Looking For Connections That Aren't There
Has anyone noticed that President Clinton's auto biography has the same title as Adolf Hitler's autobiography?
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
The Good And The Bad
The Good And The Bad
There are good things coming from bloggers who have become a threat to traditional media outlets. Blogs are becoming part of the media itself, but here's the downside to running with the big dogs
There are good things coming from bloggers who have become a threat to traditional media outlets. Blogs are becoming part of the media itself, but here's the downside to running with the big dogs
Blogs Face Possible FEC Regulation
Friday, June 03, 2005
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON — The Federal Election Commission is considering whether to require political bloggers to disclose whether they are receiving funds from a political campaign, the latest step in a larger debate over whether political activity on the Internet should be regulated by the government.
Friday is the deadline set for the FEC to receive public comments on a number of proposed regulations dealing with Internet activities. The commission will hold hearings on June 28-29 in Washington, D.C., before deciding on final action.
One of those new rules, the disclosure requirement, has many bloggers bristling, accusing the government of unfairly targeting them and impinging on free speech. But other political activists say that blogs can act as secret cover for political smear campaigns and create a Potemkin village of grassroots support. They say if that's the impact, then the Web logs should be required to disclose whether their operators are on a campaign payroll.
"I think there is a benefit for voters when they find out that something they find on the Internet is more of a paid advertisement than independent analysis," said Rick Hasen, a Loyola Law School professor who has been one of the more vocal proponents for disclosure requirements. "We have all sorts of rules regarding television advertisements; I don't think this is going too far."
Monday, June 06, 2005
I Wonder
I Wonder
Do celebrities have a personal list, a deal with their spouses, of people they can sleep with? And are those people on that list non celebrities?
Do celebrities have a personal list, a deal with their spouses, of people they can sleep with? And are those people on that list non celebrities?
Friday, June 03, 2005
Monday, May 30, 2005
Baby, Baby, Pirate?
Baby, Baby, Pirate?
Today is the one year anniversary that I found out about the existance of Baby Lock. One year ago today, my wife woke me up to tell me she was pregnant. Read it all for yourself.
In a couple of days Baby Lock will be four months old. She's a big girl too. 99th percentile for weight, 92nd for height. She's a very happy child. Smiles and laughs at everything. She is very alert and curious. She can't sit up yet, but she tries. She raises her head in anticipation of sitting up. She loves to be held and sung to. The best thing to calm her right now and has been since birth is her baby swing. Works everytime.
Today is the one year anniversary that I found out about the existance of Baby Lock. One year ago today, my wife woke me up to tell me she was pregnant. Read it all for yourself.
In a couple of days Baby Lock will be four months old. She's a big girl too. 99th percentile for weight, 92nd for height. She's a very happy child. Smiles and laughs at everything. She is very alert and curious. She can't sit up yet, but she tries. She raises her head in anticipation of sitting up. She loves to be held and sung to. The best thing to calm her right now and has been since birth is her baby swing. Works everytime.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Separation of Church and State
Separation of Church and State
Theocracies have worked wonders for Iran, Syria, Israel, Ireland. Let's follow their examples and create a stable, one religion country and live like they do. Well good news, that's where we're heading.
The first amendment of our U.S. Constitution, the one our forefathers thought so essential to list at the top of this country's document of governing freedom includes the freedom from religion. No religion in government. Now why is that? Well, at the time the document was written, people were persecuted for not being protestant. And the rules of being a protestant were governed by the church or heads of church. Heads of church were human. Humans are fallible so as ideas were changed/corrected, rules of religion changed. People wanted to get away from that, they wanted to stop a government from telling them what to believe at gunpoint, noose-point, guillotine-point. I believe in God, I just don't think He is American which brings me to my next point.
Separation of church and state serves another purpose today. Religious governments are emotional. When beliefs and our faiths are attacked, the natural human reaction is emotion, so we fight. If someone is trying to knock down the pride we feel in our beliefs, we have to silence them. When those beliefs become the official doctrine of a nation, it's no different. We defend those fallible beliefs with every resource we have and in the instance of a government, that means big boom weapons. The bad part of that is that we go to war for something men have defined on their own and amend with frequency. To what end does fighting for a religion serve? You fight for a way of life that changes faster than any outside influence could do on their own.
And it is this way because men rule this world, they always have because men are the aggressive gender of the species (BTW, this isn't an essay about sexism, all I ever talk about in all of my posts is human behavior). Men are in power because we are aggressive. We like war. We like conflict. We have to have an enemy. Just in America's history in the 19th century, we fought ourselves over some beliefs. In the early to mid 20th century, it was the evil axis powers. After that, the cold war; our own ally, the USSR was now our enemy. After the cold war, we thought, there's no one left. This meant finally peace at last! There were some remnants of "evil" communism left around the world but they didn't pose much threat (although one does today). So who's left to go to war with?
Don't worry. Take a breath. We found our enemy. It's God vs. Allah. We go to war with the Muslims. But they attack us you say? We're just defending ourselves you say? Do you know why they attack us? The first major event was what? Bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Do you know what their reason was for that? Because we started a fight with Muslims in 1990 in a little conflict known as the Gulf War. That's right, wars begets wars (by members of the same family in case you haven't noticed). The jihad was declared because us infidels went and liberated a Muslim country that geographically looks like it should be part of the Muslim country that invaded it. We started the fight. We were without an enemy after the cold war so of course we started it. You know where the term "it's none of your business" comes from. Yes, it was our business - big business and that brings me to my next point.
