World Premier of Dave Brubeck's newest music "Ansel Adams: America"

World famous Jazz Musician Dave Brubeck and Chris Brubeck Premiered their symphonic tribute to Ansel Adams at my college in Stockton. Chris Brubeck was there, as well as the family of Ansel Adams, but Dave was sick in a hospital so he couldn't come. The piece was performed by the Stockton Symphony accompanied by photographs by Adams that alternated with the music perfectly.I got to see it!

You might wonder why Dave Brubeck would choose Stockton, it's because he was born in Concord and went to the University of the Pacific here when he was a teenager. It was here in Stockton at college that he decided to become a professional musician. He has since performed in Stockton many times.

Dave was scheduled to perform his album "Time Out" in its entirety (the first time ever fully performed live)50 years after releasing it, including the most awesome "Take Five". Hopefully he'll get well.

I first learned about Dave Brubeck through his song "Take Five". I was at Kadena Air Force base in Okinawa and a recording of a Dave Brubeck concert was being used as the demo for the TVs for sale. When "Take Five" played I recognized the song and told my friend it has always been my absolute favorite jazz song, I just had no idea what it was called or who was playing it. Months later my friend went home to Illinois and was able to find out through his dad what the song was. It wasn't until I came back to Stockton out of the Navy that I found out Dave Brubeck was one of my grandfather's favorite musicians growing up, and my dad and brother both had some of his albums.

There's a street named after him a few blocks from my house that runs along UOP and the Dave Brubeck Jazz Festival put on by the Dave Brubeck Institute was held around the corner from my house last weekend.

lol.

Just to put icing on the "music near my house" cake, Street Scene in San Diego, that was nearing bankruptcy because they stopped actually doing the concerts in San Diego, finally went back downtown. Local San Diegans know that it was entirely because of the Street Scene concert that downtown and the Gas Lamp were revitalized. When Street Scene first held its concerts on 5th avenue, all the businesses were rundown, there were crackheads on every corner, nothing but slum. The concerts brought people back to the center of San Dog and money came with them, a couple decades later downtown San Diego has become one of the biggest tourist attractions on Earth. I lobbied hard a few years ago when Street Scene left San Diego. I wrote to whoever I could contact that was a part of Street Scene. Back then every idiot in charge, and the general public had this attitude that Street Scene was "too big" and "in the way" of downtown. Well once the "too big" Street Scene moved out of the city it nearly went bankrupt, and the A - list performers stopped coming. I thought it was a tragedy that the concert that made Gas Lamp what it was, was being driven away and killed. Well, either my lobbying helped, or they just came to their senses, because Street Scene last year went back to downtown, not only that, it was held literally one block from where I used to live. Unfortunately I was here in Stockton, but I'm comforted just by its return. San Diego may be a city full of smug douchebags, but I like it anyway, it's beautiful, it has anything you want, it is California at its finest.

Yay California. Made from the best stuff on Earth.

What it is

So when I started this blog profile, I had just come back to Yokosuka, Japan from 4 months in San Diego. Before Japan (back in 2003) I had been in Florida, before that, Illinois (2002), before that, my hometown of Stockton CA. So from 2004-2006 I lived in Japan. I had a nice house, I did what I did. In the meantime I was able to see many other places including Hong Kong, pretty much all of Korea, Australia, Guam, Saipan. In 2006 I went back to San Diego and lived in a super awesome brand new apartment right on Market street downtown. I lived in San Diego until about March 2008, then I moved back to my hometown of Stockton CA, where I currently occupy space. 

 So I need to update my profile a bit. 

The Stockton Armed Militia

A man in stockton declared a few months ago that if the police get fired, he's going to activate a militia to patrol the city. Well, 55 cops are being fired. Through technicalities, not all will end up "fired" but rather "early retired" but the figures will be the same. Stockton only has about 400 police as is.

The idea of a militia sparked liberal bitching across the country. The epitome of ignorance "wonkette" had around 100 comments describing Stockton in every derogatory manner they could imagine, having absolutely no knowledge of where Stockton even is, or pretty much anything else, some even confusing it with Stockholm. They still managed to declare everything cliche' white trash, kkk, nazi, they could imagine, and I pretty much almost cried at how fucking stupid these people are.

I like the idea of a citizen force picking up the cop's slack. But there's no room for reason in this issue it seems.

On the one side, you have all the dumbshits who think no one but the police should be allowed to have weapons, including our own fucking mayor. On the other hand, you have hundreds of untrained people who might be missing the point, but will all go out shooting if necessary.
Where's the informed middleground? I'm thinking I need to fucking talk to this guy before something tragic happens.

Let me lay this out. I am 100% pro gun. I think babies should be allowed to own machine guns. I don't mince words. I think Iran should be allowed to point nukes at us and talk shit. I think people should be allowed to work on death rays. I think every human should be allowed as many weapons of global destruction as they want, until they prove they aren't responsible enough to possess them. I had to make that clear.

That being said, I don't trust these guys to do proper law enforcement. It's one thing to have a gun to protect yourself, or people around you. It's a whole different realm to go out looking for shit to get into. Bad training can kill as much as any gun can.

I'm not a police officer, I don't feel qualified to patrol the streets in a law enforcement capacity. Yet I have worn a badge that said "police" on it. I have been trained in many aspects of law enforcement. I am an expert with several weapons, including the 9mm and the expandable baton. I am well trained an experienced with verbal commands, detaining suspects (handcuffing), arm bar techniques, the levels of force, and the circumstances for deadly force. For the small piece of land I patrolled as a military law enforcement, I was experienced, I knew what I could and could not do. But this is Stockton, and the rules are different.

That's the problem. There are so many dynamics to law enforcement. Security (and self protection) is easy, you protect something, you know what you're protecting. Law enforcement means getting involved in really confusing shit that you might not have any right to diffuse.

I won't feel comfortable about this Stockton Armed Militia unless they have positive support from the police, as well as training. I think if Stockton has a militia, it should serve in an official capacity, and it should break down like a volunteer branch of the police department. Volunteer, because the only reason Stockton might need a militia, there's no money to pay police.

I also think they need to take focus away from the guns. I can appreciate good citizens armed, but if that's the militia's only goal, to be an armed presence, they won't help 1/100th of the problems of not having police. If they only spring to action in a gun fight, they won't be springing to action very often. Cops are needed for so much more than that.

Imagine a scenario where the militia witnesses a man beating up a woman, so they swoop in, but they have no training for anything but gun play. What can they do? Pull out their guns. Great, someone's not going home that night.

Cops have "levels of force" at least in the utopia version of law enforcement I was trained into we did. Militia need to consider carrying more than guns, like pepper spray, batons, handcuffs, tasers, basically things that can solve a problem with no one dying.

Definition Is Only The Beginning

"Bad Words"

I'm not going to reinvent the wheel on this subject. Penn and Teller's Bullshit on Showtime covered the issue thoroughly, and I think others have as well (though not South Park, I think their episode on 'curse words' was contradictory).

I will summarize; words have meaning because they are given meaning. A word is “bad” through intent. Ultimately it is the ideas of the people, and their ability to transfer them to other humans that is the gauge. And if a word can become “bad”, it is not necessarily a bad thing, or at least in usage.

If I say “Well fuckity shit.” I have used the two “worst” words in the English language. I do actually say this sometimes. Although I’m using the two worst words, the transliteration could be “Gee golly”, or simply “oh” (with particular inflection to designate disappointment in the surprise).

Half of our spoken language is inflection. The same words, or sentences can have multiple meanings based on how the words are pronounced.

This complexity leads to some interesting truths about the society. Some words become “bad”, not by their definition, not by their intent, but by what the word is describing. That is, if people hold “bad” or degrading ideas about the actual concept or idea, or whatever the word applies to, the word itself becomes “bad”.

Best example:

Hostess/Stewardess/Flight Attendant – (safety instructor and service attendant on a plane)

It is the odd nature of trying to regain prestige through verbiage that causes words to be tossed and new ones put in. Hostess (in common understanding, and original intention) is a term for a woman who is the package deal of friendliness and accommodation welcoming guests to her place. The male version ‘host’ has the same implication. So I can see it was with great honor to give the title hostess to women who gave people pillows on airplanes. But the word became sour, and eventually offensive to the women, so it was changed to Stewardess.

Steward/stewardess is an ancient word applying to the highest level of service the surname ‘Stewart’ came from Scottish Stewards. Stewards worked for royalty, often lords, they were the keepers of the land, conceptually the same as a lieutenant to a military, one who is capable and called upon to act in full authority but is only doing so while the superior ranked person is incapable. Basically the steward is the person who does all the work, has all the knowledge, and controls all the assets, but gets very little credit. Like a modern day Assistant Manager, or Vice Principal. Suffice it to say, hostess to stewardess is a step up. It’s going from welcoming someone to a home, to welcoming someone to a lordship. But even this word too fell into “profanity”.

