Kdice

1% skill
4% alliances
15% noob factor
80% pure, unmitigated, blind, restacking, place-starting, freaking luck...

thats it...

Akrasia

- I'm a freakin expert in this...

Aids...

So, do the individual viruses that make up the AIDS virus live and subsist exclusively in the immune cells of a human? If a human had no such cells, how long would the viral cells be able to survive (irrespective of how long the human could survive)? Interesting questions...

hrm...

When you clip the bristles of the painter's brush, blunt the sculptor's chisel, break the poet's pencil, fog the photographer's lens, burn the sommelier's tongue, extinguish the cook's fire, you damage the world a bit...

Natural vis a vis unnatural

At what point does the natural world end and the unnatural world being? Is at your front doorstep? Your driveway? Your fenceline?

One possible distinction between natural and unnatural is that what is nature is what would exist if man had not, and what is unnatural is what exists because man does. Thus, the doorstep is an unnatural object, it is manmade, of course. What of the bird's nest then? Why should the same distinction not apply? What is natural is what would have existed if the bird had not, what is unnatural is what exists because the bird does. Thus a bird's nest is a "birdmade object". But the common perception, I think, is that the bird's nest is natural whereas the skyscraper and the B-52 bomber are all unnatural.

What say you who believe the B-52 is unnatural to the fact that birds drop coconuts upon rocks in order to extract the innerds? Does the evil of a B-52 taint its distinction as manmade and thus unnatural? You who believe such are truly misanthropic.

What of the skyscraper? How is a skyscraper any different from a birds nest (other than the irrelevant size difference)? A set of materials, tendentiously moved from their natural place and from their natural shape into a new form with new purpose. Is this a good definition of both a skyscraper and a bird's nest? If not then why?

Does conscience and conscious choice make the difference? How egotisictical must we be to say that we, mankind, are the only entities on this planet who do not exist merely in a state of responding to stimuli and nothing else. Conceeded: an ant responds to stimuli and nothing else; but what of dolphins? They blow airbubble circles and then float through them. They exert energy to do things which have a purpose other than pure survival and these actions cannot be explained simply by stating that they are responses to stimuli.

Thus, what makes one thing a natural object and another an unnatural object. All manmade objects are made by a reorganization of natural objects, there is no possible way to make anything else, thus all things are natural objects and the destinction between natural and unnatural is fleeting.

Mathematics

Mathematics... does math govern the operant universe? or does it describe it? Wherever there are two acorns on the ground, is that the sum of one and one? When a panda needs four bamboo shoots and pulls three with his right paw and one with his left, did he do the sum of three and one equal four?

Is it possible that when humans utilized the first devices and had to count and store food for the winter season that mathematics was born similarly to when mathematicians needed to do something with the pesky square roots of negative one that kept cropping up so they engendered imaginary numbers.

Thus I commit myself to what some view as the ultimate mortal sin, mathematics is dependant upon the human intellect, numbers are not transcendant objects or objects whatsoever, we have created mathematics and all patterns therein are systemic and irrelevant.

i <3 huckabees...

an exposé of what happens when people with a modicum of knowledge and an absence of understanding attempt to take on enigmatic questions.

Oil...

"Our earnings, although high in absolute terms, need to be viewed in the context of the scale and cyclical, long-term nature of our industry as well as the huge investment requirements," said J.S. Simon, senior vice president of Exxon Mobil Corp. "We depend on high earnings during the up cycle to sustain ... investment over the long-term, including the down cycles,"

The up cycle has been going on too long, suggested Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. "The anger level is rising significantly."

This is truly hilarious...

The Large Hadron Collider

There have been fanatic claims that the Large Hadron Collider that is to go online soon is going to damage earth somehow or perhaps create some sort rip in the time continuum... These nonsensical claims have, paradoxically, stirred up from some very influential physicists and other scientists around the world. The only connection between some of these claimants and CERN, is that the claimants could be jealous that they aren't able to work on the LHC and therefore want to scare the public against the LHC... Other than that, anyone who is afraid of the LHC is a quack and ought to be completely ostracized.

