Rocketstar's Thoughts on Life

2011-11-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

You should be on Twitter, or not. But let's find out. You may like it. Get a taste below.

Fantasy Football 2011 Mid Year Review

2011-10-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

Gridiron Gridiots $100 - Neighborhood LeagueSnake Draft, I picked 3rd, PPR, 6 pts for a QB Pass TD, 8 Team league.

Mid Year Recap: 6-1, things are on track for another Superbowl appearance. Rivers has disappointed but Ray Rice, Matt Forte, Greg Jennings and Jimmy Graham have been killing it!

ICAT Standard League $50 - Work League

Snake Draft, Non-PPR, picked 3rd, 10 Team League

Mid Year Recap: 5-2, things are on track to make the playoffs. Matt Ryan has disappointed but my Tim Tebow pickup so far doing well. Ray Rice, Greg Jennings and Witten have been doing very well.

ICAT Kill League - $20 - Work League

Auction Draft, Non-PPR. We draft your roster and you are done, no lineup changes, no free agent pickups, draft and watch and enjoy.

Mid Year Recap: 1-5, I'd like to point out that in points scored, I am 4th, unlucky match ups here but what is great about Kill Leagues is there are no lineup changes to worry about, it is what it is.

Online No $ League: Standard Non-PPR league

Mid Year Recap: 5-1-1, things are on track for a playoff run. No real standouts here, a team of solid performers, a blue collar successful team.

RFCHFN $100 - My League

Auction draft, PPR, 10 Team league.

Mid Year Recap: 2-5, this is a huge disappointment but I think I may be turning things around. Roddy White has disappointed, Felix Jones injured, Jerimichael Finley, Shonne Green and Ryan Grant have disappointed. Oh well, you can't win every league.

Enjoying the Silence

2011-10-14T17:22:00.000-07:00

So I have 3 or 4 more days of silence to enjoy. I usually hate silence but in this case, there is a portion of the silence that I love.

(Listening to Primus - 'My Name is Mud' right now, what an incredible tune.)

I will be a "married bachelor with two children" for 3 to 4 more days. This will come off the back of the previous 5 days I existed as a"married bachelor with two children". So 8-9 days in total, I'm good at math. The girls are off on a car trip in the Prius visiting friends in WI and MO. I chose not to burn the PTO nor did I "dig" driving that much.

So I stayed home and worked, got some "house" stuff done and I have enjoyed the silence. It sounds horrible I know, but I am truly enjoying the extended time alone. Of course I think of, and miss the girls quite often but that doesn't reduce the amount of pleasure I obtain from the silence.

We have 'video chatted' a couple of times at night which I love as it adds so much to be able to see their faces. Latitude (free Google smart phone app) also allows one to track the progress of another using GPS which is nice.

(Now listening to Nine Inch Nails - 'The Collector' - Just fierce tribal musical power.)

It doesn't mean that there is noise 24 hours a day when they are here. It does mean that whatever the level of that noise is, it has now been turned to ZERO. ZERO noise has an impac, period. I think I have spoken (texted a bit as well) to them once a day since they left.

(Listening to The Smiths - 'How Soon is Now?' Oh Morrissey, I love you.)

As Depeche Mode put it, I am 'Enjoying the Silence' inside my existence.

You should too, seriously.

(Listening to The Smashing Pumpkins - 'Cherub Rock' Oh yes, I want the honey.)

That is all.

Occupy Your Free Time, I mean Wall Street

2011-10-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

Unless you either don’t have a television or the internet, you are aware that there exists this movement called “Occupy Wall Street”.

What is the official goal of “Occupy Wall Street”? you ask, great question. The answer to this question is the largest problem with this movement.

Wikipedia says:

Occupy Wall Street is an ongoing series of demonstrations in New York City^[5] based in Zuccotti Park, formerly "Liberty Plaza Park". The protest was originally called for by the Canadian activist^[6] group Adbusters; it took inspiration from the Arab Spring movement (particularly the Tahrir Square protests in Cairo, which initiated the 2011 Egyptian Revolution) and from the Spanish Indignants.^[7][8]
The participants of the event are mainly protesting against social and economic inequality, corporate greed, and the influence of corporate money and lobbyists on government, among other concerns.^[9][10] Adbusters states that, "Beginning from one simple demand – a presidential commission to separate money from politics – we start setting the agenda for a new America."^[11] The protest's organizers hope that the protesters themselves will formulate their own specific demands, expecting them to be focused on "taking to task the people who perpetrated the economic meltdown."^[12][13][14]

The problem is the lack of clarity and communication of their goal which in the end is a great goal that would help rescue this nation. I have voiced this goal many times for many months and maybe years (my memory and willingness to search my blog is lacking).

The goal is to separate MONEY from POLITICS. Until we do this, our politicians will NOT have OUR best interests in mind; they will have their re-election interests in mind which is accomplished with MONEY. Politicians obtain re-election MONEY by doing what those with the MONEY (very wealthy people and corporations) want them to do.

I agree that our government and Wall Street culture are bending us over and making us squeeeeeeel like a pig. I also support the ultimate goal of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement but I don’t think their method nor their lack of organization is going to get anything done.

What they are doing is kind of like praying, “Prayer: How to do nothing and still think you’re helping.” What they need to do is support initiatives like http://www.getmoneyout.com/ or start grass root organizations to elect officials that are pro campaign finance reform or public campaign finance reform.

Until we separate the MONEY from our political system, occupying wall street is going to do jack shit. Hold on that’s wrong, it does give a lot of fodder for the “Talking Heads.”

Why No Posts? and a Couple Thoughts

2011-09-23T15:09:00.000-07:00

A few quick thoughts…. It’s been a while.

Full Tilt Poker: So as you may know, about two months ago my U.S. government took control of both Full Tilt Poker and a few others for illegally using US Banks to execute online poker transactions with U.S. citizens. I’ve already done a post about this atrocity earlier but now it appears that maybe the U.S. government had some merit in their actions.

Allegedly, Full Tilt Poker did not follow GAAP accounting/financial procedures or another way to say it…. They are stealing players bankrolls! They currently have about $65 Million in cash for the approx. $300 Million in player bankrolls. So luckily my bankroll was only at $60 before everything was locked out.

My hope is that our government will see the light and allow the big Vegas casino’s to offer Online poker, think of all the tax revenue, bastards, restore my freedom to use my money how I see fit.

Republican Party: Do these clowns really think they have a chance, seriously? Regardless of how bad the economy is next year, I have yet to see ANY Republican candidate that can beat Obama. How about the other night when people in the audience at the Republican debate booed a US Soldier for being gay and against DADT. First they cheer for allowing someone to die, Perry executing people and now this. NOT one candidate spoke up and said those actions were hateful and wrong in the debate, not ONE. What a HUGE chance for one of them to make a positive statement, one that would show they are true patriotic Americans that have a heart.

So why no posts?

Other than Twitter is now where I really ‘live online’…

Trent Reznor said it best:

"Every Day Is Exactly The Same"

I believe I can see the future

Cause I repeat the same routine

I think I used to have a purpose

But then again That might have been a dream

I think I used to have a voice

Now I never make a sound

I just do what I've been told

I really don't want them to come around

Just no desire to write…

Here's a great photo I ran accross recently.

Duhn, Duhn, Duhn, Duh. Fantasy Football 2011

2011-09-08T17:05:00.000-07:00

It’s that time of year again, the best time of year. It’s NFL Season followed closely by the NHL season. So it’s time to put my hard earned money on the line and test my Fantasy Football skills. It starts tonight with the Superbowl Champion Green Bay Packers hosting the New Orleans Saints, both contenders for this year’s Superbowl. I have Greg Jennings and Jerimichael Finley in this game as well as going against Drew Brees. It’s an addiction at this point, straight up and get in line Fantasy Football, you have company.

So I am hoping to keep my streak alive and have another year in the black and earn some money the fun way. I am putting up $270 plus Free Agent Pickup fees for the 4 money leagues I am in and this is how it stacks up.

Gridiron Gridiots $100 - Neighborhood League
Snake Draft, I picked 3rd, PPR, 6 pts for a QB Pass TD, 8 Team league.

RFCHFN $100 - My League

Auction draft, PPR, 10 Team league.

ICAT Standard League $50 - Work League

Snake Draft, Non-PPR, picked 3rd, 10 Team League

ICAT Kill League - $20 - Work League

Auction Draft, Non-PPR. We draft your roster and you are done, no lineup chnages, no free agent pickups, draft and watch and enjoy.

I Want One

2011-08-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

2011-08-21T10:03:00.001-07:00

And then an example.

Time for a Little Dusty

2011-08-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you get a little Dusty. Remember, Rusty does not take it easy on dogma.

Miami 2011 Vacation Recap Final

2011-08-12T20:02:00.000-07:00

Departure:

The last day in Miami we just chilled out at the house for most of the day and then walked down to the beach early evening to enjoy the beach once last time before we headed home. I love the beach, I just wished there was a way to magically remove all grains of sand from your body and belongings in one magical wave of a wand.

We headed home from the beach to enjoy our last supper in Miami. I love my French dinners: appetizers, wine, dinner, wine, cheese, wine, desert and more wine. Love it. Later that night it stormed but as this house had the great porch, we had dinner and drinks outside surrounded by the roar of the South Floridian rain. It was a great night and great end to a great vacation.

It loved seeing part of my French family again, speaking so much French, watching the kids have a blast and enjoying the ocean. If there is one change... we may come back to Florida in the WINTER next time.

Miami Vacation 2011 Part III: Seinfeld Dinner +

2011-08-08T16:04:00.000-07:00

South Beach:

South Beach, regularly ranked in the top ten beaches in the world, great sand, wide beach, great water and of course scantily clad beautiful people. So needless to say my expectations were high. In the end, it lived up to the hype. It was beautiful, filled with all sorts of people from the weird to the beautiful, it was a great people watching beach.

The only issue I ran into was created by my own neurosis; fearing the worst in people. I have a hard time leaving our bags/towels unattended. I mean we have an expensive camera, an expensive video camera not to mention all of the photos and video and someone could easily come along and grab the bag and run. So although I did enjoy the beautiful warm water, I also kept guard of the possessions a bit more and allowed my better half to enjoy the water with the kids more than I did. Crazy, I know.

The Miami Seaqurium

Right off the bat a bad taste arises as we arrive to the $8 Parking Fee and a $45 Admission Fee. Are you kidding me, $8 to park? Just add it to the damn price of admission as there is NO OTHER way to get to the Seaqurium. After getting over the parking fee, it was a good time and the kids loved it. We saw every show they had: Killer Whale Show, Flipper and His Dolphins, Seal Show, Another Dolphin show and the Shark Feeding Show. For me the best was the Killer Whale show again because at any moment that Whale could go crazy and eat a human right in front of your eyes, what an experience that would be, as macabre as it may be.

I was slapped again with outrageous prices when we ate lunch at the cafeteria, purchased $3 bottles of water (it was HOT OUT) and $4 Snow Cones. Seriously, $3 bottles of water which have a producer cost of about what .35 cents each?

Our Night Out:

So both my better half and I as well as Eric and his wife each went out as a couple one night while the other couple watched the 4 kids. On their night, they went out to eat followed by dancing at a club returning home at 5 AM. When we went out, we went out to eat and came home about 9:30 PM. We don’t dance or go clubbing, it’s just not who we are.

Our dinner: We went out to Houston’s. This experience just reinforced my overall view of ‘high falutin’ restaurants. They took our names but did not write them down, odd. We later learned they write down a description of guests and then find them in the bar rather than yelling out a name as most restaurants do, impressive. We started out in the bar as we waited for a table, it was nice to just sit and have a drink talk with the better half sans kids.
Glass of wine, two beers, a Pork Cop and a Tuna Steak

We got our table about 45 minutes later. A nice dimly lit atmosphere. Menu, very pricey but what the hell, we hardly ever do this right? So I order the “Tuna Steak with Thickly Sliced Tomato” for $24 dollars. I say to my better half, “Damn, it must be one special fancy tomato.” So we place our order. In the meantime, we assume some bread or some ‘food’ will come out to tide us over until our food arrived, I mean come on with these prices we should get some bread, even the Olive Garden brings out bread. No bread, nothing.

Our food arrives and this is what I get (see pic). Seriously, THIS is the “Thickly Sliced Tomato”? They cut a small’ish tomato in half? No sauce, no garnish, no fancy cut, a small’ish tomato cut n half. So I took my camera out to take a picture, I had to capture this one. The waitress saw me doing this and came by and said…

Waitress - “Is there something wrong sir?”

Me – “Well, the menu said ‘Thickly Sliced Tomato’ and I guess I was expecting something a little more substantial than a small tomato cut in half. I mean why even mention the tomato if it’s just a small tomato cut in half. Just put “Tuna Steak” o the menu.”

Waitress – “Oh, yes, that is not the correct tomato, I don’t know why they gave you that. I’ll go get what they should have given you, sorry about that.”

So she comes back a moment later with this (see pic).

Seriously, just a larger tomato cut in thirds with a piece of garnish on it, no sauce, nothing. So I had to take another pic of the ‘correct tomato’. Why do they even mention the tomato, seriously, what a joke. The Tuna Steak was good, I really liked it and it also came with Cole Slaw but the tomato, come one. I have never liked spending a lot of money on food, it’s just food and in the end, it all just turns into poop.

More to come…

Miami 2011 Recap Part II

2011-08-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

Day 1:

Sleep, why is it so difficult for us? My better half and I do not sleep well outside our of our bed and my better half even has issues sleeping through the night in our bed. That first night we celebrated with quite a bit of wine which always complicates sleep. After that first night we were able to settle down and get good some good sleep.

We hung out at the house and the kids were literally in the pool and sun the entire day, it was insane and in hindsight not the best idea. That night, our youngest one ending up throwing up as she went to sleep. Cleaning up puke, it’s awesome. Luckily, we think it was just the amount of sun plus pool chemicals that made her sick as she was totally fine after that and we began to put some limits on the pool time.

Early in the evening we walked down to the beach (about a 10 minute walk) for some fun at the beach. Wow, the water is very warm, it almost felt like a hot tub it was so warm. One always forgets the sting of salt water in the eyes, where are my goggles, damn. I love the beach.

We headed back home for some dinner and drinks. Dinner on the porch, next to the water with tired quiet kids, perfect. Perfect except for the fact that we kept on getting bitten on our feet, ankles, legs by “mosquitoes” but what was frustrating was that we were not seeing any damn mosquitoes. We thought these were some special Ninja mosquitoes or something. I later learned that these are little biting bugs that you can’t see but you sure do feel. Native South Floridians call them “No See’em’s”. Goddamned No See’um’s!

Day 2:

Everglades Alligator Park

We took the 1 1/12 hour drive down to the everglades to the Everglades Alligator Park. It was great fun. We saw the Snake Show, Alligator Show and Alligator Feeding Show. We enjoyed the Alligator Show the most as it contained the possibility of an alligator tearing off the limb of a human being. I’m sure the danger was not as high as we all thought as the alligator was well used to this show but you never know, that little brain can malfunction or go crazy at any moment.

We also went on the Swamp Fan Boat ride which was fun and a little wet. The driver was right out of the movies, everything you’d expect in a “Swamp Man”. Damn that fan is loud.

So far, so good, enjoying ourselves and spending time with our family from across the pond very much.

Miami 2011 Vacation Recap Part I

2011-08-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

The rear of the house showing the huge covered porch.

Me lunging in the pool dodging the kids

So for human memories sake (we knnow human memory is horrible), I think I need to recap the 2011 Miami vacation before I forget all of the details.

Pre-Vacation Recap:
The two weeks prior to leaving, 12 year old Enola ( my French cousin Eric’s daughter or my first cousin once removed) stayed with us to visit and improve her English language skills before flying with us to Miami to meet up with them. They had rented a house on the water in Miami Beach where we would be staying with them for a week. Enola’s time here was great, our girls (6 and 7 ½) got along great with Enola. We had fun in the mountains, museums and visited the Renaissance Festival. There was a little bit of drama between the girls at the end which gave us a little taste of what 12 year old drama will be like, I can’t wait.

It felt great to give back a little of what Eric’s parents (my uncle and aunt) gave me when I was in high school and spent a couple of Summer’s at their house in France. We’ll do it again I’m sure.

The Flight Out:
So let’s start from the beginning. The good news is that there was no need for a quick dump in the parking lot like last year. See STORY for details. The almost bad news is that we almost missed the flight as we underestimated the time it would take to get through the TSA “Security” Check point. This “theatre” of the TSA Security Check point is just that, theatre. In spite of the TSA, we made it onto the flight as the last passengers.

