421595&nav=168XRvNe

Turns out they've moved to another swing state to continue their practices. The best part is the last few lines: "The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee."

So, couple that with the fact that Bush had *something* taped in between his shoulderblade during the debate (probably a mind-control device to keep him from acting like himself. Batteries must have died) AND the fact that Ann Coulter released a new hodgepodge of lies...I mean, book, that didn't manage to unseat 'Daily Show' (didn't even come close), and we seem to have a wave of desperation and lies from Republicans coming to the surface in droves right before the election.

What a delightful country we live in. Check the date - are we sure it isn't 1984?

Check out this entry:

http://sarcasmsvoice.mindsay.com/?entry=16

See? There is hope for all you conservatives out there still supporting this administration even though they don't stand for anything you actually believe in!

I love you all regardless of our conflicting views. We couldn't have one view without the other. Enjoy this delightful picture.

Poor hypocrite O'Reilly. This may finally be his undoing. The detail she goes into can only make you assume she taped many - if not all of his perverse monolouges. Just make sure you read the part about Al Fraken, how no one would believe a "Crazy psychotic woman" AND THE PART WHERE HE GOT HIMSELF OFF WHILE USING A VIBRATOR. Oh man, this couldn't get any better. He even goes as far as to state (according to her,mind you) that Fox news president extends to the upper reaches of power in the nation (namely Cheney and Bush). The house of cards the Republicans built is falling down at the most opportune time.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1013043mackris1.html

You hear it all the time.

There's no evidence. No evidence of evolution, speciation, global warming, or any human induced climate change.

Forget everything you've learned for a minute and realize there is evidence. Irrefutable evidence all around you. From ice cores, to zircon crystal dating, and fossil and geological records - it's all there. This type of issue is something that we need to be concerned about, because as http://jamesn.mindsay.com pointed out in his recent posts, creationists are attempting to ram a new and improved version of their ideas called 'Intelligent Design' down the public educational sector's collective throats.

The argument goes something like this: The body parts and plans, from our hearts and eyes to our circulatory and nervous systems are so complex that there is no way they could be created except for being guided by an unseen hand. "You can't have one without the other", they argue. They look at it all, and see how perfect and beautiful it all is, and cannot jump to any other conclusion. A 19th century Paley's watch and rock argument under a new name, if you will.

News flash. We're far from perfect. Our individual body parts are far from perfect as well. Even the human eye - often cited as an example - has some inherent defects that fly in the face of all logic and reason if attempting to understand it from being designed by a diety. Why, for instance, do humans still retain pieces of a tailbone? Or an appendix and sinuses? Why do whales still maintain vestiges of rear legs attached to their skeletal structure? Why do snakes have 4 pieces of bones where their legs should be? Evolution, on the other hand, is far from perfect. Evolution is simply a change, a tinkering, and must do the best it can given a bad situation - namely our ancestors.

The human eye. A marvelous and wonderful creation that defies logic for some people. It seems perfect.

Not quite.

When light enters a vertebrates eye, it travels through and strikes the photoreceptors of the retina. Funny thing is, the neurons on the retina are actually pointed backwards - as if we are looking into our own brains. Light then has to make its way through many layers of neurons and a web of capillaries before it even gets to nerve endings that can detect it.

Once it gets there, it has to send those signals back up towards the front of the eye - with the neurons having to process signals constantly to sharpen the image. It finally gets to the optic nerve, but then has to burrow back down through the mess of neurons and capillaries in order to leave the eye and finally get to the back of the brain.

The architecture of this is not only counterintuitive - but "stupidy desiged" as George Williams put it. By having to travel through this mess countless times, the actual image we get is horribly degraded, forcing our eyes to make millions of tiny movements to create shading so we can really decide what we are seeing. Yet another flaw is how the neurons attach to the optic nerve on top of the retina. This blocks more light - creating the blind spots that I'm sure you all have sometimes seen.

People still holding onto the idea of God designing all this will cry out how perhaps this was the best way and we really don't understand the mind or logic of God. News Flash #2. Eyes don't have to be designed this way to work perfectly well - or better.

Take a squid, for instance. They have eyes so powerful that they can track prey in near darkness. They have circular eyes with lenses - just like us - but incoming light immediately strikes the inner wall of a squids eye, hitting the vast army of photoreceptors and sending that signal immediately to the brain. It never had to travel through any mishmash like every other vertebrates's eye requires.

