Competition

I'm pretty good at competition--that is to say, in an academic or professional setting. Among all people of all ages I would guess I am in the top twenty per cent, which means I have plenty of company--good company--but also that I function at a level higher than many. But I don't think of myself as better, and I have decided also that I must not think of myself as worse, because either self-image is exaggerated and mistaken. In reality we are to function at the best of our abilities, within the limitations of our environment. There is no other option. If someone achieves better grades or better status than me, that is okay. If someone achieves lesser grades or lower status than me, that is also okay and does not mean I am to see them as inferior. I think that many people involved in competition lose sight of our shared mortality and shared humanity. A judgmental and Darwinist attitude can develop over time. It is most interesting to see this in people who are not high performers, but merely mediocre, and they are the precise ones most apt to look down upon those that achieve less. I observe such egotism and what immediately occurs to me is, hey, you're no Albert Einstein, and I don't think you invented the steam engine either. The truth of the matter is we are all mental midgets working in the shadow of just a few titans of science and the arts. I have no patience for egotism and can't find any room for it in my own mind. I know my limitations and as I get older I find that I am reminded of them more often. Perhaps it is young people who tend toward egotism the most, because so much is handed to young people on a silver platter at birth (particularly the ones from well-to-do families), and they have not encountered quite as many dead-ends, insurmountable obstacles, defeats and reversals.

Organized Religion

I have no problem with religion or to be specific with Christians. In fact I feel much more benevolent now than when I was younger and less experienced and more rebellious. However, it does rankle when theists presume a monopoly on morality or think that going to church or praying in public or chatting about their faith makes them better than others from an ethical or spiritual or psychological perspective.

Everybody is different, and some of us thrive upon a different path due to our background, experiences, personality, limitations, abilities, and preferences. I have always felt that religion is a personal and private matter, and it seems distasteful to cheapen it with public displays of religiosity. The words that are said and the things that are done in church have often irritated me and distanced me from organized religion because they are seldom based upon reason or upon right but instead upon the common orthodoxy about some matter to which no one gave any original thought of their own. Today we see mainstream Protestant organizations wrestling with a moral issue that seems a completely obvious and clear-cut good thing, gay marriage. The fact that they have had to dicker with it for so many years points out the limited scope of their ethical (or spiritual) development, and we need say nothing of the Catholic church or for that matter Islam, Hinduism or orthodox Judaism.

Only once in my life have I ever heard a sermon that inspired me, and it was delivered in 1963 by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., but it was more a political speech than a sermon. Really his speech was a masterpiece not equaled in the 21st century. I can't speak for other centuries but I never heard a better speech in my life. That is not to say it is perfect. There are some minor imperfections, almost unnoticeable, but they don't matter. Could he have given a better delivery? Yes, but one must consider the moment, a hot sweltering day outdoors among thousands of people, and the equipment--microphones and speakers from 1963--and the fact that there was no possibility of repeating the speech, and the fact that King used no teleprompter, but spoke entirely from memory. It is a masterpiece pure and simple by a human being and could scarcely have been equaled by a human being at that place and that time.

Syria's Resistance Army

So far, I'm not surprised by supposed atrocities (or desecration of corpses) by untrained civilians in the Free Syrian Army against regime snipers or the bloodthirsty shabbiha, who have themselves committed so many unpunished atrocities against unarmed civilians. One cannot with any degree of realism expect the same standards experienced in peaceful, comfortable and democratic Western countries to apply in the Syrian conflict. A civilian population that has been brutalized, watched their own wives and children tortured and mutilated, and seen their people reduced to the status of animals can be expected to act out what they know, feel, and perceive. Although there was a possibility of a better resolution in earlier times, at this point, Assad's regime cannot expect much in the way of leniency. The Assad regime respected not the smallest shred of morality, and so their enemy may be expected to conform and behave in like manner. The regime appears to have locked itself into a genocidal conflict, which reflects a grave strategic error at the highest level of their leadership. It would have been far better to compromise, to offer the opposition a seat at the table and break bread with them. Fear is only an effective tool in controlling the weak, and even there it has severe limitations.

Assad may have been educated in a medical profession (although I am skeptical of how much he really understands even in that field), but he is a fool and a discredit to his university, because he did not understand even the rudiments of morality. There is an ancient problem with evil and a very good reason that wise men reject evil ways. He who renders evil unto others is liable to be repaid in like coin.

Creed

As I was driving home today, I worked upon composing a personal creed. I liked the following:

I am a soldier of the light.
I am sworn to the light.
I am joined to the light.
So there is no end to me and no beginning.
Life and death are not serious alternatives.
There were others before me and will be others after me.
Though this single instance that I represent diminishes, the light does not.
There is light in the darkness and it renews all things.
So there is no end and no beginning.

Covering Up His Own Incompetence

This article makes the case that Attorney General Eric Holder authorized the raids on legal medicinal pot dispensaries in order to distract attention from his own bungling of the "Fast and Furious" scheme, in which assault rifles wound up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

Holder is incompetent and should be removed from his position on that basis alone. House Republicans were correct to hold him in contempt. The fact that he was appointed by Obama does make me wonder about Obama's judgment.

