Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The Matrix was Right

Remember the Matrix trilogy? The basic premise was that the world that we perceive is merely that: a perception. In reality, humanity served to provide battery power to a world of androids. Basically, the perception was better than the reality. Unfortunately, there were a few holes in the concept since it failed to account for the realities of those outside the Western world. Call me crazy - folks often do - but the perception of living in some bucket of crap country with flies swarming my bloated abdomen doesn't seem too appealing. But, hey, not my movie series, so not my issue.

What I have come to conclude, however, is that humanity is universally incapable of co-existing with itself. Science tells us that homo sapiens are social creatures and require family groups in which to live and thrive. I disagree. (Although the alternative leads to the same problem, so this is mostly just a rant about futility.)

From the dawn of time, man has been at odds. In Judeo-Christian speak, man was at odds with God shortly after being created. Then man was at odds with man: Adam blamed Eve for eating the fruit that the serpent suggested she eat - never mind the fact that she neglected to realize it was a snake to whom she was talking. Then one of their sons killed his brother.

Historically, documents had to be marked with a wax droplet and the imprint of the king's signet ring to be official and binding. Despite this, the contract subscribers would breach their contract and wars would be fought. First on a battlefield, and later in court.

Yet now, our courts don't actually argue the issues so much as they argue about which party wrote the agreement better and what the definition of "is" is. Whether you buy a car, a house, a washing machine, or for some absolutely insane reason, decide to wed, you enter into a binding agreement. In the former instances, the tenets of that agreement are generally clear as to the obligations of both parties. In the latter, not so much. It is far easier to wed than to divorce; and hence why I posit that if you are foolish enough to want to get married, you should first attend mandatory schooling on the process of reversing that 59% odds of a bad decision.

The size of our world's militaries, police departments, and prison systems are concrete evidence that man cannot get along. Man is worse than a cancer. At least cancer cells work together to achieve their end.

I recall a time when I was young, naive, and otherwise foolish enough to think that things were not this way and that mankind was generally good. Some may read this and conclude that I am "just an angry person." In truth, I'm not angry. I'm past that. I like to think that I somewhere between disillusioned and totally indifferent.

The alternative to which I alluded in my opening was for a planet of six billion hermits. Yet, that's not a very practical solution as invariably in our inability to get along, we'll be back to fighting wars and establishing alliances over which ogre gets which tree in which swamp. So to those select few who have somehow managed to achieve your absolute isolation, I salute you. Ironically, your isolation precludes you from reading this and therefore you lack the awareness of your envious fan amongst this dysfunctional experiment we politely call "society." To the rest of you, don't expect to read too many more blogs. My disgust with people is now fully fomented.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Cry Me a River - by I P Daily

If I hear about one more so-called societal injustice, I truly believe that blood will shoot from eyes, my head will explode, and orange light will glow from the remains of my neck.

I seem to recall from a very young age that there are consequences to my actions. That means, even as a youngster, I knew that if I pee'd my pants, I'd get in trouble - especially in church. Or, if I stole the neighbor kid's Matchbox car from his front porch and then told my parents I "found it" . . . "on the sidewalk" . . . "near uh Chris' house" . . . and then was taken to the kitchen table for interrogation and confessed to my crime under the threat of no snack and THEN had to walk all the way back down there, and ADMIT to my crime to Chris and his parents before I could get my snack, there was a consequence. Oddly, I still love chocolate chip cookies and will do almost anything for them. But I digress.

As a slightly more mature adult (there again, a topic of hot debate), I have discovered that life is a series of "If, Then" events. If I add 2 to 2, then I get 4. If I cheat on my wife, then I get in a crap load of trouble (set the house on fire, it's easier to deal with). If I rob a bank, then I get prosecuted. If I exceed the speed limit, then I get a citation. If I show up late to work, then I get some form of discipline. If I'm already in prison, then I'm expected to follow even more stringent rules. If I don't, then there are consequences.

So I am sick to freakin death of all this whining about the hoodlum who died at a juvenile boot camp. Somehow we have forgotten that it was because he was a CRIMINAL that he was there. We overlook the fact that he did not comply with instructions resulting in the rough handling. He was a punk on the streets and was being a punk in prison. Bottomline. Yeah, I'm sorry that he died - he didn't deserve death. But neither he nor his family should have cause to expect kid glove treatment. Boot camp is, after all, BOOT CAMP. His choice was get his act together now, or spend the rest of his life being a little prison bitch to some other gangsta twice his size.

Same with the Jena Six. I don't care if you're white, orange, green, brown, or purple. If you commit a crime and are legitimately convicted of it, then deal. Build a bridge and get over it. Adapt and overcome.