As we were the last ones on the plane our options for seating were minimal and as Southwest has ‘open seating’... OH… YOUR… GOD…

I had heard stories like this before but had never experienced it before. I took the middle seat and gave my little one the window seat. The lady I sat next to (on the aisle) was almost halfway into my seat. She couldn’t put the arm rest down and had trouble bucking herself in, she was a large person. Luckily, in every other respect she was pleasant enough and it was only a 1 ½ hour flight. It was kind of hard to watch her pull snacks out of her bag and ingest every last crumb, literally. She licked her finger and stuck it into the chips bag to get the last drop of food/salt, seriously. I stayed strong and kept my mouth shut.

There was nothing I could say to this lady that would help her and her fight with food, I wish there was something I could have said. I assumed she felt bad enough impacting someone else with her eating disorder that I didn’t need to pile on. I felt bad for her yet a part of me always screams out inside, “Stop! Stop eating, exercise more and live longer.” Yes, I realize that for her it most likely an addiction and addictions suck. Addiction may not be fully immune to change but they are a bitch to cure especially with food as you MUST eat to stay alive.

The second leg of the flight out also had me sitting next to another large person although this time we could JUST get the arm rest down although it kept trying to pop up and up. Not a huge deal, no delays, no horrible turbulence and we survived the flights although as usual the airport food vendors raped us for lunch without a kiss mind you.

Reading Material:
The one great thing about air travel is that it creates a great time for some reading. I brought Victor Stenger’s God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist. A very solid read focusing on the scientific reasoning for the failed hypothesis rather than the philosophical reasoning although he does touch on those as well to provide a quick recap of some of his former work. On the way back I also re-read Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation as it is a great quick read.

Miami Arrival:
Wow, it sure does smack you in the face the humidity does, how do people live here? The house was great. It had plenty of room for us all, it was right on the water, a great pool, a great porch and plenty of Air Conditioning power. See picture

I was ready for a NOT "fully packed with activities” relaxing vacation where we had a couple of things planned but not every day. It was good to be unplugged from work for an entire week.

Part II to come.

All or Nothing Pics

2011-08-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

Blog Cheating

2011-07-27T16:53:00.000-07:00

First, this is an awesome video and you must see. Every nuclear bomb ever detonated mapped out from 1945-1998. 2053 nukes!!!

Currently, there is too much going on yet sadly so much to say... I think I need to write.

Time, Time, Time, what has become of me?

2011-07-11T10:32:00.000-07:00

What has become of me, busy, that is what has become of me.

I have been up to a lot of vacation days and I will also be vacationing in Miami coming soon, it should be a fun time.

A couple of hopes for the next few weeks:

Republicans continue to separate themselves from the American public with their dogmatic make the rich richer and continue to decrease the middle class and shit on the poor. Obama will win in 2012, you heard here on 7/11/2011. The Republicans were OK with raising the debt ceiling all throughout the Bush administration but now they have an issue with it. Total hypocrites. I am all for cutting spending but we also need to raise revenues, it's called simple math you morons. Bush's tax cuts created a lot of jobs didn't they?
The NFL owners and Players pull their heads out of their asses and figure out a way to split up 4 BILLION + dollars, seriously.
No hurricanes head toward Miami for the next few weeks.
Alberto Contador continues to crash and falter in his bid to win the Tour De France again.

Stay cool, I hope you are loving that climate change.

A Small Proud Event

2011-06-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

So last week we were sitting in our local Applebee’s and they happened to have a ‘balloon lady’ there that night making balloons for kids for a buck. When I first saw her, I cringed for a couple of reasons. The balloon lady is NOT needed. We are there to eat dinner, not play. My kids don’t need toys at dinner but I can’t say “No”.

Side note: My better half and I have always stuck to our guns, no toys brought to restaurants or in the car. Kids need to learn how to occupy themselves without toys, it is a vital skill in life.

Secondly, now I have to engage in conversation with the balloon lady while she blows, twists and draws on whatever balloon animals my girls request. I don’t know this lady, she doesn’t know me, I don’t care to know this lady and she doesn’t care to know me but she asks questions she doesn’t care to know the answers to and I have to pretend I care as well. I can’t stand small talk.

Ok, on to the proud part.

So as we are waiting for balloon lady to mozy on over to our table my eldest (7 yrs old) took the dollar bills that I had put on the table, picked up one of the crayons that were on the table and crossed out the word “God” and wrote “Law”. She had seen me do this in the past and we had discussed the history of “God” being put onto our currency and the reasons why it shouldn’t be on our currency.

It was a small event but one that I loved to see. Like they say, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Doing our best to raise free thinking human beings.

Holy Shiite!

2011-06-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

The power of religion. Damn, I may need to convert from Atheism to whatever this lady believes in. An orgasm without any genital contact, wow. Impressive.

"I think Little Pieces of Evolution Should Be Taught in Schools"

2011-06-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

Does anyone notice something about this video? Did you notice how the Mason Dixon line plays into this video?

Did you notice how generally the young ladies from south of the Mason Dixon line spewed ignorant/creation leaning answers to this question. I laughed out loud at some of them, seriously.

I get it, these ladies are beauty pageant contestants, not rocket scientists but come on...

Not that it matters much of course but at least the winner (Alyssa Campanella of Los Angeles) will represent the US and she believes in science and evolution.

This is another example of how religion can create ignorance. Ignorant of the facts of life.

And people wonder why I abhor the religious dogmatic ignorance that is infecting this country and infecting the youth that will become this country's future.

It Only Takes One

2011-06-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

Recently in Vancouver after game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals where Vancouver lost to the Boston Bruins there was a riot in downtown Vancouver. Some say it was drunken fans, some say that these idiots were not fans but militant anti-government, anti-everything idiots... who knows... Most likely a little of both.

This points out the power of "mob mentality". It only takes one idiot to ignite the mob mentality and this one spark catalyzes all surrounding idiots to join in the "idiotry". Without said spark most idiots are rather harmless but when you add the spark, a little alcohol and despair of losing a hockey game... the idiotry lights up like the Sun.

In all of this mayhem came an interesting photo, see below. A young couple somehow thought that this was the perfect time and place to begin to make out in the middle of this idiotry.

Maybe it was their way of saying "Make love not war" or maybe they are exhibitionists or maybe they wanted to get away from it all... who knows but regardless, I find this to be a great photo of the contrasts of human nature.

Oh Weiner, I Just Don’t Get It

2011-06-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

Can you say disappointed, totally disappointed. I always knew Congressman Wiener had a wiener and was thus afflicted like all men with the “I’d love to spread my seed far and wide” syndrome but I also thought that Anthony Wiener was pretty damn smart. I guess his big smart brain was super seeded or distorted by his “little brain”.

I shouldn’t be surprised. When we mix money, power and opportunity with penises, this is often what we will get. What really surprised me about this the total lack of intelligence and poor decision making that was made by Mr. Wiener. Could he have had a better name for this incident, comedy gold it is.

I really don’t care what politicians do with their personal life, it’s their life and as long as it doesn’t impact their professional duties it should not matter. I think what matters in this case is Mr. Weiner’s total lack of judgment and horrible decision making. I understand that these decisions were all regarding his penis (in the end, all of his actions were about his penis) and the penis can be a very powerful tool of thought and decision making distortion.

How could Mr. Wiener allow his penis to make such horrible decisions?

Decision #1: Send a picture of his erect penis to someone other than his wife on Twitter. Didn’t Mr. Wiener know that this tactic has been used recently by Brett Favre and it doesn’t work. Showing a female of your penis is not the way to win that female over. To begin with, females are NOT usually turned on visually, they are turned on mentally. Come on man.

Decision #2: Try to cover it up? Mr. Wiener, do you happen to know it is 2011 and we have really cool Internet technology. This technology allows us to track and record (using a computers UNIQUE IP address) when, what and which computer sends and receives information over all this thing we call the World Wide Web. Did you really think you could cover this up int his day and age, come on man.

Decision #3: IM’ing with someone other than your wife in a sexual fashion. Dude, do you realize that computer’s and applications save your IM messages?

Decision #4: He wasn’t even getting ‘any’!! I mean he was obviously getting something out of all of this that cranked his chain but come on man, if you are going to do this, get ‘some’. Come on man.

In the end what is going to do him in is not the horrible personal life behavior but his horrible decision making and character failings. If he would have come right out admitted to it all I think this would be an entirely different story.

Mr. Wiener, you have lost me as a supporter. I love your liberal passion and ideals but I can no longer trust your horrible decision making abilities and you should step down.

Come on man.

Camping Review: Mueller State Park

2011-06-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

So where should I start. I'll start with the trip out to Mueller State Park, Divide, CO. A short 1.5 hour drive into the mountains.

A nice short drive but the A/C kept on going in and out which is a real pain in the ass. The Jeep has done this among other A/C problems for a while now. No more Jeeps for us; too many A/C issues. Overall the drive was fine as we were going up in altitude (final stop at 9600 feet above sea level) and the A/C wasn't that big of a deal.

Mueller State Park camping facilities were very good, cushy for camping I think. A laundry/shower facility was near, clean and a good bargain (8 quarters for 8 minutes of hot shower water). We also had an electrical outlet at our camp site. The trail maps they provided were very helpful and easy to follow. Overall a great state park although this does not include the Northern trails as they were off limits due to "Elk Birthing Season".

Lost Pond

Fresh Bear Print

Bears, those scary bears. Well, we never saw any actual living breathing bears which was more than fine with me. We did however see that bears had recently been to the bottom of this hill to drink in Lost Pond. I have to admit it was a little nerve wracking walking on these trails knowing that literally at any moment we could come across a Black Bear. Plus, even with a flashlight, the 10:30 PM walk in the pitch dark to the bathrooms was also a bit unnerving. Luckily, no live bear sitings occurred at any point.

All in all, the trip was a great time and the girls loved it, except for one thing... My pre-camping biggest fear... shitty sleep. We were at 9600 feet above sea level and at night it got down to 39 degrees, COLD. The wind also does not stop. So taking into account that it was very hard to get to sleep, it was very cold halfway through the night (until I added layers, too many layers to sleep well but enough to keep me warm) and the wind blowing the tent all night... we all slept pretty horribly.

I have HUGE camping RV envy as we were surrounded by huge RV's. I think we may have to just bite the bullet and rent cabins which were also in the campsite; at least that way we would sleep. Not sleeping really starts to take it out of you after a couple of days.

The good:

Living in the "wilderness"
Good time with the family
Love campfires
Loved the hiking and scenery
pretty low cost

The bad:

Horrible sleep
Privacy - I wish there were more distance between campsites
I wish we saw more wildlife (minus bears of course)
Did I mention horrible sleep yet?
Forgetting the DVD player as it would have been nice to end the night curled up watching a movie in the tent.

We'll see how the camping trip in August goes... at least the nights will be much warmer.

Camping Prolog: Final Grade B-

An Upcoming Vacation?

2011-06-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

Technically it is a vacation and I hope that it turns out to be a vacation but I fear it for several reasons. What kind of vacation could strike fear or maybe a better word is anxiety in this city boy? A camping vacation; a real “sleeping in a tent camping trip” in Mueller State Park, CO.

Why the anxiety?

SLEEP? – Falling asleep in a tent outside with weird noises all around wondering if it’s a black bear ready to attack and kill us. I am not a deep sleeper and have trouble falling asleep. So I envision getting no/horrible sleep; this is not a good thing for anyone.
No creature comforts: no nice long hot showers, comfortable bed
Keeping the kiddos happy and occupied
No internet, most likely no cell signal, no TV
It’s just… being out of ones comfort zone really

But…

It’ll be great to spend great family time together
Being in nature
Working on our patience levels
Hiking, Hiking and more hiking means great exercise
Most likely we will not encounter a black bear ready to eat us (at least we don’t have grizzlies)
And maybe the best thing is that I will be forced to be unlinked from work by the lack of connectivity. I usually always am checking on with work even when on PTO (I am a sick individual).

So I am hoping that this is a great experience because it is a relatively inexpensive vacation that is great for the girls and allows us to enjoy our Colorado Mountains.

Talk to you later, as long as I am not mauled by a hungry giant black bear.

A Great Story: Women2Drive

2011-05-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

Women fighting for their rights against patriarchal religious tyranny. Good for them.

Women2Drive Day is on June 17th.

It's 2011 and this crap still goes on, the human race has far to go.

A Horrible Event Close to Home

2011-05-26T05:07:00.000-07:00

It’s horrible hearing a story like this and especially when it hits so close to home, literally in this case. This occurred in the same city and these kids went to the same school as our little ones. To think that a mother murdered these two little innocent beings is beyond belief. Killing oneself is one thing but taking the life of another innocent human being is the ultimate crime against the human race.

You can imagine what sticks out to me here, "They are in heaven.". now I fully understand that this woman was a very troubled person both economically and socially and I think one can claim that she was also (at least temporarily insane). How could a sane person kill their children?

I wonder if (even being temporarily insane) this woman could have gone through with what she did if she didn’t think that her kids were in “heaven” reunited with loved ones, with Jesus/God etc…

Would it have changed her mind?

Would it have made it harder for her to kill her children if she wasn’t able to say and think, "They are in heaven.” but rather had to say and think, “I killed my children.” or “I ended the lives of my children.” or “I ended the existence of my children.”

By Carlos Illescas and Kieran Nicholson
The Denver Post

Who knows but it seems to me that the thought that they are in heaven enables and supports the idea that she can in her mind think she is not harming them but actually doing them a favor of a sort. I hope this family can recover from such a horrible tragedy.

The mother arrested Monday for the murder of her two children called police at 7:48 a.m. to report that she was trying to commit suicide.

When asked by a police dispatcher whether there were any children in the home, the mother replied: "They are in heaven."

When police arrived at the Founders Village home of Kelli Lynn Murphy, they found 9-year-old Liam and his sister, Madigan, 6, dead in their bedrooms. Castle Rock Police Chief Tony Lane said the bodies had no visible signs of injury.

Murphy, 41, was treated at the hospital for wounds to her wrists and arrested Monday afternoon, Lane said. She faces two counts of first-degree murder, child abuse and possibly other charges in the deaths of her children. Police say the children's father, Robert Eric Murphy, is not a suspect.

The last year had been a turbulent one for the couple. They filed for bankruptcy and divorce, records indicate, and Kelli Murphy got a protection order. A hearing was slated Monday to discuss a parenting schedule.

"It's sad. I can't believe it's happening," said Erika Warren, who lives across Cherry Street from the Murphy home and sometimes saw the two children playing and riding their bikes outside.

Police did not officially release the names of the two children, but they were named in court documents. Castle Rock police on Sunday made a welfare check at the Murphy home at the request of Robert Murphy. But Lane would not say what happened during the visit, except that it "related to this," meaning the deaths.

According to documents obtained by 9News, Kelli Murphy filed for a protection order at Douglas County District Court on March 3. She alleged domestic violence by her husband against her and the children. It was not clear whether Robert Murphy replied to the allegations.
The order of protection was granted but was later withdrawn.

On April 26, Kelli Murphy withdrew her request to dissolve the marriage, saying: "I do not want to divorce my husband." Her bid to end the proceedings — which was denied — said she had filed for divorce "wrongly, out of anger." "I do not want a divorce, and my husband has told me that as well. This needs to stop. We need counseling, not a divorce."

A statement from the family of Kelli Murphy was issued by Todd Harker, pastor of Community Baptist Church in Franktown.

"No words can express the sadness and pain our family is experiencing. We ask that we be allowed to grieve for our loss and face this tragedy in the shelter of privacy. "We do ask that you join us in praying for (the children's father). We pray God would grant him all comfort and peace at this time."

Robert Murphy's brother, Eric Murphy, who was heading to Colorado from Seattle, said his niece and nephew "were wonderful." Beyond that, he would say only that he hopes people could learn from such a tragedy.

The news shocked neighbors, who said they were caught off-guard by the heavy police presence and the gravity of what had happened.
Laura Visscher, who lives nearby, said the killings rocked the tight-knit neighborhood. "We're stunned," she said.

The family had financial trouble in the months leading up to the killings.

The couple filed for bankruptcy last June. Robert Murphy worked for Qwest Communications and made more than $71,000 in 2009, the bankruptcy document said. But in 2010, his earnings had dipped to about $33,000.

At the time of the filing, the documents say the couple had $149 in a checking account and $50 in savings, with more than $20,000 in debt.
Both children attended Rock Ridge Elementary School, where a grief counselor spoke with staff Monday, Douglas County Schools spokesman Randy Barber said. A letter was to be sent home to parents.

Neighbor Terry Wagner said he heard police sirens and later learned that the kids were dead.
"It's awful," he said.