Thus came “flight attendant”. The child of modern political correctness and corporate efficiency, it no longer seeks to inflate the implication, but rather take it to its lowest common denominator (how much higher could you go from Stewardess anyway? Lord? Queen?). Flight Attendant denotes no sex (hence pc) and defines the job, not the person (business minded). But even this word is becoming “bad”, or perhaps I should say, derogatory.

The reason is because the job sucks. It involves bitching at people, and listening to people bitch. It involves telling idiots how to put on a seat belt, and giving people pillows and soda. It is the lowest level of work possible that still serves people, and is legal in all 50 states (I’m looking at you Nevada). The shitty job will always have shitty connotations. No matter how much you polish it with uniforms and sweet titles, you’re still resolving issues of fat people taking up two seats, and inconsiderate people with crying babies (DRUG THE BABY) or sleeping on other people. No matter what word you give that job, it will become “insulting”. The job is bad, so the word that applies to it will become “bad”.

Another much more controversial example:

Nigger/Negro/Black/African American – (I don’t know what it means actually. Maybe people who are from certain loosely defined areas of Africa, or are descended from such people, maybe, or simply have dark skin, but know for certain they aren’t Indian but possibly Australian)?

Nigger/Negro/Black all meant black or was implying the color ‘black’ originally. Like Flight Attendants, but on a much worse scale. Men held captive indefinitely, not as humans, but as objects. The worst treatment of an individual possible, thus the word itself has become the worst thing you can directly call someone. Each time the word was changed to try to drop all the baggage of the previous treatment. The first word applied to slaves. The second word applied to victims of segregation. The third word applied to people subjected to continued racism.

African-American is the most recent, and most PC of them, but it doesn’t possess the “corporate-minded technical accuracy” of ‘Flight Attendant”. First it has some built-in issues. If someone is called ‘African-American’ to replace the word ‘black’, then it can’t apply to 1/100th the number of people. Someone born in Africa isn’t ‘African-American’ for example, but they probably would have fallen under the previous word ‘black’. I say probably because there’s so much more to this knot. Someone who is Egyptian is most definitely African, but probably not black, yet if an Egyptian descendant is born in America, they are “African-American” (though they would probably be labeled ‘Middle-Eastern’. Australian Aborigines are black, but not African, and they are descended from Indians who are still black but once again not African.

The real problem is that people who aren’t rich white Christian men get the ‘bad’ end of the language stick, and the descendants of their slaves are in a bad position culturally. As long as there are rifts in culture, practice or thought, the words applied will express that.

Something Penn mentioned I found out on my own in writing this, there are more words to describe “bad” words, then there are “bad” words. But when I went to look up the definitions, I found something more interesting.

I argued that many “bad” words weren’t themselves intended to be bad; they became bad as a result of the culture around their usage. That is, they weren’t meant to belittle or degrade, and they were neutral. By the definition of ‘derogatory’ these words do not apply. A derogatory word is one that belittles, or “lessens the merits or reputation”. There are other words that I thought meant “bad” but have a completely different definition.

Profane- Dictionary.com gives 5 definitions:

1.
characterized by irreverence or contempt for God or sacred principles or things; irreligious.
2.
not devoted to holy or religious purposes; unconsecrated; secular (opposed to sacred ).
3.
unholy; heathen; pagan: profane rites.
4.
not initiated into religious rites or mysteries, as persons.
5.
common or vulgar.

Of these 5 definitions only the 5th shows any promise of something other than me! But let’s pick that apart next. Definitions 1-4 basically reveal that the intent of the word “profane” is to describe that which goes against Christianity (I know it doesn’t specifically mention Christianity, but come on, this is English).

By definitions 1-4 I am profane. Not just by words, but by breath. Being Atheist means 100% of everything I say and do will be profane. Just thought I’d like to put that into perspective. If I help an old lady cross the street, I’m being profane. So the word means absolutely nothing to me, and in fact is just an insult to my existence. So profane is even more of a “bad” word to me than what people would define as ‘profanity’.

Definition 5 gave some hope that there was a deeper meaning to ‘profane’ than simply “not doing what the lord tells you.’ “common or vulgar”. Common is common, it means being average is profane. Literally. And we’ll see more of that when I get into vulgar, which sadly means the same thing, but with more hatred of the poor.

Vulgar- Dictionary.com gives 7 definitions for vulgar, hopefully that will be enough to break free from Christ and commonality (one might hope).

1.
characterized by ignorance of or lack of good breeding or taste: vulgar ostentation.
2.
indecent; obscene; lewd: a vulgar work; a vulgar gesture.
3.
crude; coarse; unrefined: a vulgar peasant.
4.
of, pertaining to, or constituting the ordinary people in a society: the vulgar masses.
5.
current; popular; common: a vulgar success; vulgar beliefs.
6.
spoken by, or being in the language spoken by, the people generally; vernacular: vulgar tongue.
7.
lacking in distinction, aesthetic value, or charm; banal; ordinary: a vulgar painting.

There we go, ignorance, indecent, obscene, lewd, crude, popular, current, spoken by the people generally, wait what? Vulgar is both ignorance and popularity? They’re the same thing? Obscene and common? Unrefined and ordinary? WHAT THE HELL? Vulgar is basically anything not a part of rich people’s lives? Vulgarity is synonymous with common speech?

This is amazingly offensive in itself. The word vulgar presupposes that the “common” man is inherently ignorant, obscene, unrefined, without charm or distinction. This is straight out of aristocratic Europe! I thought we killed the English for less than this! I am completely offended by both the words ‘vulgar’ and ‘profane’! These words define me as lacking anything of value and possessing so many negative traits BECAUSE I am a poor Atheist. By these word's definitions everything I say or do is evil and ignorant and corrupt and without value. And they both say ‘common’. Essentially they apply to the majority of all humans. How can we hope to heal old wounds when our very language defines the “truth eternal” the rich white Christian man is in control, and he will always be in control.

Obviously that is an amalgam, giving that Obama is only rich, half white, Christian, male, and it was HISTORIC that ANYONE got elected while missing a PORTION of the criteria. The same would have been said if Clinton had won, being rich, white, Christian, Female. HISTORIC!

That’s where we’re at. Language is honest, people are not. Look at the words. They tell you what’s really going on. They reflect perfectly the underlying truths of this society.

Some words will always have a negative connotation as long as the word describes something perceived as negative. And other words will continue to be oppressive as they represent a fundamental ignorance in their usage. forget about worrying what to call the man or woman getting you a pillow, just appreciate that the job is necessary, and that a person can take pride in anything they do, if what they do is beneficial. I think flight crew (most recent term that has already started replacing 'flight attendant') workers are doing a necessary job. It is ignorant to try to "look down" on them personally, but if you don't know why, that would take me pages to explain logically. And stop looking to find an "acceptable word for "black" or African-American" people. They are simply people. As long as people are categorized by arbitrary means, the ignorance will not cease. As long as a concept of "black" and "white" exist, racism will exist. This is why "celebrating diversity" and other liberal fucktardery are the most racist ideals of them all. WE ARE INDIVIDUALS. NO PERSON SHOULD OR CAN BE DEFINED BY ARBITRARY METHODS THAT GROUP UNNATURALLY. There is no such thing as black. There is no such thing as African American. Any words that come to replace those words will be just as inherently wrong.
There really is so much more that could be written about this, I didn’t even get into fundamental sexism (male - feMALE, man - woMAN and especially Mr. - MRs.) but even there might lie a fundamental truth about humans (XY - XX!). I didn't cover allegory, and I’ve left all the issues Penn and Teller covered completely out of this. But I’ve definitely written enough for now. Communication has a rule of diminishing returns. Twitter really is for the people. Vulgar and Profane alike.

Capitalism and Evolution

Stephen Jay Gould argued that Darwin choose a "middle road" in his development of the theory of natural selection and evolution. He contended that Darwin neither blindly gathered facts, nor had a perfect "Eureka!" moment, rather he worked for two years on developing a picture. One of the books Darwin credited to helping him develop the idea of Natural Selection was written by Dugald Stewart, who was praising and explaining the ramifications of Adam Smith's idea of Capitalism. I want to quote the quote because I find the prospect fascinating: "The most effective plan for advancing people... is by allowing every man, as long as he observes the rule of justice, to pursue his own interest in his own way, and to bring both his industry and his capital into the freest competition with those of his fellow citizens. Every system of policy which endeavors... to draw towards a particular species of industry a greater share of the capital of the society than would naturally go to it... is, in reality, subversive of the great purpose which it means to promote." In development, Capitalism was a parent of the theory of Natural Selection. Darwin wasn't the first person to come up with the idea of evolution, the word was already commonly understood, he realized the how. Competition. All of nature, humanity, and the universe operates as a system of individual entities in conflict, bringing about a greater stability. It is elements formed, planets formed, solar systems formed, cycles formed from the chaos, the order brought more order, life being order's highest level, order able to reorder. And from life came humans, life's highest level, not only capable of intentionally maintaining order, but able to create new order that had never existed.

