The ACLU Lost One, Let's Hope The Trend Continues

The ACLU in my book is pretty much an enemy of the state, which is a shame, because they should be providing a needed service to protect people's rights rather then be involved in societal transformation.

Anyway, they lost a court battle. Excellent.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/17999573/detail.html

Angelican Church Apologizes for Believing the Bible

Yes, the Angelican Church, in a round about way, is apologizing for its beliefs in the account of Creation found in Genesis.

What a sad day for the Angelician "Church".

Read more here.

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/16/211239&from=rss

California Bans Transfat, Freedom

Mommy, otherwise known as the government to most Californians, has recently passed a law banning trans fat from the state. While I think most Americans eat too much trans fat, I don't think the government has any business stepping into the role of Mommy. I'm down with having people who eat to much trans fats and thus suffer health related issues due to their over consumption of trans fat paying a higher premium for health care (and I would be one of those individuals, unfortunately). I don't believe liberals through government agencies should have the right to make sure people "live correctly". My ancestors bailed Europe because they didn't believe in government telling people how to live, and the setup this great country known as the United States of America where people are free to make their own choices, be they good or bad, and benefit or suffer the consequences of their own choices, again be they good or bad. It sets a really bad precedent abdicating even small personal freedoms (even to eat "the wrong" foods) to government. Today trans fat, but what will "Mommy" try to fix for us tomorrow? Ten years from now? Pretty soon government will be trying to make sure we all "believe correctly" and help us all reach acceptable ideological conclusions for the good of the "community" (i.e. the government). F that. Live Fat or Die! (j/k). How about live free of lefties (and conservatives) in government telling us how to live, and all of us being responsible for our own life choices.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5393222

Islam Rising: School Infiltration

Here is an interesting article from WND about how Islamist, with the help of liberal allies, are infultrating Western schools.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=68785

New Tribe Found, Put in a Zoo

A remote tribe in Brazil has been found. Some group called "Survival International" is hard at work protecting them...from advanced medicine, electricity, toilet paper, knowledge, and all sorts of other advancement under the guise of some sort of politically correct notion about tribal sovereignty.

I'm all for gradual introduction of the tribe into our global world of ours, but isolating them so they can be "studied" and "protected" seems to me a bit like putting these people in a zoo.

Read more here-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7426794.stm

[Update] - Guess the whole thing was a hoax. I got my all uppity over nothing :(

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/21/amazon?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews

Great Marketing Article with Societal Implications

I read the grokdotcom from time to time it is a great resource for marketing information. The following is an interesting post about "You" and the failure of the Web 2.0 hype (though not quiet framed that way in the article). What is interesting to me is the concept of information irrelevance, which is just another term for infocyde...hiding critical information by burying it. Though the article is targeted at marketeers, poli-sci geeks and wanna be philosophers like myself might find the article of interest.

Take a look here-

http://www.grokdotcom.com/2008/05/30/marketing-to-yourself/

More War B.S. Marine Busted for Handing Out Coin with Christian Verse On It

Anther sad milestone for our society and the Iraq war. We are allegedly fighting for Iraqi's freedom. Yet I guess freedom of religion, which is really a subsets of freedom of speech and freedom of thought, isn't included in the rights that we hope to "civilize" the Iraqis with, and apparently is no longer even a right for our own troops.

Some marines where handing out coins with a Bible verse on the coin to Iraqis. Some Iraqi elders got hot and bothered because Americans might influence Iraqi minds against Islam. A marine was busted and is in trouble, and our own president apologized to the Iraqis. Why are we over there again? To help prop up an Islamic dictatorship? If this is how the war is being waged, let's bring the troops home. We don't even know what we are fighting for.

Koodos to the marine for standing up for Jesus Christ and his country.

Good For Sony: No Porn on Blu Ray

As described in [this] article, Sony has decided to not allow Porn on Blu Ray disk. More reason to buy products from this Honorable company.

Hired Guns, Shody Journalism, and Illegal Immigration

I read an interesting article about the effects of illegal immigration in Arizona. You can read more [HERE].

I have opinions about immigration, but that isn't what my blog is about. I noticed several things about the article.

1) The journalism was weak. A 625 dollar an hour figure is tossed out there with no reference on how the journalist came upon that information, other then the statement "might" be a possible quote from someone that I got the impression on was being sarcastic.

2) The journalism was biased. The article's points are placed in such a way to attempt to lesson the impact of one sides argument while trying not to appear to do so.

3) The researchers in this article are essentially hired guns. This is systemic in our society. Pay someone enough, and they will spout out numbers supporting whatever it is you want them to support, and they will cloak their findings as "science". Our society tends to trust arguments that appear scientific, so there is a lot of political pressure to wrap ideology in pseudo science.