Triathlon “Tri-the-Rock” May 2011 Complete

2011-05-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend the girls (5 ½ and 7 years old) completed their first triathlon! Overall it was a great experience but obviously there were things that drove me crazy. Let’s run down the ‘good’ items first.

The girls were great! They both successfully completed the entire course without any issues.

*5-6 years

25-meter swim (one pool length)
1-kilometer bike ride (one lap around Butterfield Park)
500-meter run

7-8 years and 9-10 years

50-meter swim (two pool lengths, down and back)
4-kilometer bike ride
1-kilometer run

Both girls were pretty nervous the entire day before the race. The younger one kept on telling us, “When I think about tomorrow my tummy feels funny.” They were both very brave and completed it like champs.

They were beat after the race due to both the emotional strain and physical strain it put them through but that is to be expected. They received their medals (everyone got one of course) and free meal and it was enjoyed all around.

I was not concerned at all with their race times; it was meant to be a good and enjoyable experience (no parental delusions of raising an Iron Man athlete here). I was most proud of the fact that they were both able to successfully deal with the mental stress and pressure of the race. It’s a lot for a little kid to deal with.

We will definitely do it again next year and work on those things that need working on.

What could have been better…

· Organization: It could have been a bit better organized. I understand it is a big feat but the waiting time was a bit much

· The start of the biking course: It started downhill with a 90 degree right turn at the bottom. When I went down the hill to watch my oldest I witnessed one kid totally crash and a couple of others almost crash; not the best way to start the biking course, come on people. I cringed as every kid came down that hill and left as soon as mine was through it, I couldn’t bear to watch.

· ASSININE PARENTS: Hey parents, shut the F%^K up! This is for fun, this is not the Hawaii Iron Man, get over yourselves. You know about these kind of parents.

· People: Can you be aware of your surroundings, seriously, pull your head out of your ass, watch what you are doing, where you are walking etc…

Thanks Tri-the-Rock organizers, a good use of $80.

Sam Harris on Free Will : Sam Makes Us Think

2011-05-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

The money shot:

"The moment we do pay attention, we begin to see that free will is nowhere to be found. And our subjectivity is perectly compatible with this truth. Thoughts and intentions simply arise in the mind; what else could they do? The truth about us is stranger than many suppose. The illusion of free will is itself an illusion." - From part 3/3.

Let's Make this "Crazy Story" Real

2011-05-20T18:49:00.000-07:00

We can all make fun of the wacko Christians that do believe the end times is going to begin tomorrow but it is more than poking fun, there are real lives impacted here. Of course not all Christians believe this nonsense but that is missing the larger point.

The point is that religion allows for such dogmatic, illogical and ignorant thinking to occur. Yes, most religious people are wonderful folk, I love many of them. What the average religious person does not realize is that their support of the foundation of dogma is what allows the wackos to survive. Without the foundation, the wackos do not exist, literally.

Ask yourself why nobody believes in the thousands of Gods that millions of human beings have believed in throughout history; because the base is now gone.

Well, here is a REAL story of the immediate and horrible impact that religion has on current lives of other human beings.

Make My Bed? But You Say the World’s Ending
By ASHLEY PARKER Published: May 19, 2011

The Haddad children of Middletown, Md., have a lot on their minds: school projects, SATs, weekend parties. And parents who believe the earth will begin to self-destruct on Saturday.

The three teenagers have been struggling to make sense of their shifting world, which started changing nearly two years ago when their mother, Abby Haddad Carson, left her job as a nurse to “sound the trumpet” on mission trips with her husband, Robert, handing out tracts. They stopped working on their house and saving for college.
Last weekend, the family traveled to New York, the parents dragging their reluctant children through a Manhattan street fair in a final effort to spread the word.

“My mom has told me directly that I’m not going to get into heaven,” Grace Haddad, 16, said. “At first it was really upsetting, but it’s what she honestly believes.”

Thousands of people around the country have spent the last few days taking to the streets and saying final goodbyes before Saturday, Judgment Day, when they expect to be absorbed into heaven in a process known as the rapture. Nonbelievers, they hold, will be left behind to perish along with the world over the next five months.

With their doomsday T-shirts, placards and leaflets, followers — often clutching Bibles — are typically viewed as harmless proselytizers from outside mainstream religion. But their convictions have frequently created the most tension within their own families, particularly with relatives whose main concern about the weekend is whether it will rain.

Kino Douglas, 31, a self-described agnostic, said it was hard to be with his sister Stacey, 33, who “doesn’t want to talk about anything else.”

“I’ll say, ‘Oh, what are we going to do this summer?’ She’s going to say, ‘The world is going to end on May 21, so I don’t know why you’re planning for summer,’ and then everyone goes, ‘Oh, boy,’ ” he said.

The Douglas siblings live near each other in Brooklyn, and Mr. Douglas said he could not wait until Sunday — “I’m going to show up at her house so we can have that conversation that’s been years in coming.”

Ms. Douglas, who has a 7-year-old, said that while her family did not see the future the way she did, her mother did allow her to put a Judgment Day sign up on her house. “I never thought I’d be doing this,” said Ms. Douglas, who took vacation from her nanny job this week but did not quit. “I was in an abusive relationship. One day, my son was playing with the remote and Mr. Camping was on TV. I thought, This guy is crazy. But I kept thinking about it and something told me to go back.”

Ms. Douglas and other believers subscribe to the prophecy of Harold Camping, a civil engineer turned self-taught biblical scholar whose doomsday scenario — broadcast on his Family Radio network — predicts a May 21, 2011, Judgment Day. On that day, arrived at through a series of Bible-based calculations that assume the world will end exactly 7,000 years after Noah’s flood, believers are to be transported up to heaven as a worldwide earthquake strikes. Nonbelievers will endure five months of plagues, quakes, wars, famine and general torment before the planet’s total destruction in October. In 1992 Mr. Camping said the rapture would probably be in 1994, but he now says newer evidence makes the prophecy for this year certain.

Gary Daniels, 27, said he planned to spend Saturday like other believers, “glued to our TV sets, waiting for the Resurrection and earthquake from nation to nation.” But he acknowledged that his family was not entirely behind him.

“At first there was a bit of anger and tension, not really listening to one another and just shouting out ideas,” Mr. Daniels said.

But his family has come around to respect — if not endorse — his views, and he drove from his home in Newark, Del., on Monday night in a van covered in Judgment Day messages to say goodbye to relatives in Brooklyn. “I know I’m not going to see them again, but they are very certain they are going to see me, and that’s where I feel so sad,” he said. “I weep to know that they don’t have any idea that this overwhelming thing is coming right at them, pummeliWhile Ms. Haddad Carson has quit her job, her husband still works as an engineer for the federal Energy Department. But the children worry that there may not be enough money for college. They also have typical teenage angst — embarrassing parents — only amplified.

“People look at my family and think I’m like that,” said Joseph, their 14-year-old, as his parents walked through the street fair on Ninth Avenue, giving out Bibles. “I keep my friends as far away from them as possible.”
ng toward them like a meteor.”

“I don’t really have any motivation to try to figure out what I want to do anymore,” he said, “because my main support line, my parents, don’t care.”

His mother said she accepted that believers “lose friends and you lose family members in the process.”

“I have mixed feelings,” Ms. Haddad Carson said. “I’m very excited about the Lord’s return, but I’m fearful that my children might get left behind. But you have to accept God’s will.”

The children, however, have found something to giggle over. “She’ll say, ‘You need to clean up your room,’ ” Grace said. “And I’ll say, ‘Mom, it doesn’t matter, if the world’s going to end!’ ”

She and her twin, Faith, have a friend’s birthday party Saturday night, around the time their parents believe the rapture will occur.

“So if the world doesn’t end, I’d really like to attend,” Grace said before adding, “Though I don’t know how emotionally able my family will be at that time.”

The Second Annual Draw Muhammad Day

2011-05-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

The Second Annual Draw Muhammad Day is fast approaching, so please join in on the event to show your support for the FREEDOM OF SPEECH and draw Muhammad and post it somehwere on May 20th!

A Great Video from Thunderfoot on why this day is important.

Here is mine...

Our Oldest Fear and Wish

2011-05-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

The oldest fear of the human race is death.

The oldest wish of the human race is to survive death and have an afterlife where they can again be with their loved ones.

I wonder what solution(s) the human race came up with?

I think it rhymes with superstition.

Wow, Seriously. Human Race Coming to an End?

2011-05-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

Science explains the end of the world - Richard Dawkins

2011-05-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

Science explains the end of the world

Q. Family Radio evangelist Harold Camping believes that he has calculated the exact date of the rapture: May 21, 2011. While many are laughing at the suggestion, Camping’s followers are taking him seriously, bringing his message of impending doom to billboards and public spaces around the country. What does your tradition teach about the end of the world? How does end time theology impact real world behavior?

A. Why is a serious newspaper like the Washington Post giving space to a raving loon? I suppose the answer must be that, unlike the average loon, this one has managed to raise enough money to launch a radio station and pay for billboards. I don’t know where he gets the money, but it would be no surprise to discover that it is contributed by gullible followers – gullible enough, we may guess, to go along with him when he will inevitably explain, on May 22nd, that there must have been some error in the calculation, the rapture is postponed to . . . and please send more money to pay for updated billboards.

So, the question becomes, why are there so many well-heeled, gullible idiots out there? Why is it that an idea can be as nuts as you like and still con enough backers to finance its advertising to acquire yet more backers . . . until eventually a national newspaper notices and makes it into a silly season filler?

I won’t waste any more time on that, but I do want to mention a less trivial point arising from the question posed by the Washington Post: ‘What does your tradition teach about the end of the world?’ It’s that word ‘tradition’ that should raise our critical hackles. It refers to a collection of beliefs handed down through generations – as opposed to beliefs founded on evidence. Evidence-free beliefs are, by definition, groundless. What my ‘tradition’ (or your ‘tradition’ or the Dalai Lama’s ‘tradition’ or Osama bin Laden’s ‘tradition’ or the bad-trip ‘tradition’ of whoever wrote Revelation) says about anything in the real world (including its end) is no more likely to be true than any urban legend, idle rumor, superstition, or science fiction novel. Yet, the moment you slap the word ‘tradition’ onto a made-up story you confer on it a spurious dignity, which we are solemnly asked to ‘respect’.

Science is not a tradition, it is the organized use of evidence from the real world to make inferences about the real world – meaning the real universe, which is, in Carl Sagan’s words, all that is, or ever was, or ever will be. Science knows approximately how, and when, our Earth will end. In about five billion years the sun will run out of hydrogen, which will upset its self-regulating equilibrium; in its death-throes it will swell, and this planet will vaporise. Before that, we can expect, at unpredictable intervals measured in tens of millions of years, bombardment by dangerously large meteors or comets. Any one of these impacts could be catastrophic enough to destroy all life, as the one that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago nearly did. In the nearer future, it is pretty likely that human life will become extinct – the fate of almost all species that have ever lived.

In our case, as the distinguished astronomer and former president of the Royal Society Martin Rees has conjectured, extinction is likely to be self-inflicted. Destructive technology becomes more powerful by the decade, and there is an ever-increasing danger that it will fall into the hands of some holy fool (Ian McEwan’s memorable phrase) whose ‘tradition’ glorifies death and longs for the hereafter: a ‘tradition’ which, not content with forecasting the end of the world, actively seeks to bring it about.

However it happens, the end of the world will be a parochial little affair, unnoticed in the universe at large. The end of the universe itself is a matter of current debate among physicists, a debate that I recommend as providing a salutary, long-term, humbling perspective on human preoccupations and follies.

Richard Dawkins May 10, 2011 1:13 PM

Do I Remember that Correctly?

2011-05-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

Why do we remember some dreams but not others?

I love the NewScientist website and Twitter feed, great articles like this one.

"WHY do we remember some dreams but not others? It's because the brain mechanism that controls whether we remember or forget things when we are awake is involved."

Yes, you read that correctly. When we are dreaming, the brain stores that information in the same location as we do for memories when we are awake.

"The upshot is that even when we are asleep, the same parts of our brains are on the alert for things to remember. These are often events that are emotionally charged and that the brain deems important, whether we are awake or not."

"De Gennero says the results are the first evidence that the physiology by which memories are stored is the same whether we are awake or asleep."

As regular readers well know, I have been posting more and more about the brain and how human memory is created and stored.

Our brains memory function does NOT work like a video camera.
Our memories are compressed over time and details deteriorate.
Our brain chooses to store and not store different memories.
Our memories are impacted at the moment by our current state of mind.
Our memories of the past are also impacted by our current state of mind.
Our memories are morphed over time as we change as people.
Our memories over time begin to blur and multiple memories can be merged, changed etc...

The list goes on. Human memory is NOT reliable. Now we begin to learn that our brains do not store dream memories any differently than awake memories, so how do we keep them separate, especially over time.

I just heard a great quote from Neil DeGrasse Tyson - an Astro-Physicist (follow him on Twitter, he's great):

"If scientists created our legal system, they would not allow eye witness testimony."

Out of the Closet, Not Fully

2011-05-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

I was standing there watching my 5 year old and her teammates chase the ball around the soccer field like a swarm of hungry wolves chasing a wounded doe.

One of the parents says to me, "How was your Easter?"

Quickly, how to respond, what to say? I had not thought about it but I should have because I had already been questioned at work about what i did for Easter and I should have guessed someone at soccer may ask as well.

I could have said many things...

"Oh, we don't celebrate Easter. How was your Easter?"

"We are not a religious family."

"We don't celebrate dead Jewish zombies that rise from the dead, it freaks the kids out."

"We don't celebrate Easter as we find it odd to celebrate a dead Jewish Zombie by hiding and eating dead chicken fetuses layed by a magic bunny."

"We are Atheists and don't celebrate ancient Pagan holidays stolen by Christians."

but no, I quickly settled on...

"Oh, we didn't do much, just a regular Sunday for us. What did you do for Easter?"

He then mentioned that they had an Easter egg hunt.

My wife later informed me that WE were invited to said Easter egg hunt (that she respectfully declined for obvious reasons) but I had forgotten that fact, DOH! Now he probably thinks were assholes.

I should have just told the truth and informed him that we don't celebrate Easter and leave it at that but I am still in the closet a lot of the time due to the possible adverse implications that coming out may have for my kids. If you don't think that is a valid fear, you are sorely mistaken.

Most believers are ignorant as to what the term Atheism means and that ignorance breads hate, dislike and fear. The Atheist movement is where the gay movement was decades ago and has yet to gain acceptance, just ask any atheist politician.

I realize it will only get more and more difficult as the girls grow older and begin to have discussions at school where kids bring up gods. It sure will get interesting and all I can really do is to fully arm them with the most dangerous weapons known to man: knowledge, reason and logic.

Maybe someday, maybe someday no closet will be needed for my girls.

Life

2011-04-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

There has to be a solution to this work for 5 days to live for two days thing, seriously.

2011-04-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

Too damn busy to write, here you go. An awesome little chat between Stephen Colbert and AC Grayling, great.

Great 3 Minutes 40 Seconds - Carl Sagan + Video Compilation

2011-04-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

Carl Sagan was the man. Great imagery compilation by film maker as well.

A Great Letter From One of Our Lifetimes Great Minds

2011-04-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

Christopher Hitchens was scheduled to appear at the American Atheist convention that is currently going on in Des moines Iowa but had to cancel because of his illness. He sent this letter instead.

Dear fellow-unbelievers,

Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death. Nobody ever wins this argument, though there are some solid points to be made while the discussion goes on. I have found, as the enemy becomes more familiar, that all the special pleading for salvation, redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before. I hope to help defend and pass on the lessons of this for many years to come, but for now I have found my trust better placed in two things: the skill and principle of advanced medical science, and the comradeship of innumerable friends and family, all of them immune to the false consolations of religion. It is these forces among others which will speed the day when humanity emancipates itself from the mind-forged manacles of servility and superstitition. It is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.

That essential sense of decency is outraged every day. Our theocratic enemy is in plain view. Protean in form, it extends from the overt menace of nuclear-armed mullahs to the insidious campaigns to have stultifying pseudo-science taught in American schools. But in the past few years, there have been heartening signs of a genuine and spontaneous resistance to this sinister nonsense: a resistance which repudiates the right of bullies and tyrants to make the absurd claim that they have god on their side. To have had a small part in this resistance has been the greatest honor of my lifetime: the pattern and original of all dictatorship is the surrender of reason to absolutism and the abandonment of critical, objective inquiry. The cheap name for this lethal delusion is religion, and we must learn new ways of combating it in the public sphere, just as we have learned to free ourselves of it in private.