Anyone who knows the basics of astrophysics knows that the reactions of the LHC will fall vastly short of the very harmless cosmic interactions which occur in our atmosphere every day. Furthermore, those who think the LHC will harm anything or anyone miss the fact that the black hole creation in the LHC will be so minuscule that it will not be able to react with anything and will dissipate almost instantly... Honestly, I think that the people who are filing these claims against the LHC ought to have their statements recorded, and then after the LHC goes online, they should be publicly humiliated for attempting to hurt the progress of real science because of their own petty personal concerns.

While I'm ranting:

Anyone who supports the confederacy, the "Great Nation of Texas" or flies a rebel flag ought to be tried for treason... Just saying... they are separatists, secessionists and seditious...

China

So, China... What, pray tell, was the deciding factor for the Olympics Committee to make the decision to hold the Olympics in China? Perhaps the deleterious air quality? Perhaps the current violent and oppressive stance on Taiwanese Independence? Perhaps the fact that just about the entire western third of China wants to be an independant state and has a several century claim to Independence? Perhaps the fact that entire villages are dying from cancer due entirely, and indubitably, to water pollution... please can someone tell me why the Olympics are being held there?

Public Officials cont...

"If I wanted to be loved, I ought to be a TV correspondent, not a politician,"
- Cheney

This is why the congress is supposed to be equal in power if not more powerful than the executive, and defiantly more powerful than the VP. It is not a simple matter to get rid of the executive nor the VP, however, the congress is much more susceptible to the will of the people than the executive.

If Cheney thinks that he ought not fret over whether or not he is respected by the populus, he needs remedial education in the Constitution and the structure of our government.

Subterfuge

It completely eludes me how a person could run for public office, of any distinction, perform some of the requisite duties whilst simultaneously abandoning the principles upon which the office is founded. Furthermore, abandoning the trust of the public, who espoused trust in the elected individual via the electoral process, in such a manner accrues particular disdain in my eyes. The hubris required to pull off such a blatant disregard for the public is far beyond my comprehension and thus I am motivated to think that instead of some sort of arrogance, one who can do such a thing either suffers from a mental deficiency or is evil beyond mere pride.

The desiderata of a person who could act in such a way ought to be of particular inspection as it may elucidate the motivations which lead to such betrayal and thus may allow us to identify scoundrels earlier. With all this said, I am not naive, i know this betrayal will occur from time to time, this fact does not, however, remove the desire to eliminate such potential betryal from our political officers.

Revivification

Ostensibly, blogs are to be a repository of thought, this blog has been a bit of that though it got rather untidy while at the same time being neglected. Since, as one of my profs put it, my essays and term papers for class have been a tool by which I have been entertaining myself through superfluously ostentatious diction, I will move such works to this blog while leaving my school work clean, concise and perhaps even trite.

gannas:

Its all you really need.

Man I wish I had Gannas... I wish I could stave off the false-desire to do nothing...

Epicureanism describes that the three true desires for happiness are friendship, freedom and an analyzed life. Although Epicurius himself was a complete atheist, I believe he has some very good points. If you analyze all advertising, they will make attempts at desplaying their product in such a way that it will appeal to your desire to have friends and or freedom and thus attempt to align their advertised product, often something you do not need, with something you truely need. The analyzed life is something advertising rarely attempts to portrey because it is far more difficult to comprehend yet it is really the only thing I have going for me.