So, what does this all mean? It means to step back and look at our ancestors for answers to our question of why we have these flaws and are far from having the best or most logical design.

The closest living relative of all vertebrates today is an organism called the Lancelet. It's a fan-like creature that lives planted in the ocean but it provides an excellent example of the development of life. A lancet has a crude network of neurons running along its back (spinal cord), receptors and nerves connected to neurons near its head (brain and eyes) and a basic opening for ingesting food (mouth).

When we look at the cross section of the Lancelet's eye and the developing eye of a vertebrate - low and behold - they are almost identical. The lancelet has the same arrangement and development of eye receptors and nerve cells that point inward. The pigment shield and optic never run in exactly the same place as all living vertebrates today. The reasons the Lancelet had it's receptors pointing the "wrong way" (according to us) is that it's eye opening was on the other side of its almost headless body - something it uses to orient itself in the water. The eye was built in this basic creature the way it was because it made sense - it had to be built that way for the creature to survive.

Evolution and our control genes could not change this basic design as they had no idea where the development would lead - it's a mindless process. But they could improve on that original design - and improve they did. Keeping the same basic design - the same genetic tool kit - it has fashioned out every organism you see today out of this basic, yet imperfect vertebrate design.

Next week I'll finally be able to get into Hox genes and gene duplication to show how speciation could occur. For instance, how a whale went from a water dwelling organism to a coyote-like land animal, then back into the whales we know today.

Ahhh, the complex mangrove of life. A far more beautiful thing to try and understand the baffling instead of throwing a simple answer of 'God' on it.

God was missing for six days. Eventually, Michael, the archangel, found him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God. "Where have you been?"

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look, Michael. Look what I've made."

Archangel Michael looked puzzled, and said, "What is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put Life on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of earth. "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while southern Europe is going to be poor. Over there I've placed a continent of white people, and over there is a continent of black people. Balance in all things," God continued pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot, while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."

The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a land area and said, "What's that one?"

"Ah," said God "That's Washington State, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful mountains, rivers and streams, lakes, forests, hills, plains, and coulees. The people from Washington State are going to be handsome, modest, intelligent, and humorous, and they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking, high achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats, and carriers of peace."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, but then proclaimed, "What about balance, God? You said there would be balance."

God smiled, "There is another Washington...wait until you see the idiots I put there."

I am terribly confused with the terminology some of you use to term us "liberals" and then have the audacity to make the entire thing a negative connotation.

1. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
2. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

ChampyRIT: I wonder what shit of a tax cut I'll get this year

ChampyRIT: probably like a hundred bucks

ChampyRIT: these idiots

ChampyRIT: OH WE GOT TAX CUTS!!!

Czerkman: wow a one time check of 300 dollars... awesome lets reelect him

ChampyRIT: but no matter gas and heating oil and health care and condoms have all risen like 50% in that same time

ChampyRIT: OFFSETTING THAT TAX CUT

ChampyRIT: fucking shortsighted idiots

Czerkman: instead of a tax cut just get me a job asshole president

ChampyRIT: I know, I've been applying for jobs in syracuse for like 6 months now

ChampyRIT: the only person who called me back was burger king offering me a job cleaning out shitters

ChampyRIT: then they found someone more qualified who had a Ph.D in nuclear physics

ChampyRIT: his job was outsourced to gayistan

So, it appears someone at Sinclair spoke out against the "news" they are putting on the public airwaves. I'll give you one guess what happened to him.

Yes, he got fired.

The problem with the Republican machine in office today is they can't take any type of criticism, and they don't play fair. Each side has their own viewpoints - and yes, of course they are both biased. But God forbid the Democrats play any type of smear campaign to keep up with the Republicans' blathering lies. What happens?

The whiny...ahem..."girlie men" call in, complain, get their big business buddies to complain. Threaten boycotts, threaten physical harm to newspapers in Texas that endorse Kerry. They don't attempt to actually play by the rules and put their verison of the "truth" on some pay per view channel or in the movies. No, no, no. They use the public airwaves. Or they just flat out lie and keep beating it into your heads - "Kerry's a liberal. A flip-flopper. Outsourcing our defense. Wants to kill babies. Hates Christians. Will take away your guns."

And your eyes glaze over and you begin to drool a bit. And you repeat it like a bunch of zombies and profess your undying love to Big Brother...I mean Bush. And it's OK that he really doesn't stand for anything in the Republican party let alone being a conservative. Because you hate Kerry - because of the flip-flopping and lying and stuff.