Our weapons are the ironic mind against the literal: the open mind against the credulous; the courageous pursuit of truth against the fearful and abject forces who would set limits to investigation (and who stupidly claim that we already have all the truth we need). Perhaps above all, we affirm life over the cults of death and human sacrifice and are afraid, not of inevitable death, but rather of a human life that is cramped and distorted by the pathetic need to offer mindless adulation, or the dismal belief that the laws of nature respond to wailings and incantations.

As the heirs of a secular revolution, American atheists have a special responsibility to defend and uphold the Constitution that patrols the boundary between Church and State. This, too, is an honor and a privilege. Believe me when I say that I am present with you, even if not corporeally (and only metaphorically in spirit...) Resolve to build up Mr Jefferson's wall of separation. And don't keep the faith.

Sincerely

Christopher Hitchens

Welcome to this World

2011-04-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

Very well done.

I'm in Love

2011-04-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

I just bought the Silversun Pickups "Swoon" album about two weeks ago and I am so in love with this band. I have listened to this album more in the first two weeks than I have ever listened to any album in that time frame. I'm addicted to it, I can't get enough.

This is their second album, I can't wait for their next and I'll be purchasing their first album soon.

Enjoy

Here is another great track from Swoon

Debating Structure

2011-04-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

I love listening to debates and lectures, big surprise I know. I love to learn about new subject matters, listen to differing viewpoints on a topic, learn different debating techniques etc… I also love to debate others but that opportunity does not come up very often as I usually wait for the invitation rather than overtly create a debate.

I recently listened to the latest debate between William Lane Craig and Sam Harris on “Does good come from God”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9wGJlUBCN0
This post is not about that particular debate but about debates themselves. This debate was o.k. I love to listen to Sam Harris dismantle his opposition.

But this debate, like many others, suffers from a huge issue, a lack of real conversation. This debate like many had the following structure:
• 20 Minute Opening Statements by each party
• 12 Minute Rebuttals Statements by each party
• 5 Minute Closing Statements by each party
• (Sometimes) - Audience Questions for 15 - 30 Minutes

The best part of this format is usually the audience questions because it contains actual conversation back and forth.

The above structure just does not allow for real, actual back and forth conversation. When someone is doing 20 or 12 or even 5 minutes of straight dialogue it is just impossible to execute a true rebuttal. By the time it takes one person to correct their opponents mis-understandings, mis-quoting and mis-representing the points you made, you really only have time to address a couple of the tens of points your opponent may have tried to make.

It allows the “debate” to just wander and meander around the subject without truly holding each debater accountable for their points rather than enforcing specificity and creating actual point counter point of one’s ideas.

I have not done the research on debate structure philosophy to find out IF there is an actual method to this madness but for me, I MUCH rather prefer to listen debates that use the conversational style, like this one between Hitchens & Harris v. Wolpe and Shavit

http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/?bcpid=533363107&bctid=802338105001 - In this recent Whizin Center for Continuine Education program, leading advocates for atheism, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris square off against Newsweek top rabbis, David Wolpe and Bradley Artson Shavit to determine what may or may not happen in the hereafter.

I wish all debates used this structure.

Like Chronic Gambling...

2011-04-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

Founding Fathers

2011-04-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Click on picture

"Why?", you ask...

2011-04-06T09:57:00.000-07:00

I frequently get asked, “Why, why so hell bent on criticizing religion?” Well, I have posted many times on that question, just click the topic of religion below on the right side.

In the end, the answer comes down to this: Because it adversely impacts my life, my family’s life, my country and the entire world with its dogmatic, discriminatory, ignorant, hateful, cruel and evil doctrines.

Hitchens said it best: "Name one moral statement or action made by a theist, that couldn't have been made by a nonbeliever. And in turn, name one evil statement or act made/done by a believer in the name of religion.” It’s simple to answer the second and impossible to answer the first.

Updated 4/6: And yet another:

rdfrsCatholic Church reverses course on bill to eliminate statute of limitations on sex abuse of minors - RD.net - http://bit.ly/eQ8Q2a

The Catholic church, more about protecting themselves than seeking justice for the children raped by thier preists and covered up by thier leadership, DISPICABLE.

Here are two examples:

Link: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/612017-science-minister-won-t-confirm-belief-in-evolution

Science minister won't confirm belief in evolution

By ANNE MCILROY - THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Canada's science minister, the man at the centre of the controversy over federal funding cuts to researchers, won't say if he believes in evolution.

"I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate," Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

A funding crunch, exacerbated by cuts in the January budget, has left many senior researchers across the county scrambling to find the money to continue their experiments.

Some have expressed concern that Mr. Goodyear, a chiropractor from Cambridge, Ont., is suspicious of science, perhaps because he is a creationist.

When asked about those rumours, Mr. Goodyear said such conversations are not worth having.

"Obviously, I have a background that supports the fact I have read the science on muscle physiology and neural chemistry," said the minister, who took chemistry and physics courses as an undergraduate at the University of Waterloo.

"I do believe that just because you can't see it under a microscope doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It could mean we don't have a powerful enough microscope yet. So I'm not fussy on this business that we already know everything. ... I think we need to recognize that we don't know."

Asked to clarify if he was talking about the role of a creator, Mr. Goodyear said that the interview was getting off topic.

Brian Alters, founder and director of the Evolution Education Research Centre at McGill University in Montreal, was shocked by the minister's comments.

Evolution is a scientific fact, Dr. Alters said, and the foundation of modern biology, genetics and paleontology. It is taught at universities and accepted by many of the world's major religions, he said.

"It is the same as asking the gentleman, 'Do you believe the world is flat?' and he doesn't answer on religious grounds," said Dr. Alters. "Or gravity, or plate tectonics, or that the Earth goes around the sun."

Jim Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, said he was flabbergasted that the minister would invoke his religion when asked about evolution.

"The traditions of science and the reliance on testable and provable knowledge has served us well for several hundred years and have been the basis for most of our advancement. It is inconceivable that a government would have a minister of science that rejects the basis of scientific discovery and traditions," he said.

GOP House Judiciary Committee Resolves to Put ‘In God We Trust’ on All Federal Buildings – What Will That Cost?

Jon Ponder | Mar. 22, 2011

Just four months ago the tea party Republicans won control of the House by campaigning on reducing the deficit and promising to focus on “Jobs, jobs, jobs.” But in the 12 weeks since they officially took over, what they have shown is that, despite their new “tea party” branding, this current batch is no different from the GOP politicians who ran Congress in the Bush and Gingrich eras.

Like typical politicians, the tea party Republicans have not even bothered to deliver on their campaign promises. They have done nothing to create jobs — they haven’t even held a hearing on employment. And their approach to reducing the deficit is to cut programs that help the middle class, sick and elderly or that are counter to their right-wing ideology, while adamantly refusing even to discuss raising taxes on the 400 American families that control $1.27 trillion of the nation’s wealth — that’s $3.175 billion per family.

Instead, the GOP House has resorted to the same sort of ideological gimmickry that was their predecessors’ hallmark. Since they took control of the House in January, the tea party has:

Botched their own swearing-in ceremony
Read the Constitution out loud, leaving out the icky parts about slavery and accidentally skipping entire sections, requiring a hasty do-over
Wasted time voting to defund health-care reform without bothering to mention the “replacement” law they promised in their “Repeal and replace” campaign slogan
Despite repeatedly claiming, “We’re broke, we’re broke,” rammed through a $20 million subsidy for private religious schools in D.C.
Wasted yet more of the taxpayers’ time passing a budget that the president would never sign, in part, because it would have killed between 700,000 and 1 million jobs and arbitrarily cut $61 billion from programs without regard to their effectiveness — ordering, for example, draconian cuts to the Poison Control Centers, Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, tsunami warning systems, job training programs and even the IRS, the primary government bureau that brings in revenue
After drastically reducing IRS funding, debated putting the IRS in charge of investigating abortions — a measure that has 221 co-sponsors
Defunded NPR because of yet another deceptively edited “punk’d” video by federal felon James O’Keefe
Killed the U.S. Capitol’s composting program

And now comes this theocratic silliness:

[Virginia] U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes’ resolution to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as the national motto and encourage its display in all public schools was approved by a House committee Thursday after a sharp partisan debate.

Opponents argued it goes too far in pushing one religious belief, while supporters said it acknowledges what they consider God’s role in the success of the United States.

A little background: In 1782, the Founding Fathers chose as the motto for the United States, “E pluribus unum,” which means “Out of many, one.” In 1956, at the height of the Cold War, Congress passed a law making “In God we trust” the official motto, a move that was primarily meant as an insult to the godless communists who ran the Soviet Union. Founders Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington as well as Abraham Lincoln, all of whom believed firmly in the separation of religion and the government and none of whom were particularly religious, have been spinning in their graves ever since.

Similarly, this new resolution from Rep. Forbes is really just a political goad directed at Pres. Obama, who recently cited “E pluribus unum” as the national motto.

Here’s more on the intent of the measure from Forbes himself:

“This sends a clear message to all these government departments and agencies that it’s all right to put up the motto on our buildings and in our classrooms. And I think it will stop the tide of the chilling effect over the past several years. We’re not forcing anybody to do anything. But at the same time, we want to stand there to protect people who want to say God in a public building. And we don’t want some government agency telling them that they can’t put the national motto in their buildings or classrooms.”

Rep. Forbes claims the law would not “force” the government to put signs on federal buildings, that it would merely make it “all right” to do so. But let’s not be naive about politicians’ reluctance to stand up to theocrats or about how the government works. Passing the law to approve the signs is step one. Step two would occur over the months and years after the law was passed, with enabling and funding legislation tacked on as amendments to bills totally unrelated to the signs. This legislation would lead to step three, ordering the manufacture and installation of the signs. And, obviously, if signs are created for federal buildings, they will be paid for with federal tax dollars.

There are apparently about 9,000 federal buildings around the country, so as far as “jobs, jobs, jobs,” goes, if it requires two sign makers to create and install a new sign for each building, that’s 18,000 temporary jobs, or, at the very least, work orders.

Way to create jobs, GOP! Hey, wait a minute. Isn’t it GOP dogma that government can’t create jobs?

But in terms of cutting spending this resolution is a loser. It doesn’t lay out the specifications for the materials to be used to make the signs, but we can’t have cheap-ass plastic signs praising God on our federal buildings — nothing is too good for God, right? At the very least, the signs should be engraved in marble or cast in brass.

There won’t be definitive figures on the cost until the Congressional Budget Office does an analysis, but let’s say each of the 9,000 signs costs $10,000 to create and install. That puts the cost to taxpayers at $90 million.

What happened to “We’re broke?”

Let’s hope the independent voters who sent the tea party to Washington are paying attention to this nonsense — the claims that the United States is bankrupt and yet billionaires can’t be taxed to help close the gap; the failed promises on jobs; the reckless budget cuts; the hours and hours wasted passing bills that are nothing more than political sop to the right-wing fringe, now including a resolution to post “In God We Trust” on 9,000 government-owned buildings.

Is this really what you wanted, swing voters?

Randy Forbes and other tea-party politicians are betraying the swing voters who sent them to Washington by playing politics with religion and wasting time on ridiculous, albeit toothless, resolutions like this, instead of doing what they said they would do — improve the economy and create “Jobs, jobs, jobs.”

I Need to be a Better Online Community Member, Do You?

2011-04-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

Whenever I run across an issue whether it be an electronic issue (like my current TV issue) or a question about landscaping, or a car problem or whatever issue it may be, I almost always research the human collective knowledge base, the Internet.

Someone MUST have already ran into this issue and they very likely have also come across the solution. So it is a great place to start for answers to problems we all run into. What really hit me harder than it has before this last time with my TV issue is a very important piece to the above human collective knowledge base, DOING MY PART. The only way these answers are available is because someone took the time to go onto the Internet and place both their problem AND the answer.

Shame on me as I have not been a good online community member to the human collective knowledge base. I cannot even count the number of times I have searched for the answer to my many problems over the last decade and I don’t know that I have ever contributed my experiences.

So I am making a pledge to myself that I will start right now with my current TV issue and continue to add my experiences to the human collective knowledge base of the Internet in hopes of helping my fellow humans try to solve their problems just as others have tried to help me in the past and in the future solve my problems.

Will you make the same pledge to yourself to be a good online community member to the human collective knowledge base?

Final Update: TV Problem Resolved, sort of I guess

2011-04-01T08:10:00.000-07:00

So I went into Best Buy to plead my case in hopes that they would do the right thing with a great long term customer of Best Buy.

I explained and showed the email evidence that I had reported the issue to Dynex within one year (on the 365th day to be exact) but by the time I looked at the receipt, it was now 366th day. I laid on the sugar as much as I could but in the end, the Store Manager said, "Sorry, at this point we can't do anything for you."

He explained that unless the store has a "Problem Report" filled out within the year, the manufacturer will not reimburse them thus the store would be taking a 100% loss. I don't know if I should feel like Best Buy is treating me like shiate or not as would other stores act any differently?

My Solution:
So, my "MacGyver skills" kick in. For the young ens, MacGyver was a TV show in the 80's. I already knew that if I held down the Input Source button on the TV, the Input Source menu disappeared and as soon as I let it go, it came back. So by holding it down, I was obviously killing any signal being sent from the Input Source button to the TVs 'brain'.

So I took the cover off of the TV, tried pulling out the lead to the button module and then plugging that in, nothing. So I'd have to figure out a way to hold down the Input Source button somehow.

You see my MacGyvered solution above. I drilled a hole in the TV case so I could dangle the button module outside of the TV and used a Binder Clip to hold down that button.

Problem solved, the Input Source menu is gone and I still have full functionality of the TV and I can use the Remote Control to change the Input Source for when I watch a DVD or play the PS3.

Updated: 3/30/2011 - Bad Timing on an Electronic Malfunction

2011-03-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

There was an event that took place last weekend that was unfortunate in more than one way. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law were both in town for a long weekend. The kids had a great time visiting and playing with their Aunt and Uncle.

The Event:

On the day before they were going to leave, my brother-in-law who was staying/sleeping in our loft (where my ‘office’ is) informs me that there is something wrong with my Dynex TV and he didn’t know how it happened. This was bad timing #1. I don’t believe he did anything to do with creating this issue but he was the one to ‘discover it’ so regardless he felt bad as the discoverer always feels some guilt even if they just turned the TV or whatever ‘on’.

The Problem:

Just as there is a ‘Menu’ screen that pops up onto the TV screen to adjust the color, brightness etc…. there also is an ‘Input Source’ menu that you use to switch from cable to PS3 to DVD etc… Well, the Input Source menu is stuck on the screen and it just continues to scroll through all of the options (as of the writing of this portion of the post). Nothing appears to make it stop. It will not disappear from the screen, it just continues to scroll and scroll.

Solutions I have tried:

Unplug every wire entering the TV for several hours to attempt to “reset it” .Hit every button on the remote separately and in combinations.
Toggle with the Input Source button ON the TV in case it was stuck down, it does not appear or feel to be stuck down.
Turn the TV off and on quickly
Hold down the Input Source button for a long time
Search the internet for a possible solution
Search the Dynex website for help
Pray to God - Big surprise, that did not work ;o)
Access Service Menu - I figured out through my Internet Research how to access the “secret” Service menu and set the TV back to “Shipping Default” but that did not even work.

Finally, I gave up for now and I have emailed Dynex Support, I should hear back in 72… now 24 Hours to see if they can help.

Bad Timing #2:

It’s now March 27, 2011, the in laws are gone. Hey, I think it has only been 6 months or so since I bought this thing, I should find the receipt as it should still be within warranty. I find the receipt and the purchase date is March 27 2010, NO FRIGGIN joke! It has been one year and some hours since I purchased this thing. If I had only checked the day before but I had thought it was only months ago since I purchased it.

Reminder to All: As I have always said – Human memory is total SHIATE and should not be trusted.

List of possible last hopes…

I did submit my email request (and I have an email receipt from Dynex) the day before so my email WAS within one year of my purchase, they may honor that.
Dynex Support actually figures out a solution
Firmware update – I did notice through my hours of internet research that there is something called a firmware update for new TVs’. You download the Firmware Update onto a USB drive and then insert the USB into the “Service Slot” in the TV. This would not directly fix my issue but what it may do is force a reboot of the TV software and indirectly fix my issue.

To be continued…

Update 3/30 –

I tried the Firmware update, it did not solve the problem. I now think that it may have been static electricity that shorted the Input Source button into the static ‘On’ or ‘depressed’ state.

I have received an email reply from Dynex, their feedback was that I should call Best Buy Customer Service and see if they will extend the warranty. I then called Best Buy today and they said that I will need to go to the store with my documentation (original receipt and emails to/from Dynex showing I found the issue within the one year timeframe) and talk to the manager as it will be up to the manager to decide.

So if they will not help, I will take off the back of the TV and see if I can disconnect that button as I can still use the remote control to change the input source.