Divorce

This afternoon, I watched a documentary--BBC's Storyville, episode one--that amounted to a reality show covering a legal proceeding in rural China between two poor and poorly educated Chinese. In watching them, I was reminded that the American South does not have any monopoly on rednecks, who are distributed all over the world, it seems, clustering around rural towns and villages. Only cultural strength defeats the redneck mentality. Human beings default to a level just above savage animals. I was also impressed with the Chinese legal system, at least in regard to domestic disputes. The judge seemed quite reasonable and moderate, not at all draconian or authoritarian. In fact the court proceedings were quite casual and informal, a bit more so than I would prefer. I think that court proceedings should be imbued with dignity and gravitas, and outbursts or threats of violence should not be permitted. When the husband threatened the wife in court, I thought to myself that in an American court, that husband would have been sentenced to time in jail for contempt of court, if not assault. The Chinese judge mildly rebuked him, which puzzled me. I think that women have lower status in China.

I was also reminded of a scene from my childhood, when my mother wanted to divorce my father. Dad cleverly manipulated me in order to dissuade her from leaving him. I remember when she was at the front door, suitcases in hand, and I flung my arms around her and begged her not to go. I succeeded, but I was wrong. I see that now. I was motivated by selfishness and an inability to understand the issues between them other than at the most superficial level. So she remained in a dismal marriage for love of us. Only later did I come to understand his ways. He is not evil, but his thinking is confused, his perceptions distorted. He is a prisoner to his destiny. Now I am of the opinion that she should have divorced him a long, long time ago and been done with it. I feel resentment for having been manipulated by him at a tender age when I did not know any better. He was motivated by base cowardice, a fear of being left alone with no one, which became in later years his actual destiny, because he drove people away with his resentments and disputes. I think that we all would have been better off if she had left him when she wanted to leave him, and I think that she should have moved far, far away. But perhaps we are all prisoners of our flaws and limitations to some degree. Who has the strength to always take the best path? Such a human being has never existed.

Organ Donation

I do suffer from absent-mindedness on occasion, but that is because I have always been a daydreamer even from the earliest ages. My brain just gets bored with the modest demands of the present and likes to escape on independent, unscripted vacations.

While driving home from work, I was fascinated by another idea for a short story in which a young man in prime physical condition, for an as yet undetermined motive, decides to end his life, which is a similar plot to so many of the horrible stories we have read about recently in the media. However, my plot twist is that the young man, unlike the serial murderers, is highly ethical and benevolent, desiring to perform the maximum amount of good for the world that he loves even by his act of suicide, so he researches the hospitals of the country, finds one with a very high demand for organ transplants, arrives at a precise time when he knows (from espionage) that many skilled surgeons will be on site, and informs the charge nurse of his plans, handing the nurse his Organ Donation papers and then quite calmly terminating his life in a safe and controlled manner that minimizes damage to organs.

Possible plot twists further down the road might be that the young man was hired by a millionaire who needed an excellent body part right away and wanted to obtain it through legal and above-board channels. The money for services rendered would go toward a life-saving operation required by the young man's partner.

Profile of the Typical Republican

A typical Republican was profiled in the Los Angeles Times recently.

The Sickness of Amok

The recent senseless and vile shooting by a white supremacist at a Sikh temple is another symptom that points to a sickness in our people, a collective mental illness, a derangement involving a fascination with firearms and the idea that firearms somehow equate to an empowering masculinity, a large and dominating penis, an idea that appeals to pathetic and unstable white men. I think this illness has been long in existence, judging by our history which is stained with the blood of so many people from various races and various places.

White supremacists are ignorant of all science, reason, logic, morality, and philosophy; stupid, crazy and therefore dangerous, and I hope that they are being watched by law enforcement agencies. If they are not being watched, then the government is guilty of gross negligence.

No race is superior to any other, due to the simple, obvious and self-evident fact that human beings are individuals rather than collective racial organisms. Period. End of discussion.

Two suggestions that I would put forward to remedy the problem of amok would be to reduce alcohol consumption through a tax of five dollars per fluid ounce of pure alcohol, which should greatly reduce alcohol consumption among the poor, and tax guns at a rate that reflects their ultimate cost to society. Firearms other than low-caliber variety with less than seven rounds per chamber or clip should be taxed at the rate of a thousand dollars, while any weapon that can be converted to automatic, or any weapon with a firepower greater than the average .45 should be illegal. Bullets should be taxed at $1 per round with the exception of very low-caliber, ordinary (non-hollow point) ammunition, which being less deadly, should be exempt. Derringers and other "lady's purse" weapons should be exempt as they are primarily for the defense of women and other vulnerable people. The tax money should be reserved for shoring up Medicaid, Medicare and other government programs that are being taxed by the widespread prevalence of firearms and mentally unstable gun owners in American society.

Football and Mindless Militarism

I am continually perplexed by the enduring popularity of football and the fanaticism of a vocal minority of college students for football teams, stadiums, and lavish expenditures for a program that does not produce any benefits for students or society. Indeed in the case of Penn State, the cost of the football program was much more than anybody could have anticipated!

I admit football annoys me, because it devours so much of public funds. Always the football fans are taking away from other students and other citizens to finance their mindless addiction. Never do they pay for their dirty little habit themselves. Always they are expecting the government to pay their way. A new stadium, another team, more and more gifts to the team, more and more scholarships, and enormous salaries for stupid football coaches.