Bush plays to the more rustic crowd by acting like some regular Joe, just a common guy running our country. And people like his bumblings and slip-up's. But man - do some of the less educated hate Kerry with a passion. They say he's too much like a politician, he thinks too much about stuff, he's too intellectual.

Dear God. Is this what our country has really come to? We'd rather have an idiot in office who is being run like a puppet from the big business machine behind the curtains? Do you really believe the emperor isn't naked? Do you realize that Kerry would never "outsource" our defense AND THAT HISTORY HAS PROVEN TIME AND AGAIN YOU NEED STRONG, SMART PEOPLE IN OFFICE THAT CAN BE DIPLOMATS NOT JUST ONE-TRACKED IDIOTS? Look at FDR - the best diplomat ever. He built strong world alliances and maintained them in the face of insurmountable odds. Sometimes he even changed alliances. Was he weak? Was he a flip-flopper?

God, wake the fuck up before your overlords quit feeding you crackers.

By the grace of Poseidon, I found this article on Salon. Great, great commentary on conservative values by a Reaganite. My favorite quotes are near the end:

"The final conservative redoubt is Bush's admirable personal life. Alas, other characteristics of his seem less well suited to the presidency. By his own admission he doesn't do nuance and doesn't read. He doesn't appear to reflect on his actions and seems unable to concede even the slightest mistake. Nor is he willing to hold anyone else responsible for anything. It is a damning combination. John Kerry may flip-flop, but at least he realizes that circumstances change and sometimes require changed policies. He doesn't cowardly flee at the first mention of accountability.

Some onetime administration supporters have grown disillusioned. Sullivan observes: "To have humiliated the United States by presenting false and misleading intelligence and then to have allowed something like Abu Ghraib to happen ... is unforgivable. By refusing to hold anyone accountable, the president has also shown he is not really in control. We are at war; and our war leaders have given the enemy their biggest propaganda coup imaginable, while refusing to acknowledge their own palpable errors and misjudgments." '

Read here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/09/10/conservatives/index_np1.html

Please once again explain to me your chants of "Four more years" ? This isn't an issue about Kerry's voting record or whatever other smear tactics you may employ to skirt the issue of your overlord's actions. These are big, world issues. Not self-serving ethnocentric issues.

To counter that my "faith" in science is no better or not more "right" that believing in ID or creationism or even Najavo Indian truth, I have to make a few points clear.

"Show me a cultural relativist at 36,000 feet and I'll show you a hypocrite...if you are flying - the reason you don't plummett into a ploughed field - is that a lot of Western scientifically trained engineers have got their sums right."

-Richard Dawkins, A Devil's Chaplain

Now, there is a difference between saying there is no absolute truth in human culture - and there is no absolute truth at all. What we attempt to say as true in human culture - whether it be morals or religion - are seperate and wholly different from a scientific truth. They cannot be explained scientifically, they must be discussed by sociology and do not contain "absolute truth".

Suppose for a moment, we do say there are many scientific truths - from the Maori to the Bushmen, to Middle Eastern or ancient Sumarian truth. If there are indeed various verisons of the truth - each no better than the other - then why do we not see converts in great numbers changing their alliegances on a daily basis? The only verison of the truth that regularly wins converts is that of science.

You could aruge that western Christian missionaries have indeed won converts in large number. They simply succeed not because of their religious merit - but because of technology and science:

"Surely the Christian God must be superior to our Juju, because Christ's representatives come bearing rifles, telescopes, chainsaws, radios, almanacs that predict eclipses to the minute, and medicines that work."

So, perhaps our versions of the truth today wait to be superseded years down the road with new verisons of the truth - thereby indicating the best we can ever hope for are approximations to eventually progressively reduce errors. It is indeed true that Newton's law was an approximation and a part of Einsteins' general relativity formula. If you take this a proof - then you have to take it a step further.

Perhaps you are asked while on trial: Was it true you were in Chicago the night of the murder?

"What do you mean by true? The hypothesis that I was in Chicago has not so far been falsified, but it is only a matter of time before we see that it is a mere approximation."

Or, from the first argument:

"It is only in your western scientific sense of the word 'in' that I was in Chicago. The Bongolese have a completely different concept of 'in', according to which you are only truly 'in' a place if you are an anointed elder entitled to take snuff from the dried scrotum of a goat"

It's simply true this keyboard I type on is made of plastic. Or my desk is made of wood. Or even that the sun is hotter than the earth. These are not hypothesis awaiting proof, or approximations. They are truths. Just like the truths that give you medicine, and allow you to breathe and give you a tranfusion of blood.  It is forever true that DNA is a double helix, or that you are a monkey or an octopus or a starfish.