What do I find the hardest part about writing an essay CL

Beyond any question, the beginning. At one time I would force myself to write the rest of the essay and then go back and write the intro paragraph. Then that became a practice that has made writing essay MUCH easier for me! It feels more natural to me and since your intro and conclusion paragraphs are really paraphrases of the body of your paragraph, it really helps. For me, if I get a subject in mind I will explore that topic and just run with it. Churn out paragraph after paragraph about the topic at hand with no organization. Often the paragraphs flow from one aspect of the topic to the next and thus coherient paragraphs come about, but not always. But after I get 3 pages of body paragraphs the hard part is done. I then go through the paragraphs I created and take one line from each that appear to be the "topic" of the paragraph and lay those sentances out. After I do that it is merely a matter shifting them around and editing them so that they tie in togheter so that they look like an opening paragraph. Then I just try to find some sort of way to tie everything together with an ending tone to get the concluding paragraph and then the essay is complete (draft 1 anyway).

But since I dont really start an essay out with the introduction anymore, i'd say that the hardest part of writing an essay for me now is to narrow down my thoughts on the topic to some concise articulation rather than the jumble they tend to be.

this is hypnotic.. and sort of scary..

what fell things i come across in my search of knowledge of the LOTR stuff

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1189977381292772054

Some truisms and sayings of mine:

I am a Christian in that I follow the way, Jesus Christ. I am a Catholic in that I believe that Jesus Christ's teachings of Peace, Love and tolerance apply without exception to all.

Life is a continual struggle against doing nothing

Gannas; it is all you really need.

A Government collapses when there are vastly more answers than questions.

I wonder, in the dictionary for the definition of dictionary, do they just have "this".

I do not wish to get my point across simply, I wish to get it across completely.

The brianless want a strong leader; I want a smart leader who can and will do what he says he will do.

That which is hard to come by will be cherished more than that which is given in passing.

No one listens to the quiet, but no likes the loud...

All I have to do is think and I create chaos... what a burden is that!

The most important thing is not life, but the good life.

I am wiser than a man who thinks he knows more than I. I am such because I know that I know nothing, where as he does not quite get it yet that he knows nothing as well.

It's not an insult to a dead man to say that he is dead...

Propaganda everywhere,
but not a thought to think

the religious right isn't;
the moral majority aren't either

a Day in the Life of life

a Day in the Life of life

the gears, they crank and turn
beginning the processes; run.
For when is the life the life to be lived,
And when is the life a Life of the Prived?
i do not go
you do not go
we do not go; should we?

these gears have cranked
churned out something grand,
processes of the neurological
i can tell by the urealogical

when do we cancel
the rating and score
when are we fanciful
with this our score

listen carefully, you cannot miss a beat
if you do you will fly and cry, “come with us”
they and you will say, in the market of the street.
A wall is there, does no one care?
Can they not see the wall? They named it and all!

yet on and on we go, they go
i’d rather not be of “they”
yet how shall i stay?

No food to grind, no wheat to bake
Hither hence i shall wince

and move along to the market of the street

no one
to


go no
one to know


smile,
my friend it is not tooo- bad.
join Us and see our market, its pretty clean,
Upstanding and lean.

God, God's "justification", and slavery.

I recently had a discussion with a guy who is not an atheist, as true atheism is impossible in my opinion, but he questions God as a contemptible being. Right in line with C.S. Lewis', et el., early life beliefs that God is not the Good omnipotence, omniscience that we Catholics know Him as, rather, God is some contemptible being who has made grave errors and thus should give us "non-existence" as an alternate to his present options; be with Him or not.

This discussion was about slavery and Christ's biblical teaching that a slave should be good to his master and a master should be good to his slave. This discussion brought up old familiar theories of mine that there are just too many differences between our society and the society Jesus preached in. I think this is one huge defining factor in why there is so much scorn against Catholicism in present times. One could not feasibly pull this off, however, I feel that much the same as a hypochondriac should not be introduced to medical texts until cured or the disease is under control, some people should not be introduced to the bible until he or she has been surrounded by good representations of the reality of the Catholic Church.

I really like this guy, much like Voltaire, he is a worthy adversary and thus I would like to continue debates with him. But, as usual, if he constantly comes in the debate with misinformation or inference from shaky evidence, there will be very distasteful debates instead of healthy discourse.