Football, like chess, is essentially a war game. I feel that football's popularity has to do with the fact that our people were always at war throughout history. War is in our blood. One can't escape the calling of the blood. The people who like football will serve society as cannon fodder just as their ancestors did. If only football fans would confine themselves to football, and not have the wars, then their addiction could be justifiable as a lesser expense, but no, they must have both the wars and the football.

I love chess just as much, or rather more than, others like football, and chess is just as militaristic, drawing upon the same skills that are so essential on the battlefield. In fact football is useless as a preparation for modern war, while chess is the single best method of training. In modern warfare, thinking and planning is more to the point than physical reflexes and physical ability. Perhaps the popularity of football helps to explain why the United States has not won a war since Korea, and why it now engages in wars that cannot be won by any means.

Based on the history of wars, I would estimate that the average general, if he turned his mind to the game of chess and studied it for his entire life, would achieve an ELO ranking of 1200. The exceptional generals, the really good ones, might rate about 1400.

Human Missions?

Humans are ill-prepared for space exploration. Until we create a new species that is better adapted for space travel, all missions should be of the robotic variety if they are to be cost-effective and efficient, rather than mere shows put on for public entertainment. Humans are only well-adapted to Earth. Putting a human into a hostile environment like space requires too many innovations and creates difficulty where weight and cargo space are at a premium. It is also extremely dangerous to the humans involved, although they are more than willing to risk their lives.

A space-traveling race would be small and lightweight, about the size of a mouse, with low requirements for food and respiration, requiring a smaller vessel in order to escape Earth. It might very well photosynthesize in order to supplement its diet. It would be highly resistant to radiation, gravity, and the absence of gravity. Its sole function would be to pilot a craft and react quickly to emerging opportunities and hazards in its immediate environment, eliminating the need for long-distance communication to ground control on Earth. Actual exploration and mining activity would be conducted by robotic units remotely controlled by the pilot.

I may be conservative in thinking that an intelligent species would need to be mouse-size. It is possible, though unlikely, that a species with our intelligence, or even more, could be the size of an ant, although I do not understand how except through some kind quantum mechanics hocus-pocus communication with a larger being on Earth.

I may also be mistaken in thinking that a body is needed for an intelligent species. The only advantage organic life has over computers is that we are are more effective at general tasks and general learning. The self-aware computer may exist right now in a laboratory, and no one should discount that possibility, but it is certainly not capable of translating its will into reality, while humans with their bodies do have that capability. Yet it is possible that a robot could do everything that a living organism could do and better. I don't like the idea, but it would be naive to dismiss it. Already, ordinary desktop computers with nothing special in the way of a processor or memory can very easily beat 99.99% of all chessplayers. That is enough for me to respect artificial intelligence and accept the fact that we are, all of us, obsolete to a large extent, and we are simply waiting until the next generation of technology replaces every single human profession under the sun.

AMD's APU

The best thing I've seen in computers lately has to be AMD's motherboard/apu combos. For about a hundred dollars, a consumer has an easy upgrade solution to replace both cpu and motherboard. This deal is sweet: an apu not only is the cpu, but also functions as the video card, one that is significantly better than most on-board video controllers. Better can be interpreted as faster and also more conservative in power consumption.

The APUs are much underpowered in comparison to the latest and greatest and most expensive processors from Intel and AMD. But the only folks who need mighty cpus are gamers, mostly. The rest of us get by just fine with a basic, below average processor. The sweetest part of the deal is that apus are green in comparison to other cpus. An APU might draw as much as 36W, while most cpus begin at 65 W and can go up to 125 W or more.


Now I have a system that runs 24/7, and while the difference in annual operating costs between a 36W apu and a 65W cpu could be substantial, my primary motivation for upgrading (or downgrading, actually, in terms of raw computing power) is that my old motherboard seems to have occasional, intermittent problems communicating with my modem. Such occasional, intermittent hardware glitches are the bane of computer technology and nobody really wants to deal with them. The easiest solution by far is to replace the hardware.

Chicfila

Anybody that has walked into a chic-fil-a in the past five years knows they have sworn their souls to Satan just like most fast-food chains. The chain didn't exactly make a secret of their right-wing affiliations, either, and I don't see how anybody can be surprised by the latest brouhaha over gay marriage. They are risking probably nothing based on their average customer profile. They've been anti-gay since back in the day, in the same category as Cracker Barrel, but the only difference now is that suddenly a bunch of people have become aware of it.

Chicfila buys from the chicken farms that torture chickens and shoot them full of antibiotics and growth hormones. I didn't eat at Chicfila or any other fast food restaurant before, and I'm not going to be eating there now, but not because of the boycott or because they are against gay marriage. I'm thinking about my health, and you know what else, there are more flavors in the world than butter and grease, in case you tortured-chicken eaters didn't know. For a fast food chain to make claims to some kind of ethical high horse is just laughable, but to make things worse, Chicfila picked the side of evil.

Climate Change

I do worry about climate change, because it seems like the world will experience serious effects before I disintegrate into my constituent atoms. Beneath all the hubbub about the ailing world economy is the consistent and dreadful drumbeat about irreversible global climate change, which indicates that things won't get better but will instead get much worse. Like all our problems, the new problems just won't get solved because the politicians and the people who vote for them just aren't clever enough. A glance at the U.S. Congress is all one needs to know that the United States is in no position to solve any problem facing the world. We create new problems and exacerbate old ones rather than solving any problems.