Modern physics shows us that truth is more than meets the eye - or more than meets the all too limited human mind. Science sometimes is common sense - sometimes counter-intuitive. Our brains have not evolved far enough along to be able to fully comprehend some of the quirky behaviors of quantum science - those same "theories" that allows us to measure distance and triangulate our position to within' a hairs length.

It's just like evolution - if you allow yourself to believe changes can occur on a microscale - such as bacteria and insects, you automatically get macroevolution for free. You can't pick and choose.

I thought John Stewart did us all a huge favor by finally coming out and saying what we've all been thinking about the media. They aren't doing their jobs. How did Tucker what's his dick-name get up into Crossfire to begin with? These people are doing a terrible disservice to the public and the press - they don't question and corner these sneaky politicians into telling us what they are really going to do. Politicians from both sides have talking points - pieces they will repeat over and over - and they basically answer the questions that are asked with one of these neat and trimmed up points. They happily evade the entire issue to be politicians.

I salute you, John Stewart, and wish more people would come out and make the press realize they really are a bunch self-serving dicks.

Drought wiped out much of the Pueblo-dwelling societies during the 1200 and 1300's. Now it looks like the rather wet periods in the southwest during the 90's that also led to the huge and ridiculously unplanned expansions were probably just an anamoly. Tree rings, sedimentary cores - all point to droughts like today in the Southwest as being the norm. Lake Meade and Powell both have fallen hundreds of feet. Within 3-4 years there will not be enough force of water to continue powering the Hoover Dam! Some hard decisions and water wars will follow. But of course, instead of addressing the issue, you can bet people will want to start channeling water away from other places - Lake Tahoe, Colorado Glaciers, giant underground auqifiers in National Park land.

But that's the nature of humanity. Take everything to the breaking point until it collapses down around you. It's too bad this won't become a huge issue until its already too late:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?id=178188&page=1

The primary theme of Drucker's[1] analysis of neocapitalist patriarchial theory is a self-sufficient whole. However, Bataille uses the term 'postcultural theory' to denote the role of the writer as reader. Marx's model of the substructuralist paradigm of reality states that sexual identity, somewhat ironically, has intrinsic meaning.

Thus, the subject is interpolated into a neotextual paradigm of discourse that includes art as a reality. If neocapitalist patriarchial theory holds, we have to choose between the neotextual paradigm of discourse and textual discourse.

It could be said that the example of postcultural theory intrinsic to Gibson's Pattern Recognition emerges again in All Tomorrow's Parties. Geoffrey[2] suggests that we have to choose between the neotextual paradigm of discourse and Lyotardist narrative.

Did that make any sense whatsoever? Hardly. An excellent example of how the far-left fringes making postmodernism seem like an actual science - or even intelligent - are a bunch of out of touch Yahoo's. Go make you own delightful nonsense by following this link. You'll be a postmodernist in no time:

http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern

One reason I think the environment takes precedent over most every other thing is because we are a product of that environment. We get our food from our environment, we breathe the air, and we drink the water. Tourism, especially at National Parks - is one of the largest economic contributers of many areas helping to make the United States the most visted country in the world for foreigners. We can't do anything nor prepare for our future if we continue to neglect this world that we came from. Sadly, the environment is lacking any political clout in this years election. Kerry should make it an issue because Bush's record is hovering somewhere around 0 or an 'F' - if you will. If they could give out negative numbers, I'm sure he'd get them:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/chitribts/20041018/ts_chicagotrib/environmentalissueslosepoliticalclout

Well, yay for the Red Sox, I suppose. I realize everyone who is not a Yankees fan hates the Yankees because they "buy" their world series and spend so much money, etc, etc. But I do believe Boston and the NY Mets have payrolls right up there near the Evil Empire, and we should just really come clean and say we hate the Yankees because they win. But sports is simply a diversion and means nothing in the long run, so why people get so amped up about any sport, I cannot say.

I'll take bets on who wins tonights Syracuse-W.Virginia game. I'd like to think upstate New York teams could beat a bunch of inbred hicks with a grand total of 15 last names, but Syracuse isn't the elite member of D-I football anymore. Either way, I don't really care. If they lose, I'll get over it in the time it takes me to go to the bathroom.