The Tea Parties

So there has been a lot of reporting on the tea parties. Fox had been hyping it non-stop, and MSNBC had been deriding it just as much. I spent most April 15 getting ready for the Fleet Foxes concert Joel and I worked at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, but the brief chance I had I tried to watch anything about it on tv, funny thing, Fox wasn't reporting anything on it, and MSNBC was.

As usual there's two sides to an issue reported by the media, and they are usually both wrong. The detractors (namely all of MSNBC) argued two points 1. It isn't grass roots because some rich people got involved, thus invalidating it. 2. "Where were they during the Bush years?"

Sparing you the explanation as to how these are both childish and ignorant arguments, I'll just leave it at that.

The other side (Fox, and for God's sake, Sean Hannity)is promoting it as a great rebellion and some sort of reawakening.

Here's the truth, the people doing these tea parties, regardless of their wealth, are Bush lovers who probably voted for Bush 2.0, aka McCain. They're all butthurt about losing, but they're dumb, so they couldn't come up with anything better.

Simultaneously, all the nay saying about the events, declaring them hypocritical, that no "conservatives" did during the Bush administration is just another slap in the face.

Here's what both sides are missing.

Ron Paul was doing this shit back when it mattered.

For the love of God watch this video. Not only does it show true conservatives rejecting the Bush way, it has Ron Paul predicting the economic collapse that would occur a year later.

Ron Paul was called an extremist. He was called insane. He was called every insult under the sun by the likes of Fox News and ESPECIALLY Sean Hannity. I don't want to put up all the videos, just search them if you want.

Few listened to Ron Paul. Most outright insulted him on air for almost 2 years. Who disagrees with him now? His economic policies are all anyone (but the Bush/Obama fail team)is promoting now. His foreign policies mirrored Obama's.

I tried to tell you people back in 2007. Ron Paul was the only shot Republicans had to win the election, but they chose to fucking crucify him.

Please just watch this video, and think about what you were doing in 2007. Think about who the leading candidates were back then (Giuliani and Clinton). You know who you were supporting. As they spat in Ron Paul's face. You had your chance America. There's no turning back. You elected fail for another 4 years. But you won't realize it. You have no idea what's happening, or why it's entirely your fault. You will not learn. The Democrats and Republicans will continue to control you. You don't deserve any better than a Democrat elected on "Change" doing exactly what Bush did, and Republicans who piss on Ron Paul, pretending to care about taxes with their silly tea parties only after ruining their chances at actually changing things. Remember this, everyone who said Ron Paul was "unelectable" also said Giuliani and Clinton were impossible to beat. Things could have been different.



Ron Paul's Tea Party included events across America, including a full re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party at Boston Harbor. It raised over $6 million by pure grassroots efforts. And was relatively ignored by the media.

XXX again, XYY, X, XXY, XXXY and who knows what else

Having the Y chromosome makes you a male, for the most part. No matter how many Xs you have. But if you happen to have two or three Xs, and a Y, you have Klinefelter syndrome. About 1 in 1000 people have this. Humans with Klinefelter syndrome tend to have learning disabilities, especially with language. But this is something they usually grow out of. At puberty other affects are revealed, tallness, small testicles, breast development, female body contours, and sparse body hair. Most of this from lower levels of testosterone. Sperm counts are also low because the body has trouble processing all the extra Xs, so without technology, they are usually infertile.

A Person with no Ys is a female for the most part. If she has only 1 X, she has Turner syndrome. This affects 1 in 4,000 people. Having only one X prevents full "female" development. The girl may not go through puberty, may never develop ovaries, won't grow tall, won't grow breasts, basically without technology will live to be a permanent child.

Having lots of Xs like XXX is known as Triple-X syndrome. It affects 1 in 2000 births. People with this may have cognitive deficits and low fertility. Otherwise they are mostly unremarkable.

Finally there's XYY syndrome. Having one Y makes you a man. Having more just screws you up. Men with 2 Ys are shown to be lower in intelligence than average, have low fertility, and some have genital anomalies. Studies have shown that men with XYY are more likely to be criminals, possibly because of the lower intelligence.

Instances where incomplete or compromised Xs and Ys can result in other mixtures of the sexes. Hermaphrodites are my example of choice.

One thing I want to get clear, South Park is completely wrong, and so is 99% of people's concept of a "True Hermaphrodite". There is no such thing as a person with male and female sex parts capable of becoming pregnant, and making others pregnant. Hermaphrodites develop partially male sex organs, and partially female. The extreme majority are completely incapable of reproducing. Only one hermaphrodite has ever been known to father a child, and only several have become pregnant. This only becomes possible if enough of the sex organs develop, which is unusual, and never completely male and female. Usually a deformed hybrid of gonads and female external genitalia develops. People with ambiguous sexuality are "intersex".

Obviously human development isn't perfect. It is a whole lot of things mostly going right, and some going wrong that make up most people. Sometimes the part that goes wrong is minute, but catastrophic. Sometimes it may never be noticed. Considering that the very idea of there being only MAN and WOMAN is flawed, that we are indeed one species that usually goes to those poles, but finds room in between and off to the sides, how can you in good moral conscious condemn these people?

A man who thinks he is a woman, a woman who thinks she is a man, often times on a genetic level truly are what they think they are, to an extent. There are so many variants, so many issues. Can you righteously declare that their birth is subhuman? Should they die for their existence? Is their natural and common development a sin?

Can you justify on ANY grounds that declaring a woman is a sinner if she desires other women, even when A WOMAN CAN BE CAPABLE OF MAKING ANOTHER WOMAN PREGNANT? Can you justify punishing BY THE WORD OF GOD a man for loving another man, when man is capable of becoming a woman, growing breasts, taking female form, growing ovaries, and becoming pregnant? All by their very birth, handed down to them by God or by nature?

I say to you that there is only the individual. Race, sexuality, sexual development, gender are justifications for oppression, punishment, or barrier in a land of the "free"? How free can man be, when it is illegal to be born for some, but not for others? How can birth be the descent into sin for some, but not for others?

I say to you that it does not matter if two men can reproduce with each other. They are individuals, and aught be righted at birth, not wronged by your faith. But that a man and a woman who cannot become pregnant is proof of your hatred and hypocrisy. That a man CAN make another man pregnant, by RIGHT OF NATURE, you would still deny REALTY and cast them off as FREAKS deserving only pity or scorn depending on what side of the church door you stand.

1 in 1,000. 1 in 1,000 your government doesn't consider a human, just a sinner from birth. 1 in 1,000 your god forsakes in his book as a crime against him worthy of only death. 1 in 1,000 is in every crowd you have ever seen. 1,000 is fewer than you see in a day, but you would STOMP 1:1000 to the ground with your vile words, making them hate themselves for existing.

But if we added up all the numbers. All the people who are less, who don't count, I'm sure the odds would be a bit higher, to this government most of Earth's populace is "Un-American" and deserving a turned back, or a full metal jacket in the guts. Most of Earth's populace has been condemned to eternal hell by your God, as all who do not believe, or have sinned, or have been born and have never heard.

These are not exaggerations. You condemn HUMANITY in your mind before you set foot out your door. You demand HELL WITH A BULLET for almost all of humanity. Except for the few. The precious few. Depending on who exactly you are, they may be anyone, usually XY, they may be anywhere, usually your country, they may believe anything, usually your religion.

What's stopping you from acting? Fear. Fear of reality. Fear of failure. This whole of Earth, held together by fear of retribution by the whole of Earth. Some bonding glue we have no?

Is it breaking apart? Do you feel the old bonds cracking in the dry sun? Will humans need to die?

XXX

The movie xXx came out in 2002. I remember watching it in Pensacola with Michael. The character's name was Xander, so that alone could explain the tattoo which in course explains the movie title, but the movie tried to make it deeper, and mysterious. I remember someone saying Vin Diesel was becoming the American 007. But Vin Skipped out on the sequel, and seems to have skipped out on every other franchise (though with Riddick, the new Fast and Furious, and a potential xxx3 it seems he might just like waiting a really long time between sequels.).





So Ice Cube played the starring role in xxx2:State of the Union , uugggh. In xXx, Xander (Diesel) had XXX as a nickname. the Sequel without him makes no sense. Even worse, the line "You're the new XXX" was uttered, and the movie actually tried to turn "XXX" into an equivalent of "007". That's fucking stupid. I'm not going to mince words on that.





But did Ice Cube really steal the name from Vin? I submit to you new evidence that has been brought to my attention (only by mental connection). In the 1998 song "Children of the Korn" by Korn, the line "generation XXX" can be clearly heard. What's the significance? Ice Cube recorded with Korn on that song.





This shows that 4 years before Vin dabbled in spy work, Korn and Ice Cube professed to be a part of an entire generation "XXX". So I guess there's a little XXX in all of us.

But what is XXX? First thing to come to my mind is the jugs of liquor in old Warner Bros. Cartoons.