Goodbye, Gore Vidal

It is with sadness I mark the passing of Gore Vidal, one of my favorite writers. However, he had a long, prosperous and successful life, so one mustn't be too sad. I liked the quote from his partner, "Didn't it go by awfully fast?" I often feel that way too. Life does go by awfully fast.

Gore Vidal will live forever, or survive his death for a longer time than most, due to his voluminous writings, which many will still read far into the future when many other writers are long forgotten. Many of his works are insightful and prophetic. He knew things.

Get that HPV Vaccine

I remember a couple years ago some right-wing Internet yahoo wrote that I was "a lazy race-baiting homosexual with warts."

I was surprised first of all that he had bothered to read enough of my blog to make these observations. You know, I'm glad when the opposition reads my blog. I didn't mind the homosexual bit. I'm gay, big deal. As for lazy, well, I know I'm not, and people that know me know I'm not, so that just bounces right off. Race-baiting, I don't know where he got that from. Maybe somewhere I didn't toe the party line on a sensitive racial issue exactly as he expected me to do. More likely, he misinterpreted a complicated sentence due to lack of basic reading comprehension. I don't know, but I thought that was the strangest part of his little critique.

As for the warts, they're gone now, although I did have them at one time and probably still carry the HPV virus like millions of other people. That is one reason I recommend that young people get the HPV vaccine. I wish I had. But having had warts doesn't really bother me, although it does raise my risk for cancer. Is there a stigma to warts? Maybe, but it can't be greater than the stigma attached to herpes. At any rate I've gotten past stigmas for the most part. Stigmas are stupid, a shortcut for people who don't like to think for themselves.

Moral of this little story is for people, especially the younger generation, who are or intend to be sexually active to get the HPV vaccine. It's cheap and not only will protect against warts but also certain forms of cancer. The vaccine is not just for girls either. Every young person should get it.

Forgiveness

Sometimes I don't know whether to forgive people that have done me wrong or not. I've always erred on the side of forgiveness because I detest getting involved in drama. Drama is fun to watch on television but not so fun in real life. I think that drama by activating the emotions obscures truth, which is best viewed with cold and sober eyes. Emotions are dangerous things, the relics of our primitive nature, steeped in superstition and irrational thoughts and ideas. With icy dispassion one can see direct into the heart of things. That is my strongest belief. By references to ice and cold, I do not mean cruel or vicious or inhumane, but principled, based upon reason and logic, and with the best intentions. Emotions that are hot dwell upon vengeance, egotism, vanity, and are subject to every kind of delusion. I have been most deluded of all when my emotions were aroused, and most level-headed when they were kept in check, so I prefer that my emotions be kept in check in general and feel that emotions are dangerous things, esteemed by the foolish.

I take the view that once a wrong has been done, punishment of the perpetrator doesn't make things right (although in criminal cases an argument can sometimes be made that punishment is necessary to prevent further crimes against others). I feel that those who do wrong also suffer themselves from the same mind that leads them into evil, because they are disconnected from the community of good people. I prefer to live my life in relative peace and would continue to do so until such time that I perceive no hope, no future, no opportunities, and no satisfaction, and then and only then I might entertain an alternative strategy. Life is an opportunity to learn, to grow, to inspire others, to help others build a better world. Only when such opportunities shrivel and disappear does one need to look for right angles.

Few people are absolutely evil. Sometimes people start out good, or mostly good, and then their minds decay until they turn. I have seen this happen. One should recall the good years, the good times, and weigh the present with the past. Sometimes good people have lapses which they, too, regret, unfortunate episodes that should be considered in the context of their entire experience, not in isolation. If a man does a person wrong, perhaps in one instance or several, but in many other instances far outnumbering those other ones has done good, then is he still a villain? I think rather he is a human being, for who among us is perfect?

When my emotions engage, that is when I thirst for justice, that elusive and unpredictable dragon that is known to breathe fire upon the seeker and sometimes even upon unintended parties. Usually I perceive the risks, if there are risks, and disengage if the risks outweigh the benefits. Justice can wait, is my view. Justice is the luxury of the rich and the powerful. Such a humble person as I must endure a life with substantially less justice than the proud. It is the common state of working people all over the world and to believe otherwise is to dwell in a fantasy land.

There is also a fatalistic view I have that we are all equal no matter what because everyone lives under a death sentence. In a matter of years we are all dust.

If I avoid wicked things then that is certainly better than some, although it is a modest goal and insufficient in my estimation. If I live in a manner that inspires, pleases or enlightens others to whatever extent, or at least avoids the opposite outcomes, then that is enough for me. I do not need to be great or strong, successful or renown for anything. It may be that some people I knew and cared about were disloyal, unappreciative or acted with misunderstanding or duplicity. I rather count my losses and think it a good bargain to lose only vanity or material assets, rather than anything truly important. It is a welcome relief to me when others strive for material or out of pure vanity, but are willing to live and let live otherwise. Because I prefer to be left in peace to think, to wonder, and to help the people that I care about. I will leave the treasure for the orcs to grab with their dirty claws, while I content myself with old books written by marvelous people I should have liked to know. All I want is time to read, time to think, and time to care. Let the fighters fight over spoils. I will fight if cornered, like any beast, and I think that I would fight very well indeed, but otherwise am inclined to go my way.