To be continued…

Best Bar Mitzvah Speech Ever

2011-03-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

Once in a while I run across these amazing videos of great moments in real life occuring where I was unfortuanltely not at the time. Glad to have seen it.

Display #4,237 on how Religion Oppresses

2011-03-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten that Islam was not the only religion to still enforce oppression against the female gender through dress. This is obviously not to say that religions oppression ends with dress and or ends with female oppression. In the end, religion is all about the oppression of the people.

Where Would You Go With 3 Days Notice?

2011-03-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

Micheal Shermer Tweeted this slick yet disturbing video of dystopian/apocalyptic world underground shelters for sale of ($25,000 & up): http://www.terravivos.com/ 2 Min 30 Sec long

Main Page: http://www.terravivos.com/home.htm

It's a well done video that prays on both peoples fears of an end of life event such as global nuclear war, bio-terrorism, a new plague etc... but it is also providing a real potential needed service.

Will there be another life extinction event? They have occurred in the past.

2012
Nuclear War
BioWar
Terrorism
Anarchy
Electromagnetic Pulse
Solar Flares
Pole Shift
Huge asteroid
Global Tsunami
Planet X
Super Volcano

So some of these are possible and some we even know will actually happen again, it is a question of 'when' in those cases.

It is an interesting concept and maybe if I won the lottery and could EASILY spare $25,000, I may just opt into this situation, it can't hurt right?

Where Do You Land?

2011-03-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

http://politicalcompass.org/test

Rocketstar's Final Results:

Economic Left/Right: -3.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.36

Now I have not studied the algorithm they used to calculate this, so who knows... but they did appear to ask some good questions. Takes only a couple of minutes.

Winter's Bone Review

2011-03-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

And another nail goes into the "Hollywood movies usually suck, better stick with Independent and Documentary films" coffin, comes Winter's Bone.

From IMDB: An unflinching Ozark Mountain girl hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her drug-dealing father while trying to keep her family intact.

I really enjoyed this film, great story, good mystery, some suspense, some sadness, great acting and the right length at 1 hour 40 minutes.

My question is why can't Hollywood make films like this one? It doesn't have multi-million dollar special effects, no multi-million dollar actors but it does have a great story of human adversity with a very real life touch.

Overall, I would give it an 8 out of 10.

Just When You Thought You've Heard His Best

2011-03-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

As Mr Hitchens battles death, he only seems to grow stronger. I surely hope he wins his battle.

He will forever change minds with his words, eloquence and reason.

It's so sad and horrible but also Very Interesting

2011-03-16T18:15:00.000-07:00

It is so sad what is happening in Japan right now yet I am finding it fascinating. Of course the human suffering and radiation issues are sickening, horrible, I can not even imagine the despair and I feel for those people.

But once you try to get past that suffering and look at the other human learning opportunities in this tragedy:

the radiation,
it's effects,
how a meltdown really works in detail,
what was the exact cause,
what has the human reaction been,
how has a culture responded,
the incredible human stories that arise out of tragedy,
a study of the human condition under stress
the stories of triumph and despair,
etc...

It's very sadly interesting as a study of the human condition.

Catholics Come Home - Too Funny Not to Post

2011-03-15T06:21:00.000-07:00

Watch the second commercial, Bill's version, too funny, yet sadly true.

Glenn Wilson: Sex Wars Lecture

2011-03-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

A great lecture on sex and the human biological components and how they mold many of our sexual behaviors. About 45 minutes long but very interesting and well worth it.

Pray for Japan

2011-03-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

It was the night before Friday March 11, 2011 and millions of Japanese citizens prayed to whatever god they may believe in as they do every night before they go to bed.

I am positive that there must have been thousands upon thousands of prayers for the health of their families and the prosperity of Japan and its people. So needless to say, those prayers were totally ignored as thousands of Japanese citizens have been killed, tens of thousands more hurt and financially ruined.

Now we hear over and over again to "Pray for Japan" as if that will actually help. Now I understand that for many people prayer feels good, it makes them feel like they are actually helping others, so by all means if that is the case, pray away, no harm done.

To truly help the Japanese people, please be sure to do something that will in reality help them recover from the wrath of mother nature. If it is within your means, give them resources and money which is what will help them recover.

http://givingaid.richarddawkins.net/ : Scroll to the bottom of the page to donate, thanks.

This Speaks for Itself

2011-03-12T09:17:00.000-08:00

John Lennon lyrics
"Imagine"

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Class Warfare, Ilustrated

2011-03-11T11:48:00.000-08:00

It still boggles my mind how the American public just doesn't "get it". WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!

A Dying Communication Medium, the Phone

2011-03-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

I am not a "phone person" nor is my better half. Our phone plan has 750 minutes total for the both of us and we never get into danger of reaching that limit. We just don't talk on the phone to people that much. I'd much rather email, text and instant message.

I don't even talk on the phone with family much at all. I just don't have that much to say. My life does not have the kind of variety, excitement, large events, etc... that occur frequently to chat about. There is just not that much to say. Work, work, play with the kids, sleep, rinse and repeat.

My real outlet and it is a stretch to call it a verbal communication outlet is to you my eFreinds. The Bloggers, the Twitterers, the rare encounters on Facebook. I always have to remind folks that it's not because I don;t think about you, it's just due to the fact that I am not a phone person, never was and never will be.

I do not like answering the phone. It's almost as if I feel I may be trapped into doing something I don't want to do. I do answer the phone when I need to but unless I think it is 100% necessary, good luck.

You Just Got Logic Bitch Slapped

2011-03-04T19:01:00.000-08:00

If you are in the mood for a 2 minute 24 second video of a great rant and can look past his aggressiveness and focus on the message, you'll love it.

My favorite line:
"If God wanted me to be saved, I would be saved. God already knows exactly how much evidence I require to believe in him. So if he really truly wants me to believe in him, he'll provide that exact amount of evidence for me. And he's infinite, it would be no problem for him to do that."

Atheists head for high schools with new clubs for Godless teens

2011-02-27T12:34:00.000-08:00

Atheists head for high schools with new clubs for Godless teens

Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

The Secular Student Alliance, which promotes atheism and humanism with chapters at more than 200 colleges, is sending in reinforcements for teen free-thinkers -- a push to launch 50 new high school clubs.

Godless teens want the same social benefits that evangelical teens find at the annual "See you at the pole" flagpole prayer events at thousands of schools every September, and the court-sanctioned after school Bible clubs, and Christian, Jewish and Muslim student groups.
J.T. Eberhard, of the Columbus, Ohio-based Alliance, says. "High school is hard for anybody and we are among the most reviled groups in America. These clubs give kids a chance to socialize with like-minded people. There's nothing in our mission statement about tearing down religion."

Even Glee took an episode to show the double-trouble that gay character Kurt faced when Kurt came out as an atheist.
Eberhard is a young ex-believer ("a teacher witnessed to me in high school," he recalls) who was hired last month by the Alliance to focus on high school outreach. But so far this year, he's hit a Jericho wall with administrators using technicalities to block student-led clubs.

The Alliance has launched five new clubs but "three had a struggle and six more are still stymied." So far, of the two 17 student-led clubs now operating, "two meet secretly," Eberhard says.
Alliance spokesman Jesse Galef verified the experience of an Oklahoma student (name withheld at his request) who shared his anonymous saga on Reddit's atheism site last year.
The student held one meeting but as soon as the principal heard about it, he was ordered to the school office where he was accused of launching a "hate club." Shortly after, the requisite faculty adviser withdrew. According to the student's saga, the adviser was told it would be "a bad career move."

Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, calls such maneuvers "... an illegal end-run around the constitutional rights of non-religious students."
Lynn, who helped write the Equal Access Act in 1984, calls it "a free speech benefit," for believers and atheists alike. The only purpose of including a faculty member in the club establishment requirements is just to be sure discipline and order are maintained, not to make any religious, or irreligious connection in a student led activity, says Lynn.

Brian Lisco, 18, a senior Stephen Austin High School in the Houston suburbs, found his efforts to form a club were delayed for three months by one hurdle after another. At one point the principal said he could have the club -- if he just called it a Philosophy Club and did not affiliate with the Secular Student Alliance.

Lisco, however, wouldn't give up the Alliance ties. He says, "We atheists are already invisible -- we don't come out. That's a form of repression in itself. It's about getting pushed to the margin of our community."

After a request for comment from USA TODAY, the school abruptly granted Lisco the Secular Student Alliance Club on Tuesday. Atheists want eveyone to celebrate the 202 birthday of evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin on Saturday. Secular Student Alliance clubs will hold Darwin Day parties. If Lisco moves fast, he can still organize a Darwin Day celebration: Saturday is his 202th birthday.

The experience was different for June Murphy, 17, co-founder of the Unbelievables, the Secular Student Alliance club at the elite public magnet high school in Chicago, Northside College Prep. She recalls, "The only bummer was when our flyers were mysteriously torn down."

All it took were three students, a mission statement and an adviser and they were rolling -- with new flyers placed in sight of school security cameras.

The 20-or-so Unbelievables fit right in with the religion clubs like one for Muslims and another for Christians, says Murphy, who is also vice-president of the Jewish Student Union, "because I come from a long line of atheist Jews."

They meet weekly although it was canceled once by "an act of God, the blizzard closed the schools last week," Murphy says. They talk about how to get through the religious holidays and recently played " 'religion Jeopardy' to see what we know about the Bible."

And the Secular Student Alliance, now celebrating 250 clubs total, expects more growth. Their latest press release touts findings by the American Religious Identification Survey:

29% of 18-29 year olds are religiously unaffiliated, compared with 15% of the population as a whole.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a great step in the right direction. As I have always said, societies change through their children. You change a cultures' children and you will change the culture. We are seeing the power of youth right now in the Middle East revolutions.

It's the old Jesuit saying, "Give me a child for his first seven years and I'll give you the man."

As more and more of our children become free thinkers, value faith less, become less religious, base their beliefs on logic reason and evidence etc... we will all benefit as a society and make it easier to keep church and state separate, as the founding fathers wanted them to be.

Is There an Afterlife

2011-02-25T17:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/?bcpid=533363107&bctid=802338105001

In this recent Whizin Center for Continuine Education program, leading advocates for atheism, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris square off against Newsweek top rabbis, David Wolpe and Bradley Artson Shavit to determine what may or may not happen in the hereafter.

The possibility of an afterlife has challenged believers and atheists alike for centuries. Because its very nature defies conclusive definitions or proof, it remains a heated topic for debate and exploration. This debate is moderated by the Editor-in-Chief of the Jewish Journal, Rob Eshman.

Wow, what a great debate. Hitchens and Harris debating two liberal Rabbi's. Hitchens is on fire in this one, brilliant.

I really enjoyed this debate because it was a conversational debate rather than a structured debate.

Well worth your time.

Damn Dirty Apes!

2011-02-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

What is going on? Two stories about human waste within a month? What am I, an 86 year old insane man?

No, it’s just that shit happens on a daily basis, unfortunately.

The Scene of the Crime:
So over the long weekend I was not at home and I wouldn’t be home for quite awhile. I am in a public bathroom relieving myself of yesterday’s food intake and it is not pretty. It’s one of those instances where you need to look halfway through to see if you need a “mid-flush”, and yes I needed and executed a mid-flush.

So I wait until my bowels are empty or at least my best guess is that they are. So I finish, clean up and look back down and to my HORROR, there is fecal matter on the seat and it appears it has been sat on. OH YOUR GOD, I cannot believe it. What have I f’ing done.

So the search then begins to discover where on my body I now have my own shit. Yes, I have technically shit on myself. I bet not many of you can say you’ve reached such high points in your life although I hope you all can.

So I discover the fecal matter is on the top edge of my jeans including my belt. I don’t yank my pants to the floor when taking a dump because that seat is cold but maybe now I should. How the hell did that just happen? So I try to remove as much as possible with toilet paper but is that going to be enough? What if I’ll now smell like shit all day, like I am perpetually farting or something?

So I use some water and toilet paper to try to clean it off even more. I do the best I can to clean the 1x2 inch area off of my jeans and belt. I then get another idea… There is hand sanitizer in this bathroom and I could douse the 1x2 inch area with it to kill off any bacteria and rotting food matter thus killing (I think) any potential smell, so I hope.

The Cause:
Then my mind goes into analysis mode, what was the cause? How in your god’s name did this happen? I think I figured it out. The culprit was the mid-flush. When I stopped mid-shit to see if I needed a mid-flush, I did not wipe before hand and the action of swaying my ass far enough away from the bowl so I could see my prize to determine the need for a mid-flush… a hanger must have swung off my ass onto the toilet seat unbeknownst to me.

Lesson Learned: Wipe before looking at mid-flush.

In the End:
The affected or should I say infected area was pretty much unnoticeable nor did it smell (as far as I could tell) and the impact was negligible except for the shame that is ever burned onto my brain that I have shit on myself for the first time in my 40 years of existence in a non-diarrhea related episode. Although in all fairness to me, it was as close as you could get to a diarrhea episode so maybe I can take solace in that.

No, there is no solace when it comes to shitting on yourself.

Take Two, If you are Going to do Something...

2011-02-21T15:45:00.000-08:00

If you are going to do something, do it right, that includes me. I mean this profile picture will be THE profile picture for years to come, get it right.

My first attempt was not executed correctly. I didn't give it my best so I have created a new Rocketstar profile picture.

I shaved off the goatee, I smiled, I threw some gel in my hair and took a better picture, the 9 years of age difference between photos still exists of course.

So here it is, the new Rocketstar profile picture, I think it turned out much better than attempt number one, the last picture on page.

NEW Profile Picture

ORIGINAL POST BELOW--------------------------

So it has been almost 9 years since I first starting blogging. Blogger was my first dip into the online social media realm and at that time, I used the picture that you always saw on my blogger profile, the first pic below.

It was taken in 2002 on a train from Amsterdam to Paris with my my better half.

ORIGINAL Rocketstar Profile Picture

I then used this same original Blogger profile picture for all of my social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter, etc... as i thought it best to create a SINGLE "online image" of Rocketstar.

But then it hit me after seeing a video on Photoshop, I could take a current picture of myself wearing the same shirt or one very much like it and cut it into the original photo thus getting an updated Rocketstar without losing that original single "online image" of Rocketstar.

It turned out pretty good I think, a few slight "smudges" in places but overall I am pleased with how I was able to cut and paste the new Rocketstar into the old Rocketstar train seat.

Attempt number one at new profile picture

A little older, a lot more gray hair, I look a little fatter but I really think it's just the sagging of our skin as we get older because I am basically the same weight.

So here is the new older Rocketstar.

I Just Took an eDump

2011-02-20T18:08:00.000-08:00

So on Saturday I executed a much needed eDump; throwing away all of the old electronic cables, connectors, wires, mouses, keyboards, power adapters etc...

A couple of thoughts...

Where did all of this shit come from?

Manufacturers should be required to inscript onto their products exactly what they are used for. Some are obvious but some of this crap you forget where it came from, what it plugs into. Not a huge issue I guess because if it does fall into the the "WTF is this" category, throw it away.

You always think you'll need it but you don't. Even as I am only a '2' on the scale of 1 - 10 hoarding (10 the worst of course), you understand what part of pull of hoarding is about.

Not Great Timing

2011-02-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

So it’s happened before but never quite like this. We’ve been married for almost 9 years now and have two little ones (5 ½ and almost 7). As the kids get older, so does the time at which they go to bed or should I say go to sleep. They may go to bed at 8 PM but that does not mean that they go right to sleep; this creates risk, a risk of getting caught.

So what makes that troublesome is that if we try to wait until the state of sleep has been reached for the little ones, it may be too late. You may just be too damn tired to get busy. So sometimes you just have to lock the door and go for it and hope you don’t hear a “knock knock” on the door.

It was still a bit early but there hadn’t been any activity from either of the little ones so we figured we were safe. Debauchery in process and just as we were reaching the top of the mountain, “knock knock” comes. We both immediately burst out laughing and finish up. It could not have been worse timing.

Once the crime scene was cleaned up and we opened the door, we were asked,

“What were you guys doing?”

“We were sleeping.”

“Then why was the door locked and the dog outside the door?”

The joys of parenthood.

What If Everyone Opened Their Eyes to the Horror?

2011-02-14T17:22:00.000-08:00

I always thought of Kosher foods to be somehow “better or cleaner’ than non-Kosher foods as that is what Kosher indicates, right? Well, not really but no harm in letting people believe that, right?

Kosher foods are those that conform to the regulations of the Jewish Halakhic law framework, kosher meaning fit or allowed to be eaten. These rules form the main aspect of kashrut, Jewish dietary laws.