Finally, I'm suppose to go on Spring Break with my girl this year, along with some friends, Originally it was Cancun, but people started backing out, so now they're arguing for Florida - Daytona beach, mostly. And while that's all interesting to me, I've been to Daytona beach, and am not particularly impressed with the place. I would prefer the Florida Keys over Daytona any day. I was thinking of maybe staying somewhere in the Gulf Coast, or in New Orleans. I mean - you can't go wrong with New Orleans, now can you? But I also hear Lake Powell in AZ is a good party spot.

I'm just open to some suggestions. I've never really gone on a true spring break because my college way gay and did tri-mester scheduling. I always ended up in Myrtle Beach which was still about 50-60 degrees any day we were down there. Where did you go break?

I'm sure some of you have already seen this, but I just stumbled across it. It's a good breakdown of the type of terminology the right uses to paint Kerry and reasons behind why there is such a big fuss about how many laws he has enacted. If we were to use Bush's logic:

"On taxes, Kerry's record has also been distorted by counting multiple votes for the same bill. On that basis, Kerry has voted more than 350 times for higher taxes, as Bush says. Using the same measure, the Kerry campaign claims the senator has also voted more than 640 times against raising taxes. On defense, it's a similar pattern. Kerry has been cast as a peacenik, but he voted for Reagan's big defense bills at the height of the cold war (even as he opposed the MX missile and Star Wars). In the 1990s he supported big cuts in the 1990s as a "peace dividend." Since 1998, the only defense-spending bill he voted against is the $87 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan."

People need to quit putting the spin on this constantly until the truth is so distored you can't even recognize what was said in the first place. Quit comparing apples to oranges.

"To Bush, Kerry's record is both inconsistent and "out of the mainstream." That depends on what you call the mainstream. Judging by his allies in the Senate, he looks more like a maverick than a mainstream politician. Kerry has worked closely with the right-wing Jesse Helms, become best buddies with the socially conservative McCain and found a Democratic mentor in Fritz Hollings of South Carolina—the cultural opposite of the Northeastern liberal. In the final count, the holes in Kerry's record may be more a question of style than a matter of than substance."

Kerry's willing to listen, debate, and change with people. Something, this terrible administration is sadly lacking.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6262620/site/newsweek/

Meme (pronounced the same way as 'dream') is basically an inherited and passed on trait of culture. It mirrors how genes work in passing on physiology to organisms. Songs that get stuck in your head are memes, as are fairy tales, certain internet fads...and, religion.

Memes suffer from the same thing evolution suffers from - inheritance, natural selection, mutation. Just like stories and urban myths get passed on and distored. So, culture evolves with forces working on which memes get passed on.

"Selfish memes" can act like viruses - getting passed on not because of their virtuouseness, but just because they are simply good at being passed on. Cults and evangelical religions may pass on their beliefs this way - setting up moral codes that aren't particularly valuable to the believer. Although some argue that at some point religious beliefs served a purpose or cooperation and advancement within the society ("Thou shalt not kill", for instance).

Some examples:

Censorship: If a big and powerful organisation penalizes people who express belief in a particular meme or burns books containing that meme then that meme is put at a selective disadvantage. (Note that there is the meme "Censorship is wrong". It is interesting to speculate that this meme may have prospered by increasing the wealth of those nations that enforced it thus increasing the influence of that meme itself).

Economics: If a meme tends to be held by people or organisations that have economic influence then the meme is likely to benefit from a greater audience. If a meme tends to increase the riches of an individual holding it then that meme is likely to spread because of the former reason given. Such memes would include "Hard work is good." and "Put number 1 first.".

Some spiritual practices, e.g. Buddhism clearly promote ecological and moral goals recognizable to most people, e.g. The Noble Eightfold Path, emphasizes limited consumption, reduced cruelty, no delegation of violence or participation in violent systems, and a withdrawal from sexual and ethical processes that have no clear ecological or moral value to the practitioner - regardless of the value they may have to others.

The Judeo-Christian-Islamic "Western" religions, however, focus more on devotion to a transcendent deity and moral codes of behavior, including social and ethical codes affecting every aspect of life from selfless love to commerce to sexual behavior. People are urged to devote themselves to the needs of others.