I don't mind leaving everything just as it is, because it gives me satisfaction to reflect on my accomplishments, modest though they may be, and on the esteem that others have for me, and on my good experiences in life. It is all right to have modest accomplishments when one's talents are modest. It is a mistake to judge oneself in comparison to one's superiors, and there are many people who will have more talent in one area, many areas, or even all areas, because talent is not distributed evenly.

Voting for a Republican

I vote for a Republican in special situations, such as the Republican primary, or when the Democrat has no chance and I particularly like a specific Republican, or when it is a contest between one right-winger and another (even if the other is a Democrat). In such cases one prefers the better of two alternatives.

I support one local Republican because he used to own a newspaper that I read every now and then. He was conservative and his editorials reflected that, but he did something that was very un-Republican. He allowed a liberal to write a column on a weekly basis. And he didn't hide the column on page 44-F in small print, either, but put the column in the main section, A, in regular print, along with a photo of the author, who wasn't some nutcase intended to discredit liberals but a decent guy who understood things fairly well.

One day, somebody wrote a letter to the editor claiming that the writer was a socialist, as if that disqualified him from being considered by any reasonable person. That is what I remember to this day, and that is why I vote for that particular Republican over all his Republican rivals, because he had a heart big enough to tolerate a voice from the other side. And his rivals are trying to tear up him right now six ways to Sunday, and I know they are, and their attempts are transparent, and I just feel like they are lying about him, just like Republicans love to lie to get ahead, because getting ahead is the only thing that matters to so many of them. I just don't care what they say because I perceive in my own way that the guy has an open mind and believes in debate and discussion. If so many of his fellow Republicans are out to get him, then he must be even better than I thought, so I am more inclined than ever to support him.

The Religious Right and Paganism

Some of the beliefs of the religious right, such as speaking in tongues, demonic possession and the notion that Satan inserts demons or magic spells into people and things in order to wage war against God's Chosen, smack of paganism and earlier beliefs. There is an attempt to explain the world in simplistic terms for child-like adults who can't understand science or much of anything else, while inserting absolute moral rules, such as "rock and roll is bad and drugs are bad, because these are the tools of Satan." By seeing superstitious reasons for everything, a religious righter doesn't have to bother debating or evaluating. Much thinking is rendered unnecessary. Such a primitive religion may be beneficial for the simple, if it gets them off hard drugs or keeps them from robbing and killing people. Often I hear a religious righter tell me she used to be a prostitute, or killed someone, or robbed, or used heroin or crack "before turning to Jesus." It would never occur to me to do any of those things.

Perhaps religious righters are throwbacks to an earlier point in evolution. I think if religious righters were the only human beings around, then we would still be hunched around campfires in the wilderness with animal furs on our backs.

Bush and Phillip II

Bush was the Phillip II for our time. Phillip II took a first-rate nation, Spain, which enjoyed a dominant position in Europe and the Americas, and reduced it to a second-rate nation through mismanagement and pointless wars. Bush took a booming economy and thriving people and reduced us to unemployment, debt, and the scorn of the world. I think that Bush could have given Al-Qaeda lessons.

The Republicans are a hundred times more effective at destroying America than Al-Qaeda ever was. The terrorists only had one day, 9-11, whereas the Republicans were operating every day of the year doing everything in their power to outsource jobs to foreign countries, commit our tax money to foreign wars and loot the treasury for their rich cronies. Republicans and corruption go hand-in-glove. Republicans despise America, and their fondest desire is for all American workers to be unemployed or dead. The type of worker Republicans prefer can be found in other countries: poorly educated, paid very little, with little or no medical or other benefits, and kept in line by thugs, police or soldiers, with any dissenters silenced. That is what the Republicans want here in America.

Iran

One never hears about Iran except in the context of crazy. They are always doing something stupid and evil.

Syria

Comes as no surprise to me that the opposition is gaining ground in Syria. The regime behaved like brutal thugs. You know what, if you kill someone's grandmother, then you have created a whole family of enemies who will be willing to die in order to kill you. That's what Assad failed to comprehend, the principle that people are willing to die in order to avenge the death of a loved one. All the money and the bullets in the world won't defend him against blood-vengeance. I'm going to drink a toast when Assad is toast. He betrayed the oath of his profession, to "do no harm."

George Pill

I'm always amused by how George Will is introduced as "the intelligent conservative," like here's an elephant that can sing.

He's about as smart as he sounds.

Romney's "Work"

Romney's boasting about his experience is a joke. He never worked a day in his life. He had everything handed to him on a silver platter from his rich daddy. Left to his own devices, he'd be working in the kitchen at a Waffle House. Obama's the guy that clawed his way up from the ranks of the working class to success. Obama rose based on merit. Romney rose because daddy was a rich man.

Daddy was a rich man, daddy was a rich man, daddy was a rich man, hey!
Romney got money, got money from daddy, and that's why he's where he is today!

So Long, Mountain Dwarves

I maintain that players should reject racism in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. By that I mean growing so attached to one race, such as Mountain Dwarves, that they lose sight of the overall picture, which is that Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is the best game on earth.