I'd look up the history of XXX on jugs but the INTERNET IS FOR PORN. Which brings me to the second idea of XXX.


Back in the ancient times, before the internet, porn could only be watched via tapes, or in theaters. Because of the nature of porn (independent, low budget, specific adult audience) porn movies usually didn't have MPAA ratings. The original rating "X" was innocuous and applied to any movie that was especially graphic. In the 70s, porn took over the rating, as it was never an official rating, and made it a signature of the industry. In a game of oneupmanship promoters began giving their movie more xs to signify more extreme content, this is where the XXX-rated movie came from. Though it was never official, and the internet has made ratings (especially for porn) completely pointless the term still remains prominent. You can't do a Google search for "XXX" in any capacity without porn as the chief result. My image search for "XXX bottle" got 90% porn and one or two actual bottles with XXX on them. XXX has become so casually related to porn that one of the results for "XXX bottle" was someone on a website saying they had played a "XXX game of spin the bottle" apparently in this context, XXX didn't even have a remote application to a loosely defined rating of actors in a movie engaging in sex, only that the spin the bottle game involved nudity, not sex, not filmed nudity for distribution, just flashing friends. I'd call that Pg-13, R at best.

Mental Trappings

"consider a situation in which a father and his son are driving down the road. The car collides with a tree and the father is killed. The boy is rushed to the nearest hospital where he is prepared for emergency surgery. On entering the surgery suite, the surgeon says, "I can't operate on this boy. He's my son."
The apparent paradox is caused by a hasty generalization. The reader, upon seeing the word surgeon, applies a poll of their knowledge of surgeons (regardless of its depth) and reasons that since the majority of surgeons are male, the surgeon is a man, hence the contradiction: the father of the child, a man, was killed in the crash."

- Wikipedia

This is a common one, it goes around claiming to be "proof" that we're sexist and assume only men are surgeons. So sexist in fact, that even faced with the (supposed) choice of the surgeon either being a mother or the same man from the crash, we assume it's impossible.

But I don't think so. I think it's just a trick question. Assume if you can, that a person has a neutral view of the sexuality of most surgeons going into the story. Then faced with 4 sentences, altogether containing the words 'father' twice, 'son' twice, 'he' twice, and 'boy' twice. With no other sexuality mentioned. That's 8 references to males, and zero to women in 4 sentences. This trick can be used in many different ways, to subtly suggest that the wrong answer. If you've ever heard a person ask you "Say "10" ten times." You say it. "Ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten." You'll probably use your fingers to count (I'm psychic) and then the person asks "What's an aluminum can made out of?" Then more often than not, the response is "tin". The person is persuaded to the answer "tin" even though not only is the real answer obvious, it's GIVEN in the question! Are we then to assume, by the logic of those who claim sexism, that people who say "tin" thought in their minds all the aluminum cans they've seen and concluded objectively that most of them were made of tin? The truth is, you don't think the surgeon can't be the mother, you simply have been led into a mental trap of only male options.

I only posted this rant because I read this crap on Wikipedia in the article about paradoxes. It's bullshit. Wikipedia isn't hard fact, it's collective opinion. I would like to point out, the first time I heard this riddle, was in a game aptly called "Mind Trap". Then I saw it in "Tin Cup" where the woman asserts the men are sexist for thinking the surgeon was a man, and apparently that's what Wikipedia thinks too. That and people think aluminum cans are made of tin.

My Bad Japanese Teacher

Normally I wouldn't knock anyone. I might bitch about things, but I keep my shit talking to a minimum and usually don't begin conversations by trashing people. Caveats aside, I will be an asshole here and rip on my Japanese teacher.

The story begins about half an hour ago when I was reading Time's "50 best websites of 2008". One of the websites was "ratemyprofessors.com" which simply enough lets people bitch about their teachers. So I immediately thought of my Japanese teacher and looked her up. She was on there. She was on there for 2 colleges. And both colleges had 6 pages of negative comments from students. According to the website's boasting, there's an average of 8 comments per listed professor, my teacher had somewhere around 30 comments total, I don't know I lost count. Almost every comment was the same, the same issues I had with her. I'm not even sure if I should list the issues, because I'm sure no one who isn't actually in her class, or going to be, or is thinking about taking Japanese in Stockton would care at all. I'll just say she classically sucks. All the classiclly bad things a teacher could do to make sure a student not only hates the class, but fails or drops out and never takes it again, is her forte'.

I remember by mid term she was bragging about how many students had dropped out. She'd drop people out even when they were still there. She was about to drop me, just because she didn't see me behind someone one day. Not one thing I ever learned actually living in Japan helped me out in this Chinese woman's class.

Just amazed that whenever I'd say my Japanese teacher sucked, my family wouldn't believe me. Just checking out this site proves that my opinion is actually astoundingly on the mark for this website.

As a control I checked out some of my other teachers

Econ Teacher - negative shit storm. I didn't have much of an opinion of his teaching ability one way or the other beause I find his notes entirely useful and I had the highest grade in the class almost the whole time.

English Teacher - generally positive reviews. He was my favorite of the bunch even though he graded me like I was retarded. Definitely lost all hope in becoming a writer taking his class. If I can't impress everyone, then I'll impress no one. But I loved his spirit, he was smart and dove deep into the material.

So things seem to be about even. I imagine most people who go on that site do it to complain so it should be tough to get mostly positive reviews. Amazing how many Delta students have already been to that site.

Maybe online college isn't a bad way to go.

Iraq

When everyone knew America was going to Iraq by the summer of 2002, I knew it was a farce. Simply by the fact that you're not supposed to know 8 months ahead of time that Iraq would "violate" this or that and justify their invasion.

I was pissed. I said, "Fine, if America is going to invade Iraq, I want cameramen to be there, to film every human die. Show every dead baby. Show everything." - paraphrased. Michael is my witness on this "early" resolve.

If you believe people have the right to bear arms, then you have no justification for war with Iraq. The only reason, the only reason in the world Bush used, was that they were armed. Certainly there were better reasons, but they weren't Bush's reasons. You could rationalize in your mind that the other reasons justified the invasion, but because those reasons were not the invaders reason, they would never be respected.

Let me give you an example that I believe is fair, but won't elicit any patriotic knee jerk. Imagine if the president decides that drug dealers shouldn't have guns. Certainly that seems to fall in line with just reasoning, and American law. But who are the drug dealers? If they are already known, shouldn't they be in prison, or already served time, or at least counseled? You would think to yourself, they could justifiably be arrested because they are drug dealers. BUT, that isn't what the president's goal is, that's your "justification". So federal police begin kicking in the doors, and shooting the dogs of every known or suspected drug dealers in America, but after awhile, the waters are murky, things are rushed, the goal of the president isn't to prosecute drug dealers, it's to take guns. In that respect, he won't need proof the person is a drug dealer, just suspicion, so fairly soon, the police are just kicking in the doors of anyone that's ever done anything. Parking ticket holders will have their doors kicked in, and their dogs shot. Sure, some people will get killed trying to defend themselves, but such anarchy is all the more justification to keep kicking in doors, and shooting dogs, and taking the guns. Soon enough drug dealers will find a way to continue their deeds without being the subject of a door kicking-in and a dog killing, they'll go underground, but the feds will continue kicking in doors, regardless of whose doors. While the Feds are wasting tax payer money killing tax payer dogs, the drug dealing will continue, and the fear generated from the invasion will cause drug dealers to kill more. The point is you have to look at the true goal, not your hope of what will come of the goals of others.

Invading Iraq, because they have weapons was an evil enterprise. Iraq has more weapons than it did before, and the fact that the U.S. military went in and took all the weapons from law abiding individuals has only made things worse. The U.S. military has no trouble disarming the good citizens, so the criminals are the only ones who are armed.

Often people say that Iraq was better off with Saddam. I can't agree with that, at least now they have a chance. Not a great chance, but a chance. The problem is that America's intentions are making it harder for things to get better. Weapons aren't the problem. Conflict is the problem, and Americans are the conflict now.

There's a saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." I'm not arguing that. I'm literally saying the intentions were wrong, they made hell on purpose. People bought into it for peripheral benefits, but those benefits haven't come to fruition, and they never will.

I've talked a long time with an Objectivist, and one of the issues was the morality of intention. Does it matter why a person acts? Is the reason for a good action important? And we both agreed that it absolutely matters. Even if an outsider could only guess to the reasoning, the reasoning will always matter. Iraq is a perfect example. Even if you saw the invasion as a good thing, because the reasoning behind it was different, the outcome won't be the same, because at some point there will be a fork in the road, where you would go one direction, the person with the alterior motives will choose the other. The fork was long ago.

Sometimes kicking in a door is necessary, but if your thinking it's good because there's a criminal on the other side, and the government thinks it's good, because there's an armed man on the other side, eventually there will be a conflict. Not all armed men are criminals, and the government will not care. That is Iraq. That is pretty much all the current conflicts in America, maybe even humanity.