The contrast between "be happy" and "make others happy", although not as stark in practice or theory as the traditional debate suggests, may satisfy constraints of different ecological or sexual norms in some non-obvious way. But it seems entirely unlikely that "they aren't particularly valuable to the believer." At least, the majority of people on Earth clearly don't think so.

Interesting, isn't it? One often wonders if we subconsiously repeat what is going on at our basic gene/chromosome levels. We are, afterall, a product of those forces acting upon us.

One night George Bush is tossing restlessly in his White House bed. He awakens to see George Washington standing beside him. Bush looks up and asks, 'George, what's the best thing I can do to help the country ?"

"Set an honest and honorable example, just as I did," Washington advises, then fades away.

The next night, Bush is astir again when he sees the ghost of Thomas Jefferson moving silently around the bedroom. Bush calls out: "Tom, please! What is the best thing I could do to help the country ?"

"Respect the Constitution, as I did," Jefferson advises, and then dims from sight.

The third night sleep still evades Bush. He sees the ghost of FDR hovering over his bed. Bush lowers his voice and asks, 'Franklin, What is the best thing I could do to help the country ?"

In that golden voice of his, FDR replies, "Help the less fortunate, just as I did," and then he disappears.

Bush still isn't sleeping well the fourth night. He tosses and turns, and suddenly another figure moves out of the shadows. It's the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. "Abe," Bush pleads, "what's the best thing I can do
right now to help the country?"

Lincoln pauses, then replies, "Go see a play."

Did you hear Bush's newest one?

"Our only strategy in the war on terror is victory."

Right. And this is suppose to make me feel safer how? How is this indicitive of a strong leader? Victory how? But what means? With who? Is he really that much of a simpleton?

 This newest disturbance reminds me of a book written not too long along called "Bush on the Couch" by Justin Franks who analyizes his past, his present, his decisions, and comes up with some disturbing conclusions - namely that he is completely out of touch with reality, paranoid and perhaps dellusional.

Have a look-see at your President that a good 50% of you fiends are goin to vote for:

Bush administration uses prowling wolves in attack video against Kerry:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=4&u=/ap/20041022/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_ads

I find this so incredibly laughable that people would be swayed by wolves, ostriches, or eagles for that matter. It's a shame Bush is contributing to the fallictious arguments that wolves are blood-thirsty cold- blooded killers out for some kind of pseudo-fundamentalist wolf agenda. Wolves are noble creatures that contribute highly as top predator to any ecosystem - Yellowstone and Minnesota, for example. I've been pushing for years to get wolves reintroduced back east, but old ideals about werewolves and direwolves...well, die hard.

One can only hope they will eventually recolonize the east by moving in from Ontario province, into Maine, then down into New York by way of Vermont.

In the meantime, ladies and gentlemen - be aware this weekend of prowling terrorist wolves on the loose. Especially if you're a Kerry fan. They're coming for you - BE AFRAID. But not too afraid to go out and spend your money at malls and movie theatres and on a new car.

A few points I am curious about.

Whenever there is a national debate about something concerning human-wide importance, the debates center around leaders, scientists, philosophers, intellectuals and definately religious pundits.

Cloning, stem cell research, IV fertilization, etc.

We are SUPPOSE to have every side presented, every view, question and debate the science and moral implications behind it all. Every side is expected to abide by the rules.

Well, except religion. They don't play by the rules. We're taught not to question or ridicule or even put their view through any type of time-honored testing system used by science. You question evolution, attack the science behind it and want a new type of biology taught in schools. You question hypothesis', the manner conclusions are drawn, and the steps taken to get there.

But we can't question you back. No matter your entire philosophy of life is based on a bronze-aged script written, passed down, and distored through the centuries. No matter you pick and choose which science only furthers your cause. No matter you believe in miracles - things that fly in the face of possibility.

And yet we can't question that, but you can question us. We've built a liberal bubble around religion that somehow makes it seem wrong to question your sanity in light of this mind-virus. How is it that you have the same, if not more standing in light of these "moral" issues that science brings up? Your beliefs are not based on facts, nor progressive learning, nor the scientific or philosophical method. In reality, this high-standing our society endows upon priests, bishops, and evangelicals borders on pure lunacy.

Tell me, who would you rather have making decisions for you? An adult whose belief system is based on logical conclusions drawn from the world around you...or a 6-year old who still believes with furvor and excitement that Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy are coming soon enough to give you your just rewards?

To me, the answer is clear.

Thanks to http://korey.mindsay.com for this amazing link about rat brains and flight simulators:

http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2004news/braindish.htm