 I have played every race and like them all with five exceptions. To only play one race or to think one race is absolutely required would strike me as ludicrous. My favorite race is Spriggan, but I haven't played a Spriggan in months, and why? Because I'm tired of them. My detested races are Ghoul (too much bother carrying rotting corpse chunks around, and yuck! by the way), Human (Zzz...), Demigod (I'm atheist in life but don't want to be in Crawl), Half-Orc (I'm a Tolkien fan and can't stomach the uglies), and Felid (too weak, and the lives don't matter to me with my handy dandy regen.bat).

I never did take a liking to dwarves, for purely aesthetic reasons (memories of Gimli), although they are an excellent choice for fighters and among the easiest races to play, if not the easiest. But if I were a dwarfist, I'd make the transition to Half-Orc, Demigod, Demonspawn, Ogre, Troll, or Minotaur. Any of these make excellent fighters, and the half-divine also excel at spellcasting.

Ogres are an underplayed race. I prefer transitioning to giant spiked club and going shieldless. A giant spiked club has the highest damage potential of any weapon in the game, so it makes an interesting choice. Imagine vanquishing a Hill Giant with one pop on the head. Another nice thing about Ogres is that they learn Maces and Flails and Fighting very easily, more so than any other race, and consequently it is not uncommon for a high-level Ogre to acquire 300+ hit points. Since they also excel at the Spellcasting ability, they have no problem with low-level spells such as Blink, which helps to escape bad situations.

Trolls are limited, but if one must play one, then I would suggest being either a Hunter (five large rocks!) or even a Death Knight in order to diversify the attack portfolio. Ogre Death Knights are actually the ideal Death Knights, much superior to Trolls due to their higher hit points (due to Ogres being better at Fighting). Under no circumstances would I want to play any spellcaster as a Troll.

Places in the World

When I was a boy, I used to study the globe and wonder what faraway places were like, what kind of people lived there. The truth is there aren't many places I'd want to go. If I had made the journey to Papua New Guinea, I might have wound up as dinner. They call humans "long pig" in Papua New Guinea. I don't think people from areas like that should be permitted to come to our country. They need to acquire civilization first. The same applies to people who circumcise young girls or perform so-called "honor-killings." They don't need to live here. Only countries that have a base level of civilization need to be sending any people over to the United States. I don't think an immigration policy needs to bend over backwards to avoid offending anyone. There are certain things we can all agree on, like no cannibals, no child-abusers and no wife-beaters.

The Media, Romney, and Bain

The media won't support Obama's attacks on Romney's role at Bain, because the media is controlled by plutocrats who do the exact same things that Romney did. So I'm not surprised the media is full of spin today trying to make Obama look like the bad guy. Lies, lies, and more lies are the only way Romney's going to get elected in 2012. If enough workers snooze through the politics of 2012, then we will have Bush #3 in the White House again.

Jesus

The stories about  Jesus were embellished with miracles for the benefit of the writers, to awe the simple and inspire the faithful, and they had the very best of intentions, just as the previous Jewish patriarchs did when they were composing the Old Testament. They wanted to improve humanity and reduce evil in the world, but also build their own power and secure a livelihood for themselves.

It is likely there was an extraordinary, charismatic, intelligent, and imaginative man such as the one we name Jesus. He probably was at least as gifted in speech as Oscar Wilde and was probably gay, with a reduced desire for a wife and family and increased adaptability for living with other men. When the Roman soldiers came to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest him, Jesus was found with a naked man:

And there followed him a certain young man,
having a linen cloth cast about his naked body;
and the young men laid hold on him:
and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.
- Mark 14:51, 52

Jewish authorities were annoyed by Jesus's magnetic ability to attract followers, his heresy in declaring himself the son of God, certain of his moral teachings that strayed from orthodoxy, and his criticism of their practices, so they petitioned the Roman authority to have him crucified to discredit him in the eyes of his followers by revealing him to be an ordinary man. Their plan backfired, because the followers were so invested with love for the man that their imaginations devised and their reason accepted a fantastic alternative reality in which Jesus rose from the dead, and this story was repeated often until many came to believe it, and today two billion of our species are officially Christian, while one and a half billion are officially Muslim and accept Jesus as a prophet of God.

Sodium Cyanide for Euthanasia

A banker's recent suicide did serve at least one public purpose, in that now everybody knows that sodium cyanide can be placed in a capsule and swallowed for quick and painless death. I think there should be an exit mechanism available to all human beings. Death is a human right.

Clock Radios

After two hours shopping on Amazon, NewEgg, and E-bay, I did not find a single clock radio that was not designed by a retard. All brands are terrible. I imagine it would be easy to make a million dollars in that business, because anyone could design the best clock radio that the world has ever seen in about an hour or less.

Idea

One of my favorite ideas for a novel concern an invisible or otherwise inaccessible benefactor who performs good deeds for an old woman, who for a while remains unaware of the benefactor's identity, and after learning the identity, the motive remains mysterious.

Salt

As I ate my gourmet luxurious breakfast this morning in ease and comfort with the nice air-conditioning and pleasant company, I meditated on how lucky we are as compared to our ancestors, both recent and remote. Our distant ancestors did not have A/C, nor electricity, nor half the foods we take for granted, nor, in some cases, salt.

Imagining meals without salt led me to think about how salt is produced. Today most is mined simply because mining and transportation has increased vastly in efficiency, but there is nothing wrong with evaporating sea water, and in fact gourmands prefer sea salt for various reasons. I pondered why our ancestors did not evaporate sea water, since England is surrounded by coastline and Western Europe certainly is not landlocked.