People see this need to categorize people. Whether it's "liberal" vs. "Conservative" or "American" vs. "other" or "white" vs. "other" it really doesn't matter. The borders are artificial. Once the intention of the borders becomes altered, the border can become an evil in itself. For example, if you categorize people by American or other, it makes sense when talking about taxes, or laws, or participation in government, but when it becomes an issue about a person's rights to themselves, that's when it becomes evil. To assert that only Americans should bear arms in Iraq is one example. To assert that all Africans should be slaves is another example. "white" vs. "other" could be applied to learning genealogy, studying language, or custom, or history makes sense, but to use it to imprison Jew or Japanese descendants is wrong. People take things to extremes, and fight it out in these corners, either we have genetic variations, and we should kill those who aren't us, or there are no genetic variations and everyone is exactly the same. Both positions are wrong, yet those become the lines. The conflicts of man seem to be childish in this regard. These absolutes where both parties are wrong. Intention is a factor. If you intend to distinguish nationality, or national purposes, that's logical, but if you distinguish nationality to opress one group, or help another, that's evil. Unfortunately not enough people regard intentions, and seem to only respect action. Never the 'why', only the 'what'. 'Why' distinguish nationality, sex, religion, isn't asked. Only an abosolutist, 'what' sex, either no difference, or one must be superior, no nationalities, unless one is superior to the other. That's not how reality works, and that's why people die. War is not inevitable, but as long as people demand absolutes that are lies, there will be war. There will be death. That is the immediate result to their immorality. It is swift. Immorality isn't just, and neither is the punishment for it. War will never be just in this regard. As long as conflict is for lies.

I could rant all day.

Fast Food

Little Caesars used to give you two pizzas for the price of one, in one big box. Also I only remember the square pizzas, all throughout the 80s and 90s the big box of square pizzas was the only thing I know of or thought of about Little Caesars. After coming back to Stockton this I realized they got rid of them. But they did have the $5 large one topping for awhile, but now that's gone too, though Pepperonies down the street has $5 large one toppings and they are better quality.

Round Table has the highest quality pizzas for a big chain, but Stockton has better places like Michael's. Recently ads for CiCi's pizza have been showing up in California, which shocked me at first because I thought CiCi's was only in Pensacola Florida. CiCi's has average quality, but for $5 it's all you can eat/drink including a nice salad bar and dessert pizzas. Round Table has started their own affordable lunch buffet but the one near my house sucks and any other time round table is expensive enough to make a man cry.

So. Since my having no money has run long I've been following Joel's path of shooting right for the dollar menu at fast food places. It's like we're cheating them. I can't believe some of that stuff is a dollar, while they charge 3 or 4 dollars for something slightly fancier. A good example is Wendy's, you can get a double bacon cheeseburger for $1, but a freaking mushroom cheeseburger is $4. You can get a small soda for a $1, you can get a 5 piece nuggets for $1 (and those nuggets kick McDonald's ass) I can't even believe how good Wendy's nuggets are, spiced, juicy, crunchy. You could get a small soda, small fries and 2 sandwhiches for $4! Meanwhile one 2 patty cheeseburger meal will run you into the $6 range.

Taco Bell has a few good things on their ".79 .89 .99" menu. Depending on the location, prices vary, but you can get a "Cheesy Double Beef Burrito" for under $1 or a "Half Pound Bean and Cheese Burrito", and they're both filling. The triple layer nachos (the 3 layers are hot sauce, cheese, and beans) are good themselves and are usually the cheapest thing on the menu. Though the sodas will kill you. Jack in the box has a few good $1 items, the chicken sandwhich, two tacos, or a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. Though once again the soda is ridiculous. Sodas at fast food restaurants are straight up scams. They make more profit on the soda than anything else. It's the cheapest to provide, and costs the most. I'm just glad in the 90s restaurants started allowing free refills. Although there are still some places that won't do refills, like the McDonald's on the corner of Haight Street next to the Golden Gate Park, because 3 in every 4 people there is a filthy bum, really really filthy bum and they all want their McDonald's cups refilled.

For a while in the 21 century soda machines in California dropped prices and you could get a .35 can of Coke (unlike the 90s and 80s where they were .60 and above), but I think they've risen again, all the soda prices have risen back to their inconvenient prices, seriously, I haven't seen a good $5 24 pack price in a couple years. Is corn to blame? Maybe they should go back to using real sugar. I'm getting tired of $5 12 packs and $2.79 2 liters. 2 liters SHOULD BE .99!!!!

Why is it that with increased farming technology, increased storage and transport technology, and increased wealth, the quality of food has gone to shit? Seriously. Why can't food use real ingredients anymore. I don't care how much growth hormones you use, I just want real natural ingredients. WHEN THE HELL DID EATING REAL FOOD BECOME A SOCIALIST IDEA??????????? All the real ingredients have been replaced with chemicals and manufacturing. Why do only hippies and vegetarians shopping at Trader Joe's get grains in their fucking bread and cereal? Milk and cream in their ice cream? Why is bread bleached? EVER? IT'S DISGUSTING. Bland bland bland. Almost every fast food place uses bleached bread for buns. Thank God Subway EVENTUALLY started offering breads that weren't completely void of nature. Whole grain crunchy flaky bread tastes 100 times better than bleached starched whatevered white bread. I'm not a hippy for thinking this. I'm not even someone who cares about eating healthy, and I agree with the health nuts. This food we call American sucks. Why has "Capitalism" eliminated variety? Why do all sodas have the same ingredients? Why is there only 1 variety of cow and chicken used in all meat products in America? Why is there only one milk cow? Why is milk only from cows? There are litterally thousands of kinds of delicious sea life we could eat, but instead we eat 1 lobster, maybe 2 or 3 kinds of crab, 3 or 4 clam type creatures, and maybe 4 kinds of fish for 300 Million people. Why don't Americans eat anything more than chicken cow and pig??????? Goat, Lamb, Deer, Buffalo, Giraffe, Monkey, Dog, Cat, Turtle, WE COULD HAVE ANYTHING. WE COULD FARM ANYTHING. Instead everything everywhere tastes the same. Every city in America serves the same food, from the animals, and probably the same supplier. Washing away all variety is the hallmark of the 20th and 21st Century for America.

Cheese butter cream are replaced with oil
sugar in all its delicious variants, glucose, fructose, sucrose, etc. all replaced with high fructose corn syrup.
Nothing is flavored anymore, cherry flavoring, is high fructose corn syrup, and chemicals. Strawberry flavoring, high fructose corn syup, and some more chemicals. Apple, banana, watermelon, orange, lime, grapefruit, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP AND CHEMICALS. WHY WHY WHY CAN'T THEY JUST USE THE REAL THING? FOR GOD'S SAKE IF THEY HAD IT IN THE 19TH CENTURY WHY CAN'T WE HAVE IT NOW????

I don't want to go to another country. I don't want to go to a place where they have yet to spread the ideas of refridgeration, or safe handling, or cooking food thoroughly. This place. Here. America is suppose to be the best.

I recently watched this ad battle take place on TV. Progresso took a shot at Campbell's because Campbell's had some number of soups with MSG and Progresso had some number of soups without. Campbell's came back with an ad showing they had more soups without MSG than Progresso did, and that Progresso has MSG too, and they promised to remove MSG in all their soups. Progresso ran an ad where a woman taste tested two soups and said one was MSG (Campbell's) and the other was all natural, so Campbell's ran THE SAME FREAKING AD with a woman taste testing soup and saying Progresso's was full of MSG and when she tasted the Campbell's she identified what fucking farm the vegetables where from. My only question is WHY THE FUCK IS THERE MSG IN ANY GOD DAMN SOUP IN AMERICA???? I THOUGHT THAT SHIT WAS ILLEGAL! MSG chemicaly melts a few layers off your tongue, making your tongue more receptive to flavor, making good food taste better, but it also goes into your stomach and melts away your stomach lining, which can give you an ulcer and kill you. THE BIGGEST SOUP COMPANIES IN AMERICA ARE MELTING YOUR FUCKING STOMACH LINING TO BOOST SALES. FOR SHIT FUCKS SAKE WHY WOULD THEY ONLY BE CALLING EACH OTHER OUT ON IT NOW? FOR THAT MATTER, WHY DID IT TAKE THEMSELVES TO DO IT? HOW MANY DECADES HAVE THEY BEEN POISONING US???? HOW MANY OTHER PRODUCTS USE MSG? Old people eat soup. Old people have weak stomach lining, and are more prone to ulcer. Soup is full of ulcer causing MSG. Campbell's is mm mm KILLS OLD PEOPLE. I just looked into it and found that yep. Pretty much everything uses MSG except Chinese food now-a-days. I'm not old enough to remember a time when Chinese food restaurants didn't advertise "no MSG" so the fact that they still advertise it seems really odd by comparison, oh those evil Chinese, they were doing the same thing Doritos is STILL DOING, but they stopped 30 years ago and are still paying the consequences while all your chips are dripping with ulcer powder.