Reasons for food being non-kosher include the presence of ingredients derived from non-kosher animals or from kosher animals that were not properly slaughtered, a mixture of meat and milk, wine or grape juice (or their derivatives) produced without supervision, the use of produce from Israel that has not been tithed, or even the use of cooking utensils and machinery which had previously been used. In addition, foods deemed by the rabbis to be "fit for a king's table" must have their cooking supervised by a Jew in order to be kosher.

I have forgotten what initially sparked the idea of looking into the actual differences between Kosher/Halal (Islam’s version of Kosher) slaughtering of “meat animals” and regular industrial non-Kosher/Halal slaughtering of “meat animals” as the former are touted to be more humane than industrial slaughtering. Yes, they do use the term “meat animals” - animals raised for the sole purpose of becoming food. I figure this somehow allows the industry feel better about what they are doing.

This journey has included watching (and cringing) videos of Kosher, Halal and ‘regular’ slaughter of so called “meat animals”. Ok, I’ll stop saying “meat animals” because that doesn’t change the fact that these animals are no different than your pet dog, pet horse or pet pig. If you have seen these type of videos, you know what I am referring to; they are horrific, truly horrific and very difficult to watch. How can humans do this for 8 hours a day, horrible.

I will insert some links below if you want to see what I am referring to. Although if you do eat meat (as I do) I think you should watch some, deal with the reality of the situation but I fully understand if you wish not to.

Kosher/Halal Slaughtering:
Kosher or Halal slaughter is executed by slicing the throat of the animal without severing the spinal cord of the animal. This ensures that the animals continues to breathe and bleed out. This procedure is used because the animals blood is seen as “dirty” by Kosher and Halal ideology, although not true. They do not want the animals meat to be in contact with the blood after the animals death.

One study I frequently found cited on many Islamic websites regarding Halal slaughter was a study conducted by a German Professor back in the 1978 incorporating EEG (electroencephalograph) with electrodes surgically implanted on the skull of 17 sheep and 15 calves, and conducted by Wilhelm Schulze that purports to create no pain for the animal. I also found several websites claiming that one study was faulty. So there appears to be controversy regarding the actual impacts to the animal.

Well, you know what, if the video shows us anything it shows that these animals are alive, struggling and suffering for a long time, it’s horrible. These animals are breathing, kicking, trying to stand up, trying to cry out but can’t because their windpipes have also been severed. It is hard to watch.

Industrial Slaughtering:
By law, in western nation slaughterhouses animals must be rendered unconscious before slaughter thus greatly reducing the pain and suffering of the animal. Now this is not to say by any means that regular slaughterhouses do not mistreat ‘”meat animals”. Sometimes the “bolt gun” used to render the animals unconscious do not fully succeed, the animals are mistreated before ever being slaughtered but this happens in Kosher/Halal slaughterhouses as well.

Look, either way, it is a horrific process. Kosher/Halal slaughter is a 15 on the cruelty scale of 1 - 10 and bolt stun slaughter is an 11. The only real difference is the use of the bolt gun to attempt to render the animals unconscious before their execution. This does appear to help but it certainly is not without its horror and cruelty.

Almost every western nation has outlawed the Kosher/Halal method of slaughter due to its inhumane methods but they have made exceptions for it under the guise of religious freedom. Ah religion, you have to love it, another pass for barbaric actions all in the name of religion. The United States does allow this practice and you are most likely unknowingly eating Kosher/Halal slaughtered meat because due to its lower cost to produce, grocers see it as a higher profit meat product.

The Result?:

It’s not like I was ignorant of the cruelty to animals that goes on in our food industry but it had been a long while since I had read about or seen it. The more I researched this topic and watched these videos the more I felt like a huge hypocrite being both a meat eater and someone who abhors animal cruelty. I am all about living in reality so how can I turn a blind eye to this horror and enjoy eating meat that has been prepared in such a horrific manner? With each video I watched I moved closer and closer to becoming a vegetarian.

Seriously, can I just ignore what is going on? How can we all ignore what is going on. How can we not

So while I was looking around I came across something that was interesting, animal cruelty in nature. Have you ever seen a pack of lions kill and eat a gazelle alive? Pretty damn cruel. Or a deer slowly die of infection? Or an alligator tear a bison limb by limb? When you think about it, the amount of animal suffering that goes on every second in nature far outnumbers the cruelty that exists in the slaughtering of animals for human food. Do we just chalk it up to natures natural path? The lion kills the gazelle and we kill the pig?

There is one glaring difference between humans and the lion, the lion has no other method of killing it’s food and in the end it too becomes prey for another animal thus suffering the exact same fate as the gazelle. We have the ability to end an animal’s life painlessly without horrible suffering.

So why do we not do so? Well aside from the religious ignorance that is Kosher and Halal, it’s because enough of us just don’t care. We want our meat as cheap as possible and we want it as fresh as possible and we really don’t care about how much the chicken or cow has to suffer in the process. As long as we don’t see it, we don’t seem to care.

Should I become a vegetarian? Yes. Will I become a vegetarian? At this time, no, although I am getting closer to taking that step. It’s a big step to take, it’s a lifestyle change for sure and with a family it can’t be easy. I surely would be willing to pay more for humanely killed animal meat but I do not know if such meat exists. Is it because we have been conditioned all of our lives to not care or want to know how are animals are killed? What if we started showing these horrific videos to kids? Maybe they’d stop eating meat and change the way we slaughter our food in generations to come.

No lunch meat sandwiches? No pepperoni, no ham, no bacon, no salami, no... ? I wish I could step out of this hypocrite suit regarding animal cruelty and eating meat but I am just not there yet, maybe one day.

So the next time someone mentions Kosher meat, just remember that Kosher and Halal meat have just a little bit more cruelty mixed into it for God.

Kosher Slaughter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HZnQmc3U9I

I Can Not Complain

2011-02-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

It's February 11th, 2011.

So this post is not meant to rub it into Phat's face that our weather here in Denver is pretty damn good (we receive more sun than Florida although we do get patches of cold and snow) but it is meant to point out what YO-YO weather we have here at 6200 feet above sea level.

Last week it was bitterly cold (below 0 F) for a couple of days and we got DUMPED on (total of 16 - 24 inches of snow) as well but now look at it:

It's a wild ride for sure

Sorry About that Poop

2011-02-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

I could write about the Steelers giving away the Superbowl with their 3 turnovers but I figure a poop story would be much better; everyone likes a good poop story, right?

So as many of you know I have an HOUR commute each way. An hour as long as there are no accidents, rain, snow or even accidents on the OTHER side of the freeway. As you may not know I am also a pretty regular pooper, each morning after I get to work, almost like clockwork. But the weekends screw this up a bit because I can sleep in, missing my morning poop time. So I think I missed both morning poops this weekend.

This is gripping, I know.

So it's Monday, up early to leave for my hour commute and meet my boss at a local Boulder, CO breakfast spot to do my 2010 Year End Review. Right as I leave my neighborhood, the feeling hits me, I need to poop. Great, I could turn around but hey, I can hold it for an hour, right?

About a half an hour in, my bowels communicate more clearly to me that the small bowl of total I just ate at home has filled them up and they need to make room, now. I'm almost to Boulder when the first cramps hit, damn those hurt, I'm glad this is a solid poop because if it wasn't, I may have shat myself in the car.

Then the second round of "Open up, you asshole!" cramps hit, damn that hurts. OK, I am basically there, now I just hope the GPS is bringing me to the right location because it is getting VERY hard to keep this shit in, no pun intended. I get lucky, free parking before 9 AM and the GPS has not failed me, I can see the breakfast joint.

I SWIFTLY walk across the street and enter this little establishment that is actual an old house turned into a small breakfast restaurant. I open the door, peak around and spot the bathroom, SCORE! I'm feeling lucky nobody even saw me, I think, I hope. I open the door and it is a house after all and it is a bathroom, just like yours and mine. No women's or men's bathroom, just one bathroom, one toilet, one sink and a guy that really needs to evacuate his bowels.

I don't even remove my jacket, it's "Trainspotting" time, drop the drawers and relax. Oh damn, relieving that pressure sures feels good but then, then the smell hits you. You know that smell, the smell of shit in the open air, like when you take a shit in the woods, that horrible "poop is not under the water" poop smell.

Damn, so I know it's a big one even before I look at it, NOT good. After all, it was a weekends worth of poop. I wiped, stood up and then it hit me, another round. NO, not another round I hadn't even flushed it once yet. I need to give this old small toilet some help and make it a two flusher but it wasn't to be. I had to sit back down and more excrement filled the toilet bowl above the water. I think what happens is when you get backed up that much, the flood gates just open and the bowels just are in that "void" mode.

Great, so now I need to wipe again which means more toilet paper into the bowl that is already WAY to full to be flushed. I have no other choice, I have to hope that this toilet has some massive jet power. I get ready to both push down the handle to flush as well as get ready to lift the top off of the toilet tank in case it gets close to overflowing I can at least stop that from happening; I'm not a total asshole.

You guessed it, it gets about half of it down and clogs up, damn. I slowly add more water by carefully and slowly pushing the handle down in hopes the added water weight will push it down, failure. Damn, damn, damn, shit. What to do, what to do? I looked under the sink, maybe they had a plunger. No plunger but they did have one of those wiry toilet cleaning brushes. Maybe I could use that as a plunger. I tried but to no avail, it was plugged up.

The only toilet in this place and I have clogged it up, great. What to do, what do to. I knew the right thing to do was to tell someone. So I opened the door, peaked out and DIDN'T SEE ANYONE! In that split second I decided to flee from the scene of the crime and quickly walked away HOPING that nobody saw the criminal pooper that I was.

I walked to the front of the place and saw my boss waking up, perfect. I said to the seating attendant whom I didn't see when walking in, "Oh, there he is."

I got away shame free but I still feel a bit bad about leaving such a crappy mess for someone else to deal with but a quick plunger and it'd be fine, right?

Media Fast?

2011-02-01T18:27:00.000-08:00

My friend over at Zen and the Barefoot Joggler mentioned a term that I had never heard before, a Media Fast. Now I have never in my life fasted (for more than 12 hours for physicals) in my life. Having no religious rules or customs that encourage fasting, I have never gone more than 12 hours without eating. I think I'd die if I had to go 24 hours without eating. I don't ever plan on voluntarily fasting, ever. This body requires constant fuel.

But media fasting... interesting. Free the mind of incoming information via the mediums below.

No cable news
No Twitter
No facebook
No Internet
No blogging
No satellite radio (except music)

So that would leave me with reading books, writing and listening to music.

Could I do it? Of course I COULD do it as I have the will power of 10 men but would I WANT to do it?

Although I think I could put myself through the pain of a media fast, I don't know if the pain in misery it would create is worth the outcome. I don't really know what the outcome is supposed to be?

Maybe that is the perfect reason to experiment with a media fast? What wouldl it do, other than create pain and suffering as I am fully addicted to media of all sorts. Would there be positives to go along with the pain?

Thoughts anyone?

I Think Therefore I Am, I Think

2011-01-26T16:58:00.000-08:00

So I think that as my life goes faster and especially too fast, blogging slows and Twitter becomes the outlet of verbal energy.

It's quick and easy, it's a news feed, it's continuous stream of communication.

It's like I'd love to write more about important issues occurring but I just don't have the time.

I hate when folks say "I have no time.", as I just did but what we mean is that I don't want to make the time. It just doesn't rank high enough on the priority list.

Priorities, priorities... funny thing priorities.

WikiLeaks, welcome to the Revolution(s)

2011-01-21T19:21:00.001-08:00

You hear a lot of folks say "Damn that WikiLeaks" but they are just ill informed as to the importance and power of the truth and reality.

WikiLeaks just triggered a revolution. Regardless of how you see it, it is progress.

The truth is important.

Tunisia: Tunisia Protests: Is This The First WikiLeaks Revolution?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/13/tunisia-protests-is-this-_n_808884.html

Final Tally: 2010 Fantasy Football Season

2011-01-16T11:36:00.000-08:00

So the Fantasy Football Season has ended and here is how it ended for me. It was great fun and it fed my NFL and Fantasy Football addiction well.

Neighborhood League
Gridiron Gridiots:
Fee $100
Final Record: 8 - 5
Finished: Lost in the Superbowl
Winnings/Earnings: $315
Profit: $215

Kill League

Record: 8 - 3

Finished: Superbowl Winner

Fee: $10

Winnings/Earnings: $70

Profit: $50

Work League

Record: 9 - 8

Fee: $50

Finished: Just missed the playoffs (lost two games by 1/2 point each and lost 1 week as the second highest scorer)

Winnings/Earnings: $90 (6 weeks highest scorer)

Profit: $40

RFC League

Fee: $100

Record: 5 - 9

Finished: Missed the playoffs

Winnings/Earnings: $55 (3 week high scores and Toilet Bowl Winner

Profit: -$45

Overall Profit (not including the fun) = $260.

Not bad although it was a very disappointing in the RFC League to score the second highest point total and miss the playoffs. My team was decimated by injuries, it happens.

A quick note about the playoffs so far. HOLY BALLS have the playoffs been incredible so far (watching the Seahawks/Bears game right now).

My dream Superbowl of the Packers vs. the Steelers is alive and well!!

The Question I have is...

2011-01-11T18:50:00.000-08:00

So is the latest horrible tragedy in Arizona going to make the American public turn away from the party that:

constantly bashes so called "big government"
constantly uses fear to incite people against their own government
constantly speaks of the other political party as the enemy
constantly talks about "taking out" their political opponents
constantly uses fear for political gain

There may be enough blame to go around for all but it is plainly dishonest to think that one side is not doing much more than the other to rile up the crazies in our midst.

It's Like a Black Hole Sometimes

2011-01-07T19:00:00.000-08:00

Is it me or am I and you and you being slowly pulled into this blackhole that is called 'The Internet'. I mean everything.

My thoughts,

My information,

My entertainment,

My news,

My friends,

Myself.

I wonder what the ramifications of living ONLINE will do to Western Civilization over the next 100 years?There are obvious benefits and detriments to this question.The only story I see that makes sense is that our future is merging the human and machine.

Some call it "The Singularity" but I've read so many different definitions that I dislike that word now.

Remove the flesh from the equation.

Make space travel possible with nuclear energy, an organism that cares not about space radiation, an organism with all the time in the computer and all to gain by traversing the universe.

Seriously, what elese is there?

I gladly welcome possible answers, thank you.

Calling All Hockey Fans

2011-01-05T19:16:00.000-08:00

For all of you hockey fans, you MUST check out HBO Sports' 24/7 Penguins/Capitals: Road to the NHL Winter Classic.

What a series! An incredible look inside the game we love; from practices, to in-between period intermissions lockerooms, to the lives of the players, coaches, the pressures of winning and losing, the physical impact of the game etc...

I loved this series just as much as the Hard Knocks NFL series, a must see for all hockey fans. I really enjoyed finally seeing what happens behind the scenes in the NHL.

If you do not have HBO... I don't know how much of this is on You Tube as I watched it on HBO but I found this clip easily. HBO Sports creates a lot of awesome sports media.

I Love Weiner

2011-01-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

I love watching this; I can't get enough Weiner.

"The gentleman is correct in sitting!" I love it.

A congressional Democrat (Anthony Weiner) is outraged that a bill to provide health care to 9-11 first responders has been defeated.

Happy New Year to All

2010-12-30T12:41:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone has a great new year and to kick it off, the GREAT Sam Harris with an essay:

A New Year's Resolution for the Rich

While the United States has suffered the worst recession in living memory, I find that I have very few financial concerns. Many of my friends are in the same position: Most of us attended private schools and good universities, and we will be able to provide these same opportunities to our own children. No one in my immediate circle has a family member serving in Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001, the only sacrifice we were asked to make for our beloved country was to go shopping.

Nearly a decade has passed, with our nation's influence and infrastructure crumbling by the hour, and yet those of us who have been so fortunate as to actually live the American dream--rather than merely dream it--have been spared every inconvenience. Now we are told that we will soon receive a large tax cut for all our troubles. What is the word for the feeling this provokes in me? Imagine being safely seated in lifeboat, while countless others drown, only to learn that another lifeboat has been secured to take your luggage to shore...

Most Americans believe that a person should enjoy the full fruits of his or her labors, however abundant. In this light, taxation tends to be seen as an intrinsic evil. It is worth noting, however, that throughout the 1950's--a decade for which American conservatives pretend to feel a harrowing sense of nostalgia--the marginal tax rate for the wealthy was over 90 percent. In fact, prior to the 1980's it never dipped below 70 percent. Since 1982, however, it has come down by half. In the meantime, the average net worth of the richest 1 percent of Americans has doubled (to $18.5 million), while that of the poorest 40 percent has fallen by 63 percent (to $2,200). Thirty years ago, top U.S. executives made about 50 times the salary of their average employees. In 2007, the average worker would have had to toil for 1,100 years to earn what his CEO brought home between Christmas in Aspen and Christmas on St. Barthes.