Maybe the boot camp guards were rough. That's their job. If they were there to babysit, the point to boot camp would be lost. Don't you just love how the media showed much younger school pictures AFTER he died?? His mug shots revealed a punk. Plain and simple. Not a cute, dimple-faced youngster.

There is this chronic cry for equality - racial and otherwise. Well, I posit that until the blacks stop making race an issue, it will remain one. Good luck finding a "whites only" college, scholarship, sorority, or advancement organization. That would be discriminatory. But by god, you can have a race-specific function for everyone else with absolute immunity. The closest thing whites have to a club is the motorcycle gang, the Outlaws, and they don't even like other whites.

It is high time society at large realized that there are two concepts that they must embrace: personal responsibility and common sense. Science taught us that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The classic If/Then scenario is as real today as it was when I first learned how to program in BASIC on a TRS80. And it applies uniformly without regard to race, religion, gender, or socio-economic status.

Go therefore and take ownership of your actions and all that comes with them, good or bad. And if you don't like the results of your actions, you have only one person to fault. And to that, I toast you with a steaming hot mug of shut the %&^ up.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

The Empire Strikes Back . . . Again!


WAIT!! STOP THE PRESSES!! Darn it, where is Algore when I need him. Where is Rosie? OK, well the answer to that is obvious, but where is Algore???

Scientists have discovered that, GASP, sunlight is melting ice on Saturn's moon, Iapetus. This is why, so the theory goes, the moon appears to be starkly black and white. The white parts are ice and the black parts are not. When it gets warm there, -230 degrees F, water vapor is released from the black dust and settles elsewhere and freezes into ice.

What will we do? What WILL WE DO???? Surely someone must sound the alarm. If the ice melts, a rock on Iapedus might get covered with water. Oh but wait, in this case, the water just moves to where it's colder than -230 and re-freezes.

All this warming and cooling talk brings me down to earth . . . a place I like to call my home away from home. So, if sunlight can cause it to be warm enough for water vapor to be released into the atmosphere in some places on Iapedus, is it so unusual that it's also happening here? There is more than ample data to suggest that on a macro level, the Earth's temperature is not changing dramatically one way or the other. The urban heat island effect has been validated and actually stands to reason. However, warming and cooling are pretty standard fare for a planet in this solar system. While we know that greenhouse gases might create an atmospheric blanket that retains heat, that same blanket may insulate the Earth from increased heating from the sun due to increased solar activity; it may also prevent additional cancer-causing UV radiation from reaching the surface of the Earth thereby preventing a pandemic of skin cancers.

But the media and the global warming priests and priestesses don't want you hear of those realities. And they certainly don't want you to know that it's also getting warmer on Mars. So either the Chinese have kicked arse in the space race and have colonized Mars with their carbon-emitting industrial engine, or, hmmmm, the FREAKIN SUN GOT HOTTER.

It is after all a big ball of flaming gas; who would think that it might not heat up from time to time? We know that it sends solar flares into space that disrupt radio signals and satellite communication. So, do the math . . .

Let's think about something else the scientists purport as fact: they say that the dinosaurs died out as a result of the last ice age that was precipitated by an asteroid colliding with our planet and blanketing it with a thick cloud of dust. Where was Algore then???? He could've fixed that problem just by inventing something, right? So, if dust can reduce the planet to a big ice cube, wouldn't it stand to reason that a thinner layer of carbon particles in the upper atmosphere would have a similar effect in terms of reflecting heat and light? Hmmmm.

So here's my dilemma: is "Catastrophic Impending Global Climate Change" science or religion? The path of a hurricane cannot be predicted with absolute accuracy. Next weekend's weather forecast is "iffy" at best. Yet somehow we blindly trust that it will be half a degree warmer in 2107 and the coastlines will forever be changed? Hurricanes change coastlines. Earthquakes change coastlines. Volcanic eruptions change coastlines. Yet we don't try to control them . . . yet. Although, we will jet around in private aircraft to preach our message of doom and expect everyone else to walk to work. "Do as I say, not as I do" is the mantra of fascists, dictators, and religious zealots. It is the religion of Self. I posit that Global Climate Change is the newest rendition of that religion merely creating another pseudo-crisis from which we will need a savior that takes the form of a political party. And anyone who expresses a view counter to theirs will receive the mark and be given to the religion's antagonist. In Christianity, this is Satan. In Islam, it's the rest of us. To the screeching pastors and purveyors of Global Warming, it's conservatism.

Well, Praise Allah and Pass the Pork. I think I'll drive my diesel powered filth spewing eight passenger SUV home today all by myself and smoke a fine cigar with the windows open while I do it. Damn the torpedoes!!