That's my rant.


If I could have a restaurant, I would serve shit you couldn't get anywhere else in town. Then I'd go out of business.


Just as a little bonus tidbit, I looked up MSG on Wikipedia, the first company to market MSG was Aji No Moto in Japan in 1909. The asians pioneered MSG use in cooking long before that by extracting it from seaweed, but Aji No Moto were the first to purify it and sell it. When I was in Japan I bought a bottle of Aji No Moto brand MSG thinking it was salt. It tasted horrible by itself, but I found that when it was mixed into some rice it made the rice taste great. I didn't realize it was MSG until a couple years later when I learned what MSG looked like. Aji no Moto means "essence of taste" and the company was completely founded on selling MSG.

MSG does occur naturally too, which all the more disturbed me in my researching reading people's forum discussions about how they ALWAYS use MSG and if they leave it out, they add extra natural formations of MSG to make up for it. Come on now. If there's to be one product in the entire universe that you would want in all your food all the time, wouldn't you want it to be at least inert? Or maybe beneficial to your body? Seriously, some people are fucked up, MSG all the way in American food. And it isn't inert, and it provides nothing beneficial.

soooooo

I haven't logged in since 2005. lol. It took 15 minutes for me to be able to log in to the "new" blogger. It just kept doing loops of the same 3 pages over and over until I was about to post on the issues forum and then it magically worked. 

Japan's Name

Japan
日本 which is pronounced "Nihon" or "Nippon" is the proper name of Japan.
日本 is made up of two "Kanji". Kanji is the Japanese usage of Chinese characters. The rules are slightly different in translation, and the spoken languages are completely different but because Kanji uses symbology rather than direct phonetics sometimes the meaning is the same even when the pronunciations are different.
Now I'm going to tell you something I figured out all by myself and I don't care what anyone else says.
Japan is known as "Land of the Rising Sun". Which is supposed to imply the day begins in Japan, as Japan is the eastern-most land in Asia.
Japan is just a bunch of mountains and Valleys, so I can tell you from experience it is hard to actually see a sunrise in Japan.

日= "Nichi" means 'day' and 'sun'. Like in the adoption of the concept of 'Sunday' Japan took it literal and made it 'sun day' or 'nichiyobi' and shows up twice 日曜日.
本 = "Hon" means 'book'. It also means 'origin'.
日本 = "Nihon" could literally be understood as 'sun origin'.
"Land of the Rising Sun" doesn't refer to 'sunrise' but rather the actual sun's beginning.
So, "Land of the Rising Sun" isn't just the nickname, it's a transliteration of the actual name of the country.
(now for some unoriginal research)
If America were to adopt a similar "nickname" it might be "Land of Master Workmen" or "Land of Work Rulers". America came from Amerigo, Amerigo came from Amalrich which is Gothic for "work ruler". Other names that have descended are Amery, Emeric, Emery, and the feminine forms which are more common in America; Amelia and Emily.

よりよい

I can see why Ayn idolized inventors/producers. I'd like to think when I came to comprehension of the systems in place, that I would understand why they are the way they are, and why that way is so effective. But look at the people scramble for answers to obvious issues. Look at the American Government/Media/populace shitting themselves over minor economic problems. It makes America look sad and pathetic. What do we have then? Well we have industry. And no one can fake that. We make good computers and there's no denying that, so I can see why industrialists can seem to be the saviors. Very literally it is industry and people's willingness to stick to their jobs that keeps America running, and winning. Our government sucks. Our media is run by idiots, this means our information is bad, and our leaders couldn't make the right decisions even if they had good info. But you have the companies building them bombs and airplanes, and you have people willing to fly the planes, and refuel the planes, and you have hard working tax-payers willing to foot the bill. So really the only weak link is the government.

You'd think by now that they'd be better. I'm now almost resolute in considering two paths from here. Either I continue through college, and try to get myself in a position where I can try to change America, or when I finish college, I'm leaving America for good. Seeing the American government so bad, and so hurtful and so dumb is like continuing to be around someone that hurts you all the time and takes advantage of you, but you pity them.

Obama and Biden want to tax the shit out of the wealthy. But have they mentioned not SPENDING THE SHIT OUT OF OUR MONEY? No. They will spend. McCain talks about lowering taxes, but has he mentioned not spending the shit out of our money like Bush has done?

You bail out a company, then the taxpayer is essentially paying for a product that they did not want, and will not receive. It would be as if I started a billion dollar company and hired thousands and sold 'punches in the face'. Nobody wanted any, so I went bankrupt, but the government bails me out and I continue to not provide punches and I'm being paid by everyone. That makes sense.

You know what shouldn't make sense? A childhood fantasy of having my own country, but as I get older, it only makes more sense. Only two things make sense, either change the system, or stop caring. I know if I leave America, I will stop caring. I also found that while in love, I was incapable of caring about politics, so not to infer on others, but I can say the more I care about politics, the less happy I am.

=======================================================

So I showed up to one meeting of the Veteran Student Alliance at Delta. I didn't say anything, I didn't promise anything. The meeting was 3 hours after my last class and I was tired and bored by the time it started, the one hour meeting went on to two hours and almost nothing got done. The only plans for the future they had were to do more nothing, or to do a lot of work, to make money, to do more nothing. I honestly don't have a fucking clue how that's supposed to help me. I guess clubs and alliances don't think like that. So someone leaves an answering machine message telling me I need to pick up a shirt today or tomorrow so I will have it ready for a wine tasting event I never agreed to attend. Now, this wine tasting event isn't even for veterans, or even for students. I don't know who the hell it is for, but I do know that the only thing I would be doing is catering. Fuck you. I am not going to cater without reason or pay. Now I had planned on showing up for tomorrow's meeting, but that message tears it. Sign me up for bullshit without my consent? This is absurd.

And I grow further away from people. I signed up for a writing club too. But the whole issue of fundraising again detered me, as well as that whole wait after school 3 hours thing. Maybe I should change my schedule next semester. Have all my classes start after 10:00 am and finish around 2pm.

WHY CAN'T YOU HAVE A CLUB WHERE YOU SHOW UP AND DO FUN THINGS? WHY IS IT ALL ABOUT FUNDRAISING? WHY CAN'T WE JUST AGREE TO NOT CHARGE EACH OTHER FOR OUR TIME, AND WE CAN CONTINUE TO MEET INDEFINITELY? A club should be a formation of people meeting for the discussion or participation in a common interest. A writing club should meet and talk about writing and read each other's work, NOT FUNDRAISE. And a union should be for the benefit of the the members for a specific goal. For example a veteran student union should exist to help veteran students complete schooling in various ways using any available resources. Instead I show up and it seems the only goals are to A. "Make ourselves known" WTF? and B. Make more money to help further objective A.

I don't give a fuck who knows me. I don't care if nobody in the god damn universe gives a fuck who I am or what I've ever done, leastways that I'm a "veteran student" in a union. But if I show up to a Veteran Student Association meeting I expect to participate by helping other veterans, maybe tell stories, maybe help with homework, maybe discuss culture, maybe learn about how I can best ultilize available benefits and network, and other's can do the same. Considering Delta is a 2 year school there should be a 50% turnover rate, so people would have to step up each year and keep the momentum, and maybe someone would be inclined to get a little political in keeping that going, but to do catering for wine testing? What the shit does that fuck have to do with my math test? What does it have to do with my essay in Econ? How does that get me money for rent while I'm a student? It doesn't have any relevance, and it never will. It's like busy work. A self perpetuating system that's only function is to perpetuate itself, my worst enemy. I swear to god if I had a white whale, it would be systems that only serve to continue and have no ultimate goals. I hate them violently whenever I discover them, whether they be religions that raise up people who die who raise up people who die, or Eminem who only raps about rapping, or governments that would do anything to anyone to continue their existence. If it serves no purpose, it is my worst nightmare. Ultimately I accept that humanity is the salvation of the cycles, for we can define our own purposes, and if nothing else, we can accept that our happiness, is a universal peculiarity, and that if we pursue our happiness, the universe is pursuing our happiness, and if it can spread, more can be known, and more awareness can be manifested. Consciousness can grow. To know enough that we don't know much is enough to know that we need to continue to learn. And that isn't self perpetuating without reason, knowledge is the product, and it is constantly springing up.

I understand that everything that came before us, served to put us into existence. That a cyclical planet with spiraling life development was working towards the inevitable domination by life that can control the outcome. It is an insult to our existence to try to recreate the old way. To try to recreate the cycles and laws that worked so long to create us, the destroyers of chaos, the bringers of order is to make meaningless the efforts of the universe, to make meaningless the capabilities you posess in yourself. You can instead constantly improve yourself, and that can not be achieved by only serving to continue what only serves to continue.



Make things better. You should know how. If you don't, you can find out. Don't just accept status quo and try to force it to stay in motion with a spin.