We now live in a country in which the bottom 40 percent (120 million people) owns just 0.3 percent of the wealth. Data of this kind make one feel that one is participating in a vast psychological experiment: Just how much inequality can free people endure? Have you seen Ralph Lauren's car collection? Yes, it is beautiful. It also cost hundreds of millions of dollars. "So what?" many people will say. "It's his money. He earned it. He should be able to do whatever he wants with it." In conservative circles, expressing any doubt on this point has long been synonymous with Marxism.

And yet over one million American children are now homeless. People on Medicare are being denied life-saving organ transplants that were routinely covered before the recession. Over one quarter of our nation's bridges are structurally deficient. When might be a convenient time to ask the richest Americans to help solve problems of this kind? How about now?

It is easy to understand why even the most generous person might be averse to paying taxes: Our legislative process has been hostage to short-term political interests and other perverse incentives for as long as anyone can remember. Consequently, our government wastes an extraordinary amount of money. It also seems uncontroversial to say that whatever can be best accomplished in the private sector should be. Our tax code must also be reformed--and it might even be true that the income tax should be lowered on everyone, provided we find a better source of revenue to pay our bills. But I can't imagine that anyone seriously believes that the current level of wealth inequality in the United States is good and worth maintaining, or that our government's first priority should be to spare a privileged person like myself the slightest hardship as this once great nation falls into ruin.

And the ruination of the United States really does seem possible. It has been widely reported, for instance, that students in Shanghai far surpass our own in science, reading, and math. In fact, when compared to other countries, American students are now disconcertingly average (slightly below in math), where the average includes utopias like Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Albania, Kazakhstan, and Indonesia. President Obama was right to recognize this as a "Sputnik moment." But it is worse than that. This story was immediately followed by a report about giddy Creationists in the state of Kentucky being offered $40 million in tax subsidies to produce a full-scale model of Noah's ark. More horrible still, this ludicrous use of public money is probably a wise investment, given that such a monument to scientific ignorance will be guaranteed to attract an ovine influx of Christian tourists from neighboring states. Seeing facts of this kind, juxtaposed without irony or remedy at this dire moment in history, it is hard not to feel that one is witnessing America's irreversible decline.

Needless to say, most Americans have no choice but to send their children to terrible schools--where they will learn the lesser part of nothing and emerge already beggared by a national debt now on course to reach $20 trillion. And yet Republicans in every state can successfully campaign on a promise to spend less on luxuries like education, while delivering tax cuts to people who, if asked to guess their own net worth, could not come within $10 million of the correct figure if their lives depended on it.

American opposition to the "redistribution of wealth" has achieved the luster of a religious creed. And, as with all religions, one finds the faithful witlessly espousing doctrines that harm almost everyone, including their own children. For instance, while most Americans have no chance of earning or inheriting significant wealth, 68 percent want the estate tax eliminated (and 31 percent consider it to be the "worst" and "least fair" tax levied by the federal government). Most believe that limiting this tax, which affects only 0.2 percent of the population, should be the top priority of the current Congress.

The truth, however, is that everyone must favor the "redistribution of wealth" at some point. This relates directly to the issue of education: as the necessity of doing boring and dangerous work disappears--whether because we have built better machines and infrastructure, or shipped our least desirable jobs overseas--people need to be better educated so that they can apply themselves to more interesting work. Who will pay for this? There is only one group of people who can pay for anything at this point: the wealthy.

To make matters more difficult, Americans have made a religious fetish of something called "self-reliance." Most seem to think that while a person may not be responsible for the opportunities he gets in life, each is entirely responsible for what he makes of these opportunities. This is, without question, a false view of the human condition. Consider the biography of any "self-made" American, from Benjamin Franklin on down, and you will find that his success was entirely dependent on background conditions that he did not make, and of which he was a mere beneficiary. There is not a person on earth who chose his genome, or the country of his birth, or the political and economic conditions that prevailed at moments crucial to his progress.

Consequently, no one is responsible for his intelligence, range of talents, or ability to do productive work. If you have struggled to make the most of what Nature gave you, you must still admit that Nature also gave you the ability and inclination to struggle. How much credit do I deserve for not having Down syndrome or any other disorder that would make my current work impossible? None whatsoever. And yet devotees of self-reliance rail against those who would receive entitlements of various sorts--health care, education, etc.--while feeling unselfconsciously entitled to their relative good fortune. Yes, we must encourage people to work to the best of their abilities and discourage free riders wherever we can--but it seems only decent at this moment to admit how much luck is required to succeed at anything in this life. Those who have been especially lucky--the smart, well-connected, and rich--should count their blessings, and then share some of these blessings with the rest of society.

The wealthiest Americans often live as though they and their children had nothing to gain from investments in education, infrastructure, clean-energy, and scientific research. For instance, the billionaire Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, recently helped kill a proposition that would have created an income tax for the richest 1 percent in Washington (one of seven states that has no personal income tax). All of these funds would have gone to improve his state's failing schools. What kind of society does Ballmer want to live in--one that is teeming with poor, uneducated people? Who does he expect to buy his products? Where will he find his next batch of software engineers? Perhaps Ballmer is simply worried that the government will spend his money badly--after all, we currently spend more than almost every other country on education, with abysmal results.
Well, then he should say so--and rather than devote hundreds of thousands of dollars to stoking anti-tax paranoia in his state, he should direct some of his vast wealth toward improving education, like his colleague Bill Gates has begun to do.

There are, in fact, some signs that a new age of heroic philanthropy might be dawning. For instance, the two wealthiest men in America, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, recently invited their fellow billionaires to pledge the majority of their wealth to the public good. This is a wonderfully sane and long overdue initiative about which it is unforgivable to be even slightly cynical. But it is not sufficient. Most of this money will stay parked in trusts and endowments for decades, and much of it will go toward projects that are less than crucial to the future of our society. It seems to me, however, that Gates and Buffett could easily expand and target this effort: asking those who have pledged, along with the rest of the wealthiest Americans, to immediately donate a percentage of their net worth to a larger fund. This group of benefactors would include not only the super-rich, but people of far more modest means. I do not have 1/1000 the wealth of Steve Ballmer, but I certainly count myself among the people who should be asked to sacrifice for the future of this country.

The combined wealth of the men and women on the Forbes 400 list is $1.37 trillion. By some estimates, there are at least another 1,500 billionaires in the United States. Something tells me that anyone with a billion dollars could safely part with 25 percent of his or her wealth--without being forced to sell any boats, planes, vacation homes, or art. As of 2009, there were 980,000 families with a net worth exceeding $5 million (not including their primary residence). Would a one-time donation of 5 percent really be too much to ask to rescue our society from the maw of history?

Some readers will point out that I am free to donate to the treasury even now. But such solitary sacrifice would be utterly ineffectual, and I am no more eager than anyone else is to fill the pork barrels of corrupt politicians. However, if Gates and Buffett created a mechanism that bypassed the current dysfunction of government, earmarking the money for unambiguously worthy projects, I suspect that there are millions of people like myself who would not hesitate to invest in the future of America.

Imagine that Gates and Buffett raised a trillion dollars this way: what should we spend it on? The first thing to acknowledge is that almost any use of this money would be better than just letting it sit. Mindlessly repairing every bridge, tunnel, runway, harbor, reservoir, and recreation area in the United States would be an improvement over what are currently doing. However, here are the two areas of investment that strike me as most promising:

Education: It is difficult to think of anything more important than providing the best education possible for our children. They will develop the next technologies, medical cures, and global industries, while mitigating their unintended effects, or they will fail to do these things and consign us all to oblivion. The future of this country will be entirely shaped by boys and girls who are just now learning to think. What are we teaching them? Are we equipping them to create a world worth living in? It doesn't seem so. Our public school system is an international disgrace. Even the most advantaged children in the United States do not learn as much as children in other countries do. Yes, the inefficiencies in our current system could be remedied, and must be, and these savings can then be put to good use--but there is no question that a true breakthrough in education will require an immense investment of further resources. Here's an expensive place to start: make college free for anyone who can't afford it.

Clean Energy: As Thomas Friedman and many others have pointed out, our dependence on nonrenewable sources of energy is not only bad for our economy and the environment, it is obliges us to subsidize both sides of the clash of civilizations. Much of the money we spend on oil is used to export the lunatic ideology of conservative Islam--building mosques and madrassas by the tens of thousands, recruiting jihadists, and funding terrorist atrocities. We should have devoted ourselves to a clean-energy Manhattan Project thirty years ago. Success on this front would still yield enormous wealth in this country, while simultaneously bankrupting the Middle Eastern states that only pretend to be our allies. Our failure to rise to this challenge already counts as one of the greatest instances of masochistic stupidity in human history. Why prolong it?

I am aware that a proposal of this kind is bound to seem quixotic. But what's to stop the wealthiest Americans from sponsoring a 21st Century Renaissance? What politician would object to our immediately spending a trillion dollars on improvements in education and energy security? Perhaps there are even better targets for this money. Let Gates and Buffett convene a team of brilliant people to lay out the priorities. But again, we should remember that they could scarcely fail to improve our situation. Simply repaving our roads, the dilapidation of which causes $54 billion in damage to our cars every year, would be better than doing nothing.

Obama's 2012 Strategy Prediction

2010-12-27T17:12:00.000-08:00

In the latest lame duck session, Obama had great success in passing legislation except for one major piece of legislation, the Dream Act. The Dream Act would provide immigrants brought to this country illegally as children a path to US citizenship who take some positive steps, something that should be passed.

It actually may be a good thing that it did not pass because I think this now sets up Obama to try to pass it but this time closer to the 2012 election. Obama can them round up and garner the HUGE Latino vote with this bill (or one like it) plus add in a raise taxes on the rich bill and trounce the white protectors of the rich Conservative Republican Party.

This is just a prediction on my part but something tells me there is a reason why Obama did not fight very hard for the Dream Act. In these next two years he needs to start to play politics for real. Propose good legislation and when the Republicans try to fight it (as they will), go to those Republican states and campaign for that legislation. Go to those Republican swing states and let those voters know what their Congressman is doing; force Republicans to change their vote.

Here's to hoping Obama knows what he is doing; he is a smart man after all.

The Dream Act:
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (the DREAM Act) is a piece of proposed federal legislation in the United States that was first introduced in the United States Senate on August 1, 2001^[1] and most recently re-introduced there and the United States House of Representatives on March 26, 2009.
This bill would provide certain illegal and deportable alien students who graduate from US high schools, who are of good moral character, arrived in the U.S. illegally as minors, and have been in the country continuously and illegally for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment, the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency if they complete two years in the military or two years at a four year institution of higher learning. The students would obtain temporary residency for a six year period. Within the six year period, a qualified student must have "acquired a degree from an institution of higher education in the United States or [have] completed at least 2 years, in good standing, in a program for a bachelor's degree or higher degree in the United States," or have "served in the uniformed services for at least 2 years and, if discharged, [have] received an honorable discharge."^[2] Military enlistment contracts require an eight year commitment, with active duty commitments typically between four and six years, but as low as two years.^[3]^[4] "Any alien whose permanent resident status is terminated [according to the terms of the Act] shall return to the immigration status the alien had immediately prior to receiving conditional permanent resident status under this Act." ^[5]

Scientology Live @ Joe's Pub - Political Subversities

2010-12-26T05:37:00.000-08:00

Wait for it.... wait for it...

Happy Winter Solstice to All!

2010-12-20T13:59:00.000-08:00

The moon and planets in just the right alignment, very nice!

So it’s the eve of the Winter Solstice which is tomorrow December 21st, let the festivities begin.

I’d like to wish everyone on the planet a Happy Winter Solstice!

A celebration that all humans can celebrate together, the location of our planet earth within our solar system, galaxy and universe and the coming of more and more sun each day as Summer nears.

It’s the celebration the Rocketstar’s household takes part in each year to celebrate the year past as well as the upcoming new year. I hope you and those around you have a great holiday season and happy new year.

From Wikipedia:
The winter solstice occurs at the instant when the Sun's position in the sky is at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane from the observer. Depending on the shift of the calendar, the event of the winter solstice occurs some time between December 20 and December 23 each year in the northern hemisphere, and between June 20 and June 23 in the southern hemisphere, during either the shortest day or the longest night of the year, which is not to be confused with the darkest day or night or the day with the earliest sunset or latest sunrise.

Christmas or Christ's Mass is one of the most popular Christian celebrations as well as one of the most globally recognized midwinter celebrations. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of the God Incarnate or Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth, later known as Jesus Christ. The birth is observed on December 25, which was the winter solstice upon establishment of the Julian Calendar. Banned by the Catholic Church in its infancy as a pagan practice stemming out of the Sol Invictus celebrations,[10] Christian churches eventually recognized the sustained practices as a Christian festival in various cultures within the past several hundred years, allowing much of the folklore and traditions of local pagan festivals to be preserved.

Nice

2010-12-18T14:46:00.000-08:00

David Silverman vs. Fox News Panel

2010-12-13T19:17:00.000-08:00

I have now seen several videos of David Silverman and he does a very good job.

He takes these 4 to school.

Are You a True Believer?

2010-12-12T09:14:00.000-08:00

Dad Blamed Devil In Young Boy's Death, Refused To Seek Medical Help: "Dad Blamed Devil In Young Boy's Death, Refused To Seek Medical Help"

So we have heard this story again and again, religious believers foregoing medical care in lieu of praying to their God. When you think about it, aren't these people doing the right thing?

IF you believe that God exists AND
you believe that God answers prayers AND
you believe he is omnipotent AND
you believe he has a plan for us all THEN
all you should need to do is pray, right?

You hear stories all the time as to how prayers work, prayers cured someone of cancer, prayers triggered a miracle etc... etc... etc...

So if God is saving some (NOT ALL) cancer patients who are being prayed for, then God is choosing which to save and which to not save regardless of the medical treatment they are receiving. If it is the praying and God's work that cures these folks then it isn't the medical procedures.

So who is to say that these people are doing the wrong thing? They are leaving it in Gods hands. If God wants the baby to live, he'll make it happen, right? This outlines the hypocrisy of religious believers.

If you truly believe in a personal omnipotent God, then you shouldn't need medical treatment, God will either cure you or not cure you.

In the end, of course these people are doing the wrong thing because prayer doesn't work. Every scientific study ever executed has shown this fact.

Maybe the best example is this question... If god answers prayers and cures people and performs miracles then...

Why doesn't God ever cure amputees? There exists not one case in human history where someone has regrown a limb(s) regardless of the millions of prayers to God to do so.

Progress is Made in Small Strides

2010-12-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

So being that the holiday season was coming upon us, we used our oldest daughters Kindergarten Parent Teacher conference as a time to speak to the teacher about said holiday season. Now mind you, this is a public school, not a private school. We wanted to make sure the public school activities were not going Christian in nature.

So we inquired into what 'holiday' activities would be going on during and approaching this holiday season. Even going to a public school we still realize that we will have to deal with a bit of "Jesus" even if it is 100% wrong and goes against everything this country and its Constitution stand for. But what are you going to do, Jesus reigns supreme in this land, right?

Now of course the activities surrounded "Christmas" not Jesus per se. One could argue that Christmas has become more of a cultural holiday than a religious one but who are we kidding, his name is in the title.

The good news was that we learned that the class was going to learn about several different holidays and not just Christmas. They were going to learn about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas; at least they were being multi-cultural.

So in the spirit of multi-culturalism, we lent a Winter Solstice book to her teacher. The teacher loved it and in turn she added the Winter Solstice to the curriculum. The class was going to learn about the Winter Solstice celebration!

This is a small but great stride in widening people's education surrounding the holiday season and the Winter Solstice. It may not be much but true change in society begins with the children and this at minimum has opened some eyes to the celebration of the Winter Solstice.

Now I doubt that she taught the Winter Solstice celebration to the kids as I would have ;o)  After all, the only reason that Christmas and Hanukkah exist is because of the Winter Solstice. Christianity is not the first or the twentieth religion to adopt the Winter Solstice as the birth date of its god.

One small step for Free Thinkers.

Happy Holidays to all.

Pray Tell: Americans Stretching the Truth About Church Attendance

2010-12-04T08:05:00.000-08:00

This adds to the fact that the fastest growing group regarding religion in this country is those that do not consider themselves part of any organized religious faith. The best kind ;o) Part of the lying has to deal with fitting in and in this country if you don't pray to Jesus, you are an outcast, plain and simple.