So people are making decisions based on pseudo science reported on by weak biased journalism. Not good for a democracy.

Embryo-Friendly Technique Produces Stem Cells

Allegedly a company can produce stem cells without harming embryos, better known as developing babies. This has significance to the abortion debate.

Read more [HERE].

Another Internet Bubble?

Of course...so let's put it to music.




Stole from www.amix.dk.

In the last days they will be fierce...

I've heard people argue against this, but this is no surprise. Violent games makes people more violent, according to the University of Michigan.

Read more about that on Slashdot and its referenced article [HERE].

A great book on the subject is titled, "On Killing". I haven't finished reading it, but the author (whose name escapes me at the moment), a military guy, points to research that in the past people generally didn't like killing other people and tried to do their best to avoid it, even and sometimes especially in times of war. The basic premise is that the media is breaking that aversion down, but at a high psychological cost to the military personnel who kill more easily now. The aversion to killing is diminished, but not the deep psychological issues killing creates in those who commit it.

Pat Buckanan: Day of Reckoning.

I haven't read Pat Buchanan's new book "Day of Reckoning" yet, but it seems to be right on. I've talked politics with a lot of people, and may of the points he addresses as potential reasons why American will become unglued I've talked about before. In essence, unless there is a dramatic turn, America is screwed. Sounds like Pat nails it on the head.

Read more about Matt Drudge's initial comments on the book [HERE].

Birth-Pains before Jesus's Return: Natural Disasters up 4x in the last 20 Years

Another sign of the times is [HERE].

The Age of Robotics

Ok, I'll be the first to do it. This century, the 21st century, will be known as the age of robotics. I am reading more and more articles about UCAV's (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles), UAV's (Unmanned Air Vehicles), USV's (Unmanned submersible vehicles), and on and on. And we are only in the first decade. So me, as a wanna be historian, I declare this century to be the age of robotics. And, I will begin focusing this blog a little bit more on robotics then I have been.

Cool But Scary: Insect Sized UAV's Spotted in New York

It looks like the Man already has insect sized UAV's and is testing them out on the streets of New York, if [this] wired article is to be believed.

Awesomely cool, unless you are one of those civil rights freaks that is worried that it is becoming easier for the government to constantly survey it's citizens, from where you web surf, to how they spend their money, what they watch on TV, and now real time video surveillance. What's to worry about? Actually much, not so much now, but down the road. Like it or not, we are headed to and in many ways are already in a surveillance society. Watch your data shadow...but make sure you have one, because if you don't that comes up too.

It is good to see the guys at the wired defense blog are blogging about something interesting instead of their usual whining about Blackwater.

Pentagon BS: National Guard Unit Gets No Benefits

Bean counters in Washington decided to extend a Minnesota National Guard unit's tour to 729 days, 1 day short of the 730 days required for the National Guard unit's members to receive additional GI benefits. The unit's 729 day deployment, however, was one of the longest deployments of any unit in Iraq.

So, some people are calling B.S. on this, and so am I. It is not helpful to the war effort when bull sh*t like this pops up. The Bush administration needs to act speedily to correct this.

Read more [HERE].

The Beautiful People: Turns Out Aren't So Beautiful

Here is a great link to that shows what the Hollywood icons really look like.

Read more [HERE].

Target Targetted.

I guess there is a big class action lawsuit against Target for not making its site accessible to blind people. The American Disabilities Act may apply here. To me, they are a private company, and it is a technology issue, not a disabilities issue. Companies have limited budgets, and to make web pages viewable to all technologies take time and money. Is it discrimination that maybe some pages on Target's website don't work in Safari 1.2? Is that Mac hating? Is Mac hating a crime?

Anyway, decide for yourself by reading more [HERE].

For that matter, do blind people really shop at Target? Should target have audio readers so as you walk by each item an audio player yells out what the item is? This is ridiculous. The lawyers here, if they expect to be paid and are not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, as well as the Berkley student who brought on the law suit, should be forced to renounce their citizenship and get out. We don't need people abusing the legal system here, and they are just adding more dead weight to our society.

More on Virtual Relationships

Apparently I have a growing fascination with what I will call "the blur", where virtual worlds collide with the real. Part of that fascination is how we will behave as human beings in these worlds. I consider human nature to be pretty dark, so I'm pretty sure all sorts of interesting psychological ramifications, few of them good, will arise as people hide their identities, cheat on their spouses, claim sin as not sin as long as it is virtual, etc... I see a growing field of study here that will touch upon multiple disciplines.

And along those lines, here is an article from wired that deals with the fact that relationships are relationships, even if they are "virtual", and those relationships affect our actions in the real world.

Click [HERE] to read the article.