More of the Same

Looks like Prop 1 is passing. This will give California a high speed rail in 30 years. There couldn't be better thing for this state than being able to move from San Francisco to LA in 2 hours.

What surprises me is Prop 4 got shot down. Maybe it's because it reads "Abortion limits" and "Minor Abortion" in some locations. It actually hasn't a damn thing to do with the legality of abortion. It was only a bill to require that a doctor notify parents if an underage kid wants an abortion (not even ask their permission, just notifying that they're going into surgery). I think it's disgusting that you voted no. But you've voted no before.

I'm glad props 7 and 10 got shot down, but I didn't expect it. 7 would have forced energy companies to use more clean energy, maybe you guys remember 2000 when Enron raped California with energy bills and don't want a return of forced costs. Prop 10 would give rich hippies a rebate for buying energy effecient cars, I can see why you'd vote against that.

WHY DID YOU VOTE NO ON 5???? It would have made possession of a small amount of marijuana an infraction rather than a misdemeanor, which means you'd only get a fine, not go to jail. It also had more options for drug rehab over prison time. What the fuck? Really? Fine, you like overcrowded prisons and the war on drugs, well at least one of those because you also voted no on Prop 6 which would have given more money to law enforcement. This is a strange toss up, you voted to both keep drug users as criminals, but also keep the police for unfunded.

I was personally against the veterans bond because it sought to give what veterans are supposedly already guaranteed. It puts up a bunch of tax payer dollars to help give loans to veterans for homes or farms. This doesn't sit right with me because A. There's already the VA Home Loan Guarantee and B. Loans forced by the government are what caused the current economic collapse. What's a poor veteran going to do with a loan for a house from the state? Get a house. Sure that's nice, but nobody hires veterans, and the state isn't GIVING this money away, it's still a loan. Basically you voted for a bill that seeks to profit off of poor veterans. Because you know damn well the state will get it's money back with interest. All this bill will do is fuck over veterans. Even if it was written well and fair, it still ends up being the state profitting on veterans. How is that good? Well anyway you guys passed it.

And last but most importantly, YOU FUCKERS REALLY FUCKING HATE GAYS DON'T YOU! Prop 8 looks like it's passing.

As for the presidency

I found it interesting looking up some of the old elections. Most of the key players today have been around forever. Sure tonights election ended the Bush/Clinton reign that wanted to go on for a few more decades, but there's more than them if you go back to '88, the last election year before the Bush/Clinton era took hold. Back then, Bush was only a VP. Bush ran, Bob Dole ran, Donald Rumsfeld ran, Joe Biden ran, Jesse Jackson ran, Al Gore ran, MIND YOU THIS IS 20 YEARS AGO, and of course Saint Ron Paul ran, on the anti bailout of communists, and anti foreign drug war ticket which are 2 big distinctions from him and Reagan, who was actually the perpetrator of communist bailouts and secret drug murderings in foreign nations.

Notable events in the election include the Democrats accusing Quayle of not being experienced enough (only being in Congress 12 years) Quayle compared himself in this way to Kennedy who was also inexperienced (only 14 years in Congress) and Dukakis (the eventual Dem ticket winner) famously responded "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Of course he was right, Quayle was inexperienced, and the Democrats went on to run campaign ads saying this inexperienced man was "just a heartbeat away" from the presidency (note the Democrats did the same thing this year with Palin, except that Obama has almost zero years experience himself so ridiculously so that his inexperience makes a mockery of everything the Democrats have ever stood for and even trumps their own mockery of Palin, but in a good Communist faith, you can use doublespeak, and actually believe two things at the same time, that's what Democrats did this election year)

Another thing to note is that in '88 Jesse Jackson did extremely well. He barely got beat out by Dukakis, he had won 11 contests and a majority of delegates and votes until right at the end. (I would think that election proved a black man could win, all things considered, but apparently people are fucking morons and completely forgot that Jesse Jackson did better then than even Hillary did this year). Gore did well too but fell short. Joe Biden dropped out in disgrace when ads were ran against him showing he had been giving speeches written by a British politician almost word for word. Although he had credited the writer several times, the implications that he had plagarized persisted.

So Biden dropped out in disgrace, but is our next VP.

Obama has no experience at all. About 1/6th the experience of an "inexperienced" politician, but got elected under the party that set the standard for shitting on the "inexperienced".

1992 would mark the end of the open elections. Certainly there was already a Bush in Power, and this was the begining of a legacy, but at the time it was one of the freest elections in the 20th Century. Things were looking up.

A woman ran as VP, you already had Jesse Jackson prove a black man could win, Ralph Nader began his campaign - but he didn't run, he only promoted people vote "None of the above" though people still voted for him, interestingly enough, more Republicans voted for Nader in '92 than Democrats. Truly these were good times for democracy. The front runner up until June was an Independent. That's right. Can you imagine this fantasy world where almost come election time someone who WASN'T DEM OR REP was the leader in the polls? Ross Perot was the man, and he was proving America still kicked ass, but then he dropped out. I remember when that happened. My Mom was pissed. She still ended up voting for him, but she thought it was dishonest to drop out, and when Perot can back, many people called him a coward, and his popularity plumeted, so in '92, it was an independ's shit baggery that lead to the end of America. It sealed the fate, as no one from then on would even have a shot, unless they were a Dem or a Rep, and if they were named Clinton or Bush, or were the VP of either. Bush began to take the lead, but a failing economy, and the constant ads saying "Read my lips, no new taxes" ( I remember those ads, even I at age 10 was pissed at Bush for that) So Clinton won, kind of like how the economic collapse right near this election sealed the fate for McCain, except where Perot would have been a third wheel, Ron Paul, having lost faith in the possibility of anyone in a 3rd party having a shot, due partially to his own '88 run, due partially to Perot's run, and due mostly to the Bush/Clinton reign, Ron Paul who would have been the perfect 3rd party man, with supporters from both sides, instead went Republican, and this took him out of the game in the primaries. Back in '92 Clinton was the "new" guy. The nobody third string player, all the big Dems had chosen not to go up against Bush who was supposed to win. Clinton won, but with only 43% of the vote. Bush got 37.7% and Perot got 18.9%

Basically, all the front runners and their buddies were the same people 20 years ago. Nothing new. Only Barry is the new guy instead of Clinton, so if Barry wins 4 years from now too, it will be a complete repeat, especially if the Republicans put up a loser like Bob Dole was, loser in '76, loser in '88, loser in '96, so if the predictions are right, it could easily be Palin, loser '08, loser '12.

I guess what also surprised me was finding how much none of this crap is new. A woman ran as VP 20 years ago. Jesse Jackson came very close to winning twice 16 and 20 years ago. A black woman, Shirley Chisholm, ran as a Democrat in '72, and a woman also ran as a VP that year, Tonie Nathan, Libertarian Party, who became the first woman in history to get an electoral vote. I would like to point out at this time that the Libertarian Party was founded almost entirely because of Ayn Rand, though it wasn't directly, all the founders of the Libertarian Party were fans of Ayn Rand, and only later grew apart, as many drifted into various political ideals including Anarcho-Capitalism branching off of Libertarianism, and Anarcho-Capitalism itself splitting off in two major ways.





In conclusion, you can suck my ass California for voting for stupid shit.

You can suck my ass America for electing more of the same.

You got what you deserved McCain, you think you're so hip for crapping all over Ron Paul and picking Palin. Fuck that, Palin voiced her support for Ron Paul long before you rolled into mediocrity. McCain only won the nomination by default, the other candidates had much bigger bases, but McCain just hummed along as they knocked each other out. And though you may have thought you were hip with your Palin, Ayn Rand's children had already broke down that barrier with a woman in the 70s, and the closest we had this year to an Ayn Rand supporter was Ron Paul. It should have been Ron Paul / Sarah Palin, or my dream election Ron Paul / Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Arnold wasn't born in America. Which brings me to my next rant.

Fuck you Obama, America deserves you. They want inexperience, they got you. They don't want inexperience, they got you. You're almost an American too, you were born in what some consider America, and although you were raised in Pacific islands and far away Muslim controlled countries, and half your family was illegal immigrants and Africans, hey, you're somewhat American. Hell, maybe you've spent as many years in America as Schwarzenegger has, he came here in the late 60s, wait, you didn't move to America until about 1980. Ok nevermind. But I suppose you beat out McCain who was born in Panama, and spent his youth trying to get away from America.



So here you are America. You all voted this time around. All branches of the government are controlled by lefties. I hope you socialists shut the fuck up for at least the next 2 years. And god be praised if the Republican Party completely collapses in its own hypocrisy.

The Housing Crisis; Today’s Market Crash

It's funny that I was pissed enough about the Mortgage/Housing Crisis that I ranted about it, and now today, the stock market has crashed, and more HUGE long time Wall Street businesses are bankrupt due to the housing and mortgage collapse. Premier Bush was quick to announce that his Dictatorship will not stand for businesses losing money, so he announced he will snap the backs of the American people to pay off the debts of these failed companies.