The Free Thinking billboards that are getting so much attention is great because it provides those Atheists that are still in the closet some support and encouragement to come out of the closet. As our numbers grow, the separation of church and state will only grow stronger which in turn create a better environment for religion and for our government. Religious folks rarely realize that the first amendment was meant to protect religion from government as well as to protect government from religion.

We can not have nonfactual, unprovable beliefs interfering in government nor government infringing on peoples rights to believe whatever they want to believe. My hope is that when my kids are raising their kids (if they have kids) that they will not have to deal with religion interfering in government. Sadly it may take a few more generations.

Pray Tell: Americans Stretching the Truth About Church Attendance - Think Atheist: "Pray Tell: Americans Stretching the Truth About Church Attendance"

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2010) — A new University of Michigan study finds that Americans are much more likely to exaggerate their attendance at religious services than are people in many other countries.

"Americans have long been viewed as exceptionally religious compared to other nations in the developed world," said Philip Brenner, a research fellow at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR) and the author of the study. "But this study suggests that American religiosity may be exceptional not in terms of actual behavior, but rather in terms of identity.

"In the U.S., and to a lesser extent in Canada, the gap between what we say and what we do is substantial, and has been so for the last several decades."

The study appears in the forthcoming Public Opinion Quarterly.

For the study, Brenner analyzed two types of evdence about religiosity for each country: conventional survey questions asking respondents how often they attend religious services, and time diary data recording Sunday activities. The data, covering a period from 1975 to 2008, came from a variety of time use studies and cross-cultural surveys, including the ISR World Values Surveys and the American National Election Studies.

In addition to the United States and Canada, the countries studied were the Netherlands, Germany, France, Norway, Finland, Slovenia, Spain, Austria, Italy, Great Britain and Ireland.

While conventional survey data show high and stable American church attendance rates of about 35 to 45 percent, the time diary data over the past decade reveal attendance rates of just 24 to 25 percent -- a figure in line with a number of European countries.

America maintains a gap of 10 to 18 percentage points between what people say they do on survey questions, and what time diary data says they actually do, Brenner reports. The gaps in Canada resemble those in America, and in both countries, gaps are both statistically and substantively significant.

Outside of North America, the largest gaps are found in the Catholic countries of Europe, but even in high-attendance Ireland, the gap only ranges from about 4 to 8 points.

"The consistency and magnitude of the American gap in light of the multiple sources of conventional survey data suggests a substantive difference between North America and Europe in overreporting."

Given these findings, Brenner notes, any discussion of exceptional American religious practice should be cautious in using terms like outlier and in characterizing American self-reported attendance rates from conventional surveys as accurate reports of behavior. Rather, while still relatively high, American attendance looks more similar to a number of countries in Europe, after accounting for over-reporting.

"American religion may however, be considered exceptional in a new way in light of these findings: unlike the other countries examined, American behavior continues its consistent failure to match self-reported rates. American religiosity as an outlier is a concept that may be better applied to identity and self-concept rather than behavior," he said.

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of Michigan.Story Source: Pray tell: Americans stretching the truth about church attendance. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 1, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101201124353.htm

BBC - Newsbeat - US military unveils 'smart gun'

2010-12-01T19:22:00.000-08:00

Now this is very cool. Ingenuity at it's finest. What will they create next? I love it.

Of course I abhor violence unless it's in defense of the innocent, but this is pretty cool if you happen to be defending yourself. The issue I have is that all this is, is the War Machine. The War Machine, a jobs program for defense contractors.

Well, you know what, let's end the jobs program that kills other human beings and put those resources into something that pushes the human race forward. How about a jobs program to rebuild all of the falling down bridges in this country? How about using those resources to research and create green technologies? How about creating jobs that help, not hurt this country in terms of economic progress, lost lives and global standing?

Seriously, a job is a job. So... let's create jobs that create more jobs.

BBC - Newsbeat - US military unveils 'smart gun': "US military unveils 'smart gun'
Page last updated at 11:20 GMT, Tuesday, 30 November
By Dan Whitworth

Newsbeat technology reporter

A US soldier prepares to fire the XM-25 A new gun the US military hopes will help take on the Taliban has been unveiled.

Called the XM-25 it has been described by the US Army as a 'game changer'.
It uses a laser guidance system and specially developed 25mm high explosive rounds which can be programmed to detonate over a target.

Richard Audette helped develop it for the US Army and says it's a big leap forward because it's the first small arms weapon to use smart technology.

Full solution

'The way a soldier operates this is basically find your target, then laze (laser) to it, which gives the range, then you get an adjusted aim point, adjust the fire and pull the trigger.
'Say you've lazed out to 543 metres... When you pull the trigger it arms the round and fires it 543 metres plus or minus one, two or three metres.'

The XM-25 is already being used by US soldiers in Afghanistan It means the weapon can be used to target insurgents hiding behind walls or in ditches without the need to call in air strikes.

'That makes it a full solution fire control weapon'.

It's already been issued to soldiers in the US military serving in Afghanistan and could be used by British special forces too.

In a statement the MOD wouldn't comment on the new gun but said it is committed to provide front line troops in Afghanistan with the best possible equipment.

In addition it said it is always interested in evaluating emerging technology.

Follow our technology reporter Dan Whitworth on Twitter"

It is a War Machine

2010-12-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

Now anyone who knows me, knows that I abhor violence unless it is in the defense of the innocent. Then, off with their heads without a second thought.

But this is pretty cool and ingenious. Innovation at its core. It is also a perfect example of the war machine. The war machine, a jobs program for defense contractors and soldiers.

Well, how about funding a jobs program that furthers the human race rather than killing it? Seriously. How about rebuilding every bridge in this nation? How about providing free health care to every US citizen? How about creating new green technologies? How about using that money and those lives for something that helps our future? Seriously.

Rather than funding research into how to best kill other human beings, push us forward.

Seriously.

US military unveils 'smart gun'
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
By Dan Whitworth
Newsbeat technology reporter

A US soldier prepares to fire the XM-25 A new gun the US military hopes will help take on the Taliban has been unveiled.

Called the XM-25 it has been described by the US Army as a 'game changer'.

It uses a laser guidance system and specially developed 25mm high explosive rounds which can be programmed to detonate over a target.

Richard Audette helped develop it for the US Army and says it's a big leap forward because it's the first small arms weapon to use smart technology.

Full solution

"The way a soldier operates this is basically find your target, then laze (laser) to it, which gives the range, then you get an adjusted aim point, adjust the fire and pull the trigger.

"Say you've lazed out to 543 metres... When you pull the trigger it arms the round and fires it 543 metres plus or minus one, two or three metres."

The XM-25 is already being used by US soldiers in Afghanistan It means the weapon can be used to target insurgents hiding behind walls or in ditches without the need to call in air strikes.

"That makes it a full solution fire control weapon".

It's already been issued to soldiers in the US military serving in Afghanistan and could be used by British special forces too.

In a statement the MOD wouldn't comment on the new gun but said it is committed to provide front line troops in Afghanistan with the best possible equipment.

In addition it said it is always interested in evaluating emerging technology.

Follow our technology reporter Dan Whitworth on Twitter

How Many Filthy Animals Have Touched This

2010-11-24T11:25:00.000-08:00

So last week I am convinced I got food poisoning or picked up some bug when we ate at TGIF. It was bad, coming out of both ends and luckily it only lasted through the next day.

Restaurants have to be one of the filthiest places as far as germs go.

Take for instance the menus. Think about how many people touch those menus each day, the sick, the filthy and the menus are NEVER washed or disinfected. I bet the menus would glow like the sun under a black light. I touch those menus and just cringe.

Or how about the ketchup bottle and salt and pepper shakers, they have to be just crawling with viruses and bacteria. Then you put this on top of what may be crawling around in the kitchen.

I think I may have to start bringing hand sanitizer and sanitize my hands RIGHT before I eat.

It's Time for a Keyboard Change

2010-11-21T07:34:00.000-08:00

I am a pecker, a keyboard pecker. To my surprise, people have said I type very fast. One advantage of being a pecker is that you look at the keyboard not the screen which creates fewer (in my opinion) mistakes. I always see folks who type and watch the screen not the keyboard always hitting the backspace key to correct their fingers. I could be wrong about this but it's just my impression. It doesn't apply to EVERYONE but I see it a lot.

Which brings me to this, having to hit the SHIFT key slows me down for some reason and I'd like a change in the keyboard.

The @ key. In this day an age of the Internet, it is used FAR more often the the ` key or many of the F1-F12 keys, or the Pause key or the Num Lock key etc...

Let's give these keys to many of the keys we use much more frequently that require the shift key like.

@
:
"
?
_
(
)
!

Is that too much to ask?

A Very Sick Animal, the Homo Sapien

2010-11-19T17:15:00.000-08:00

Congress Bans 'Crush' Videos http://huff.to/d4uaB5 via @huffingtonpost

Are you kidding me, there are people that get off on this? I understand it takes all kinds to make up the human race but at some point, you have to draw the line, right?

"Videos appealing to a sexual fetish by showing women killing small animals will be banned under legislation that cleared the Senate Friday and is heading to President Barack Obama for his signature."

Yes, you read that correctly. I've seen some real sick shit in my lifetime but how does the image of a woman killing a small animal ever become connected to an orgasm. How does that happen, seriously.

Simply Amazing

2010-11-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

Joe Rogan tweeted this and in his words (which I agree with), "That was fucking amazing."

One of the greatest videos I've ever seen due to the words, the images and the overall meaning and message.

Well worth your time, enjoy.

Misdirected Blame

2010-11-12T05:21:00.000-08:00

You hear it all of the time in regards to the less than desired state of our educational system, “We need better teachers.” or “We need to hold teachers accountable for results.” or “We need to pay teachers based on results.” or some other diatribe about teachers being the issue.

I cringe every time I hear someone say that because the teachers are not the problem. The problem is with the PARENTS.

My better half was a high school English teacher before our kids arrived into this universe so I have some ‘first hand’ knowledge of this topic as I used to hear the stories she would tell me about her day; stories of frustration. Her frustration was created by having to use her teaching time to become the students PARENT.

The amount of time she had to spend teaching basic human skills to a lot of her students was ridiculous; human skills that the students parents should be teaching. The salt in this unfortunate wound was that this “wasted human skills teaching time” cut into the scholastic teaching time she could have been using on the “good” students.

The problem lies upon the shoulders of parents, not the teachers or the educational system. Can there be improvements with teachers or the educational system, of course there can be improvements just like there can be improvements with ANY organization and their employees.

The lack of good parenting and parents’ un-involvement in their children’s educational experience are the issues. The perfect example of this is with Parent Teacher conferences. WITHOUT FAIL, every single parent teacher conference occurrence played out the same way; the parents of the ‘troubled’ students (the ones she really wanted to meet with) never showed up but the parents of the ‘good’ students would show up. The parents just didn’t care enough to participate in the educational process nor did they care or have the skills to teach their children how to act like respectable human beings.

There also exists another large factor at play here, economics. In this economic climate, we are now seeing local, state and the federal government cutting funding for education, laying off teachers and creating exploding class sizes which will make this issue even worse. I won’t even go into the fact that we pay our teachers almost nothing for the important and responsibility their jobs contain.

So until the real problems are resolved, nothing will change. So the next time you hear someone say that teachers are the problem, please smack them down. That is all.

Sister Wives

2010-11-10T07:18:00.000-08:00

You may or may not have seen the TV series on TLC called ‘Sister Wives’. Sister Wives is about Cody and his 3, wait, now 4 wives (only legally married to one of them of course) plus the 20 or so children. You are correct; it is a show about a polygamist family in Utah of course.

I, like most everyone else, do not personally know any polygamist families and thus had some preconceived notions regarding polygamist families. We’ve all seen the wacked out instances in the news from time to time of cult like polygamist families. We assume they are all crazy, ultra proselytizing religious folk, ultra sheltering, messed up, etc… families that do not follow current societal norms.

Other than the fact that 4 women are married to one man and the family is very large, I didn’t see anything that is vastly different from any other American family. The wives, the children and Cody appear to be well adjusted normal Americans who have voluntarily entered into this family structure. The oddest thing I found was that Cody is a very likeable, down to earth, genuine guy, not some wacked out ‘messiah’ like egomaniac.

As long as no harm is being done to the family or society, who are we to say they should not be able to live like this?

There appears to be many advantages to such a union.
o The first benefit is of course to the husband, he gets to ‘knock boots’ with 4 different women; again not at the same time. [This will also be listed in the disadvantages section]
o They have a large and loving family, some people dig that.
o They each have a very large support system.
o They can pool resources thus saving money along the way.
o The children always have someone to play with.

There are also some disadvantages:
o Cody gets to ‘knock boots’ with 4 different women; again not at the same time. Would the sex part be great, sure but what about the emotional part? Trying to keep 4 women emotionally satisfied, no way. I have enough trouble trying to keep one woman emotionally satisfied let alone 4. Talk about a perfect recipe to create a drinking problem.
o Maintaining 4 separate but intertwined married relationships. Cody now has 4 wives. He’s had the first 3 for 20, 17 and 16 years so far. The divorce rate is 50% and yet Cody has kept 3 marriages together for more than 15 years!! Talk about a feat of mental strength.
o Societal discrimination, I don’t think I need to expand on this one.

There does exist danger within polygamist relationships and that concerns the freedom and safety of the women. In some African and Middle Eastern countries for example, polygamy often involves young girls who do not get a say in whether or not they participate in these types of relationships. In countries where women are not afforded equal rights and freedoms, polygamy usually is a violation of basic human rights. Even in the U.S. there are instances where young girls do not have the option and are thrust into polygamist relationships against their will. In these instances it is of course wrong in every way.

From what I watched, I just don’t see any issues with this familial setup. I’ve always been “ok” with it and after seeing this series, nothing has changed that line of thinking. It’s not for everyone of course but again, who am I to say that free consenting adults can’t decide for themselves that this setup is the right one for them.

Confessions of a Hotel Housekeeper.

2010-11-05T12:58:00.000-07:00

I love this topic as i think about that everytime i am in a hotel room plus I have seen enough hidden videos, ick. Humans are dirty filthy animals. Even knowing that the chance of disease or infection is very low, it still doesn't help, ick. It's a well written little piece.

Confessions of a Hotel Housekeeper.

by Budget Travel, Allison Rupp worked at Yellowstone National Park's historic Old Faithful Inn in 2004.

"Instead of Vacuuming, I Picked Up Some Crumbs"

The best guests sleep in

Three simple letters could inspire the "Hallelujah" chorus: DND, or do not disturb. One sign hanging on a doorknob, and the day's work was shortened by half an hour. Two signs? Pure heaven, but only if they remained there until my eight-hour shift ended—otherwise I'd have to circle back and clean the rooms. My daily list of 15 rooms (out of 325 in the hotel) consisted of DOs (due out) and Os (occupied), which in housekeeping lingo meant the guests were scheduled to check out or were staying another night. An occupied room was less labor-intensive (making the beds rather than changing the sheets saved me 20 minutes), but there was always the possibility the guest would stay in the room while you worked. One man watched me clean his entire room, from scrubbing the toilet to emptying the trash—and told me at the end that I was "building character." Condescension is not nearly as encouraging to a maid as a couple of dollars.

As long as it looked clean

I cut corners everywhere I could. Instead of vacuuming, I found that just picking up the larger crumbs from the carpet would do. Rather than scrub the tub with hot water, sometimes it was just a spray-and-wipe kind of day. After several weeks on the job, I discovered that the staff leader who inspected the rooms couldn't tell the difference between a clean sink and one that was simply dry, so I would often just run a rag over the wet spots. But I never skipped changing the sheets. I wouldn't sink that low, no matter how lazy I was feeling.

A bacterial wonderland

I was disgusted by the many guests I came in contact with through the things they left behind: the hairs on the pillow, the urine on the toilet seat, the half-eaten cookie, the stained sheets. One woman had soiled her sheets so thoroughly that we had to toss them in a biohazard bag—they could never be used again. Rooms where young kids stayed were the worst, with food ground into the carpet and piles of used diapers in the trash. That kind of demoralizing mess could take 45 minutes to clean up. Most maids wore rubber gloves when they worked, but mine were too big, so I discarded them. Unsurprisingly, I got the flu twice.

Not for love—or money

I didn't know maids received tips, so it took me weeks to realize that the coins left in rooms were an intentional gift. My tips were paltry: I almost never received more than $1, and at times guests left religious pamphlets. One day, however, I was shocked to find a crisp $100 bill lying on a table. Although the generous tip put a little spring in my step and compelled me to do a better job that day, it didn't change my work ethic for long. I apologize to you now if you ever stayed in one of my rooms. You deserved better. But if housekeepers were paid more than minimum wage—and the tips were a bit better—I might have cleaned your toilet rather than just flushed it.