All that is required to evaporate sea water is a pan, preferably of dark wood to absorb rather than reflect the sunlight. The Sun will do the rest. So, why did our ancestors not manufacture their own salt, instead of paying exorbitant fees to merchants? Why was salt considered a luxury in the old days? The only conclusion I could reach was that our ancestors were mostly ignorant of the process of evaporation. That led to a feeling of smugness, which is always a mistake. I asked myself, would I have discovered evaporation if my teacher had not taught me about it in the third grade? I'm not so sure it is quite so obvious to most people.

Another complication is that coastlines tend to have more rain, which would interfere with any large-scale evaporation scheme. Also, standing water can fall prey to parasites and contamination, which ancient people might not know how to counter in an effective manner. A few cases of sickness would be enough to dissuade people from using evaporation.

Wizards

Wizards are a highly powered class in Dungeon Crawl, equipped with a seven-spell spellbook, more than any other magical profession to my knowledge. They also, alone among spellcasters, come equipped with a wizard's hat, which is no small potatoes for an otherwise unarmoured Octopode.

All-Day Kitty Buffet

If you have cats take heed,
All day long they feed.
A never empty bowl
Soothes the kitty soul,
So if outside they do stray,
they'll come back the next day.
We got an all-day kitty buffet,
That's why they stay.

Murdoch is Right About Something

Well, I finally found something that Murdoch and I agree on. Romney is a weak candidate. Murdoch perceives in his own way that Obama is more intelligent, more ethical and has greater strength of character and therefore will win the election in 2012. It is difficult to imagine anyone of sound mind and an annual income below a billion dollars voting for Romney. The only possible reason would be someone who does not follow politics at all and does not read the news and has not paid the slightest bit of attention to history, but in that case, why are they even bothering to vote in the first place? Uninformed voting is worse than not voting at all.

Hooray for Turkey

I say hooray for Turkey for playing tough with Syria. I think they have a right to intervene in Syria and even to invade Syria, because Syria is massacring people of their culture and religion and the Syrian dictator is just a bloodthirsty tyrant with no sense of ethics at all who believes that only the strong and powerful matter. If Turkey severs Assad's head from his body then so much the better.

An improbable analogy is that if Mexico started killing Protestants left and right, then I think the Proestant-majority U.S. might have something to say about that. I really don't see how anyone can fault Turkey, especially after their jet was shot down, even if it did invade Syrian airspace. Who really cares about airspace? The Syrian tyrant does not have any rights, and Syria does not have a legitimate government.

It is about time a country other than the U.S. took action to set things right in the world. Our country needs some time to lick its wounds and pay off debt, thank you very much. See you next century.

Tengu Power

The optimal class for Tengus, I'm convinced, is Wizard, and the god to worship without a doubt is Vehumet, who seems tailor-made for Tengus. I finally won with one of these "glass cannons."

Courage

I don't know whether my courage has increased as I've gotten older or I've gotten short-tempered in dealing with fools. Probably the truth lies in the middle. I've faced down many a fool in the last decade, for better or worse, and many times I've been right, but sometimes I wish I had let the fool pass and get his lesson from someone or something other than myself.

When I was a boy, I scared easily, because I was ignorant and woefully unskilled in the social arena, which drew bullies to me. Nowadays I am stronger and taller of course, which matters a great deal in a pragmatic sense, and I have street smarts. Also, I am not very afraid of death, because I feel like my best years and our country's best years are behind me anyway. There isn't much that can scare me in a physical sense. The thing I really fear the most is being in the wrong. I certainly don't like the idea of being a bully myself. I like to think of myself either as a force for positive good in the world, or if compelled by the worst circumstances, at least neutral. I don't have any illusion that it is possible for a living organism to be absolutely good in every single possible circumstance. One tries to do the best one can given the available options.

What seems to provoke me the most is obnoxious, aggressive, bullying behavior, usually from men, not often directed at me due to my size and bearing but at gentle and kind people that I care about. I will assume the role of protector and accept any darts or arrows, in fact I wish to divert them all to me. I am a shield and around me in safety dwell those that I love. So I believe that courage, if not innate, can grow from a contempt of death and the placing of honor and loved ones above personal survival or enrichment.

Islamists Don't Understand History

Islamists in Mali are burning a Muslim Saint's tomb, which makes about as much sense to me as it might to you. You read that right, a Muslim Saint, not a Christian Saint. Setting aside history, aesthetics and scholarship, from a purely pragmatic perspective, destroying a historical site harms the lucrative tourist trade. I don't see a reason wealthy foreign tourists will visit Mali if not for its history or natural resources. Tourists aren't going to visit to see the ignorant barbarian Islamists, that's for sure. One can see apes at any zoo.

Death

I don't know why but I have had a morbid cast of mind for a long time now and it is increasing. I have the feeling that death is in the future, but I'm not quite sure how far away it is, yet. It can't be this month, I don't think, but could it be this year? How would the scythe connect with me--by car, stroke, heart attack, or bullet? I don't know. Perhaps I am mistaken and this morbidity is a manifestation of fear for the economy and of my future financial prospects, which have an influence upon one's health. I do feel older, it is true, and I feel acutely aware of aging, but I'm not aging any faster than most of my friends. Perhaps it is a natural part of the aging process to contemplate death and to think about what will happen after one is gone. I've always given thought to the future, even to the distant future, and I plan in advance for possibilities as well as certainties, so it is natural for me to think about the end. There are little signs and signals that let one know that the end is approaching, such as silver hairs, arthritis, bodily aches and pains, intolerance of alcohol and sugar, and fatigue. It would be foolish and short-sighted not to prepare and not to contemplate the meaning of existence.