Socialist Obama, and McCain (who Ron Paul proved doesn't know crap about economics, see video below) have already condemned Bush's policies, but note that McCain won't actually name Bush as the problem, and Obama is still a Socialist. These aren't the men with solutions, and I don't mean to say that a president should be an expert on every subject, that's absurd, but the president must know the basics, and if they aren't experts, get experts, not opinions. There is a solution to this problem. In fact there are many solutions, but you have to have a solid, rational philosophy about how you will approach the problem.

Mixed economies can't work. You can't act like it's a free market, and then bail people out with tax payer money, you can't have a controlled economy, and then allow small businesses to fail. A company CEO won't know what to do. Sometimes America decides you're too successful, and you get split, like Microsoft. Sometimes America decides you're not allowed to break down, and they dump billions of tax-payer dollars to bail you out, but your ship will only sink more slowly, like the airlines. And sometimes America decides that they want to be bigger and so they buy out failing businesses making them federal property like they did with the previous mortgage collapsed companies Fannie and Freddie. But there are few rules. There is no all encompassing official policy, the first example was under Clinton, and the other two were executed by Bush, but many years in the making. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were both invented by the government, and have always known that if they were to fail in their ventures, their contracts promised the American taxpayer would bail them out. Even when companies illegally screw over America, sometimes they get punished, and sometimes they don't, look at Enron. They robbed California blind when power deregulation hit and we had rolling black-outs. Just two years later, after having reported company record setting profits, they declared bankruptcy, the heads of Enron, took their money and ran. And I'm not saying they took their earnings and ran, I mean they gouged California, lied about their profits, and TOOK EVERYTHING. They cashed in their stocks, they screwed over all their employees. Did America do anything? No. Maybe they should go back to Microsoft and fine them some more to make up the costs. Do you see? You can't argue that both acts were just, either you're hands on, or you're hands off, but look how it plays out, Microsoft, who never did any bad, only good, was destroyed by the government. Enron, who lied and stole, no punishment.

I don't want to blame any president for a bad economy. It should not be the president's job, nor should the president have the authority to control the economy, but I can tell you, meddling with the economy can have negative consequences. Bush wants to bail out these companies. SOMEBODY has to pay. Who do you think it will be?

There are of course many more issues, and I'm sure I don't understand half of them. One obvious issue is the budget and taxes. Bush promised to lower taxes, and he did, but then he spent even more money than Clinton! Because it is impossible to force money into existence by decree, the cost had to come from somewhere, obviously the government is over spending without paying back, so who is paying for it? One direct result of spending money that doesn't exist is a "national debt" basically it's the government spending more than it owns, so it's in debt to itself. Since it is a constantly moving system, the debt doesn't just collect somewhere waiting to be paid, it is taken from the economy, the value of the dollar goes down, compared to other nations. Because the dollar is worth less, companies can't sell their products overseas for the same profits, and individuals can't buy foreign products with the same money. So we are paying for the debt, it's worse than just raising the taxes, but nowhere near as good as lowering taxes and having a government not overspend. And it's just like those bad debts people get into on their own, if we don't pay it off, if we don't budget, we can't just let it pay itself out. We will only get deeper and deeper in debt.

There are piles of problems, just give a google search and let the economists all over the internet give you a crash course on any number of issues and their history. Neither candidate is talking about these issues. Not really. So don't expect either to solve any of these issues, not really.








McCain Attacks Ron Paul, and Ron Paul owns him:

The Housing Crisis

The future elected folks want to tell you they have solutions for the housing crisis. But why is it that none of their plans include the victims? None. Really. There is no plan by anyone to help out people who have ALREADY lost their homes. There is no plan by anyone to help people who ALREADY lost their bank accounts trying to get out alive. The only plans they have are to bail out the big companies that have eventually taken a blow from coming up short on their tireless efforts to screw people over. They intentionally try to screw people with skyrocketing mortgages that were time sensitive, and now they're paying for it, because they've already sucked up all the blood they could. Now the government want to give them more blood, because they want the vampire to survive. Not that they care about you, they are using the blood of EVERYONE, ALL TAXPAYERS TO SUBSIDIZE THE VAMPIRES WHO HAVE RUN OUT OF VICTIMS. Does that make sense? I lost $25,000 to this shitty housing market. Will I get bailed out by the government? No. Fuck me, they'll take my tax money too, and give it to those weasily fucks who fucked the market in the first place. COMMUNISM LOOKS LIKE A GOOD IDEA FROM THIS VIEW. THIS IS WHY THE RED REVOLUTION CAME TO RUSSIA! DON'T YOU SEE? This is not a capitalist venture. This is the act of a bad dictatorship. And yes, Socialist states are better off than dictatorships, so I guess that's a good choice now. Good job America. Good job.

Ron Paul

You don't get to think you know anything about current American politics if you haven't heard Ron Paul speak. His latest speech was at the "Rally For the Republic" which sold out to more than 18,000 people just to see Ron Paul. One man, who represents only himself and the ideal of individuality. It was held near the Republican convention which couldn't pull down those numbers even though they supposedly represent half of America. The one of the nations only 2 political parties; that snubbed Ron Paul, the party that lied about Ron Paul's popularity by supressing the 1.2 million votes he received. The party that insulted him and refused him admittance to their debates. The party that is currently in power in this nation GOT ITS ASS HANDED TO IT BY ONE MAN. RON PAUL BY HIMSELF IS BETTER AND MORE IMPORTANT TO MORE PEOPLE THAN THE ENTIRE REPUBLICAN PARTY EXCLUDING HIM. Does that register? Probably not. You don't get it. If the romantic "you" "got it" then Ron Paul wouldn't be treated like a criminal by the power forces of the media and government. But many individuals support him. More active duty military support Ron Paul than any other candidate. John McCain invoked the name of the military in his convention, but when the military expressed their true support, he SHIT ON THEM AND LIED. Republicans hate the military and have no respect for them. Where Ron Paul supported the new GI Bill to help veterans, John McCain fought against it. Where John McCain had his college education paid by the GI Bill, Ron Paul was already a self made Doctor when he went into the military. Doctor/ Officer/ Congressman for 10 terms/ Ron Paul is more experienced than all the people you've ever met or thought of combined. He's old as hell yet still sharp as a tack. He's Ayn Rand off her period. He's Thomas Jefferson without slaves. He's better than Jesus in every way that matters. And if you think Jesus died for our sins, Ron Paul is fighting for everything good in man, to try to preserve everything humanity has worked for, and if no man can ever surpass Jesus, then Jesus died for nothing.



People follow Ron Paul, because Ron Paul wants you to lead yourself. And if your self isn't worth your time, you don't deserve to live. Other candidates would have you follow them for what they promise to do for others. Ron Paul promises to only do what he must to prevent those others from robbing you of your liberty.



I'm not saying you have to care. I don't think every human should give a crap about politics. But you should at least care about yourself. And I honestly can't understand from the depths of my mind why when election time comes around, it isn't an individualist vs. an individualist. What we have is a man who is telling you how to spend your money, and the money he steals from you. While he passes laws to prevent you from making more money, or obtaining individual goals. And on the other side we have a man who is telling you how to spend your money, and the money he steals from you; while he passes laws to prevent you from making more money, or obtaining individual goals. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? OH YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHAT IT IS EXACTLY THAT THEY STEAL FROM YOU THIS TIME. YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHERE THE MONEY THEY STOLE FROM YOU WILL BE WASTED. YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHICH MEANINGLESS FUCKING LAWS THEY WILL PASS IN THE NAME OF THEIR GOD VARIANT TO DESTROY YOU IN BOTH BODY AND MIND. THAT IS YOUR CHOICE AMERICA: HOW WILL YOU CHOOSE TO SLOWLY DIE? And the individualist, he's mocked, to the bitter end, by the thieves of your mind. And you mock him too, but your mind is gone. And no one takes you seriously.

Who Did you Vote for With your Wallet?

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname


Check it out. You can see every person who donated to every candidate (through legal channels only I suppose). If you type in my name, you will see I donated to Ron Paul. It even gives you the addressed I lived at when I donated! It provides all the information that was asked of me when I donated, that is, name, occupation, industry. You can use the map on the page to see who other people around you donated to.

What blew my mind was how quickly I could see illegal activity. There is a campaign contribution limit, I notice one guy sent the maximum to Hillary, then a week later sent the maximum again, but used a slight variation on his name and occupation, he was at the same address, it was so obvious!

There were $352,872 in donations from my old zip code (92101) which takes up only a portion of downtown San Diego. $70,147 was donated by my current zip code which I think is impressive enough for central Stockton.

Give it a try, you can go find out what your favorite celebrities support. I looked up Ron Paul, he donated $325 to the Republican Party of Texas. Maria Shriver donated $2,452 to Barrack Obama.



Anyway. I think it's cool.