There is this long list of countries that fit Kuwait's checklist to be a nation under siege; a nation that could use our liberating help. North Korea, Sudan, China. Do we liberate them next? Nope, they don't have anything. No oil in particular. Sudan has coffee - we have plenty of that already. N. Korea, rice - no shortage there. China, we get their goods through trade. There's no need to act.
But fear not war mongering citizens! When the fight for the Middle East is over (and if we survive), we'll find someone to be the ultimate evil/menace to the world/unstable leader that needs to feel the brute that is the United States. Maybe it'll be us (again). We'll turn an inward eye to find someone. If the church could declare war on homosexual citizens, it would. Unfortunately, gay people haven't made it easy for us to find them by living just in the northern or southern regions of the country (the blue and the pink). They don't show themselves by living in a series of states threatening to secede from the nation, if they did, we'd nuke those states.
Take emotion out of government and there you will find peace. Leave people alone, let them live their lives how they want. Business can afford to lose a few trillion dollars in exchange for a human life.
Theocracies have worked wonders for Iran, Syria, Israel, Ireland. Let's follow their examples and create a stable, one religion country and live like they do. Well good news, that's where we're heading.
The first amendment of our U.S. Constitution, the one our forefathers thought so essential to list at the top of this country's document of governing freedom includes the freedom from religion. No religion in government. Now why is that? Well, at the time the document was written, people were persecuted for not being protestant. And the rules of being a protestant were governed by the church or heads of church. Heads of church were human. Humans are fallible so as ideas were changed/corrected, rules of religion changed. People wanted to get away from that, they wanted to stop a government from telling them what to believe at gunpoint, noose-point, guillotine-point. I believe in God, I just don't think He is American which brings me to my next point.
Separation of church and state serves another purpose today. Religious governments are emotional. When beliefs and our faiths are attacked, the natural human reaction is emotion, so we fight. If someone is trying to knock down the pride we feel in our beliefs, we have to silence them. When those beliefs become the official doctrine of a nation, it's no different. We defend those fallible beliefs with every resource we have and in the instance of a government, that means big boom weapons. The bad part of that is that we go to war for something men have defined on their own and amend with frequency. To what end does fighting for a religion serve? You fight for a way of life that changes faster than any outside influence could do on their own.
And it is this way because men rule this world, they always have because men are the aggressive gender of the species (BTW, this isn't an essay about sexism, all I ever talk about in all of my posts is human behavior). Men are in power because we are aggressive. We like war. We like conflict. We have to have an enemy. Just in America's history in the 19th century, we fought ourselves over some beliefs. In the early to mid 20th century, it was the evil axis powers. After that, the cold war; our own ally, the USSR was now our enemy. After the cold war, we thought, there's no one left. This meant finally peace at last! There were some remnants of "evil" communism left around the world but they didn't pose much threat (although one does today). So who's left to go to war with?
Don't worry. Take a breath. We found our enemy. It's God vs. Allah. We go to war with the Muslims. But they attack us you say? We're just defending ourselves you say? Do you know why they attack us? The first major event was what? Bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Do you know what their reason was for that? Because we started a fight with Muslims in 1990 in a little conflict known as the Gulf War. That's right, wars begets wars (by members of the same family in case you haven't noticed). The jihad was declared because us infidels went and liberated a Muslim country that geographically looks like it should be part of the Muslim country that invaded it. We started the fight. We were without an enemy after the cold war so of course we started it. You know where the term "it's none of your business" comes from. Yes, it was our business - big business and that brings me to my next point.
There is this long list of countries that fit Kuwait's checklist to be a nation under siege; a nation that could use our liberating help. North Korea, Sudan, China. Do we liberate them next? Nope, they don't have anything. No oil in particular. Sudan has coffee - we have plenty of that already. N. Korea, rice - no shortage there. China, we get their goods through trade. There's no need to act.
But fear not war mongering citizens! When the fight for the Middle East is over (and if we survive), we'll find someone to be the ultimate evil/menace to the world/unstable leader that needs to feel the brute that is the United States. Maybe it'll be us (again). We'll turn an inward eye to find someone. If the church could declare war on homosexual citizens, it would. Unfortunately, gay people haven't made it easy for us to find them by living just in the northern or southern regions of the country (the blue and the pink). They don't show themselves by living in a series of states threatening to secede from the nation, if they did, we'd nuke those states.
Take emotion out of government and there you will find peace. Leave people alone, let them live their lives how they want. Business can afford to lose a few trillion dollars in exchange for a human life.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Questioning Cliches
Questioning Cliches
I don't understand the phrase "I say jump, you say how high." Supposedly it's to signify the speaker's rank over the listener. But if the listener is asking questions in response to a command, isn't the listener mouthing off a bit? Stalling? Manipulating the speaker into a chance of getting out of jumping?
It seems to me the phrase should be "I say jump. You boing!"
I don't understand the phrase "I say jump, you say how high." Supposedly it's to signify the speaker's rank over the listener. But if the listener is asking questions in response to a command, isn't the listener mouthing off a bit? Stalling? Manipulating the speaker into a chance of getting out of jumping?
It seems to me the phrase should be "I say jump. You boing!"
Thursday, May 26, 2005
This was just picked as the world's funniest joke.
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.
He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"
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