I have no patience with theology, which seems like the outgrowth of egotism. We should be humble, because we are humble, and it is arrogant to suppose there is an afterlife reserved only for us, and that all other living organisms are condemned to be ephemeral. Our intelligence permitted us to construct an imaginary solution to the terrible problem of death, (and death really is terrible and horrifying) but whatever solace the solution offers, it remains imaginary.

I feel like I am compost, that my body is just a rental and after I'm dead, that's that, and some other life forms will feed upon my body, or if I'm cremated then most of me will transform into gas (ashes constitute only a small portion, since we are mostly water, which converts to steam during incineration), which will also be used by other creatures, inhaled by them. I suppose each of us has breathed the same air molecules that once composed part of the body of Buddha, Jesus, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain.

I don't expect to be mourned by more than a few, and don't really have a lot of regret about departing, as it is part of the deal for the human existence. I have no ambition, or only modest ambition, because the things of this world besides necessities do not interest me, and the barriers to the occupations I really would prefer to occupy, like doctor, writer, programmer, scientist or professor, are insurmountable, in today's market, to someone of my age and means. I've accomplished about what is possible given who I am and my environment.

Life is a roll of the dice. We are humble, feeble creatures, which we forget, or don't even understand when we are young, but we are temporary and our grip upon existence is tenuous at best. Life is just a series of probabilities that we will survive each successive day. Notions like justice and goodness and love are rather abstract and when we are gone they fade away from us, because we become part of the stage where other actors get to play and think about justice, goodness and love and make their own decisions about such weighty matters, decisions which have nothing at all to do with us, because we are dead and gone, part of the soil that their feet trample over, as the living think about each other without any thought to the irrelevant dead.

There is a bittersweet sense of equality that I feel with everyone, low and high, great and humble, ancient and modern. Because in the end we're all the same, aren't we? We're tilled under the soil and consumed and the earth doesn't remember who we were. What remains is the earth, for a time, and then the earth will be gone too, and the Sun as well, and the Universe. Just like that. Blip!

It is not given to us to know the meaning of existence, no more than it is given to ants to understand the secret of combustion. We are not advanced enough, not smart enough, yet, as a species, I think, to understand the reasons for our existence, for the existence of the Universe and of all things, assuming that there are reasons, and I hold out the possibility that there are, and that there may even be some kind of Creator that is unknowable and mysterious and perhaps not at all like us, but far more advanced than us, just as we are more advanced than ants. So that is why I think atheism is an appropriate description of my philosophy, because all the conceptions about God that I have heard are probably false in one way or another. If there is a sort of God then it seems probable it is unlike anything that men have described so far, and it may even be something that encompasses the totality, or a portion of the totality, rather than being a singular Being. God is probably more like gravity than a human being.

By describing God in this way, all of the common ideas about God are rendered moot, and God becomes a rather abstract thing indistinguishable from natural forces and natural law, and religion becomes superfluous. So it is possible to believe in this kind of God and be described as an atheist, because this kind of God is pretty much a phantom God that doesn't fit any of the world's major religions, but is perfectly compatible with Science and reason, and it also follows that advancements in those areas help one to understand the ways of God.

How to Get Along with Neighbors

I like my neighbors, and as far as I know, they like me too. We all follow a simple and easy protocol based in common courtesy and common sense, which is:

1. We don't play loud music. I never do, party or not, because of personal preference, but my neighbors don't play loud music more than once in a blue moon, and I can accept that very rare occasion, especially since it is always during the day and never at night.
2. We keep our animals out of each others' yards, with the exception of cats, which are welcome to patrol our yard and keep the chipmunks, birds and squirrels in check, and the occasional straying of a family dog, which is understandable, dogs being dogs. The dogs are non-threatening, friendly dogs, which is a key factor.
3. If the mailman screws up and puts the neighbor's mail in my box, I deliver it to my neighbor. I don't know whether my neighbors return the courtesy or not, but I haven't been missing any mail to my recollection.
4. We try to keep the front yard, with its high visibility to the neighbors, in good shape, although we don't mow every week like many uptight people do, because to me it seems like a waste of time, gas and constitutes a moderate level of noise pollution. If my neighbor wants to mow every single week or even twice a week then that is his business, not mine, but I don't plan to copy his behavior.

Of the above list, #1 is by far the most important. Loud music is the most effective way to transform a harmless, neutral, or even friendly neighbor into your worst enemy, even a deadly enemy in one recent case in Texas.

I used to live in an apartment complex, and the fellow that lived above me played extremely loud music on a daily basis, from the time he woke up to the time he went to bed around nine in the morning, which caused me to hate him, because one of the things I value is peace and quiet. It took a while, but eventually I succeeded in getting that SOB evicted from his apartment on an unrelated transgression--his littering of the apartment complex. His trash was blowing over into a nearby homeowner's yard, and the homeowner knew the landlord, so on my prompting she called him up and complained. Problem solved for me. Bad neighbor moved out, and new neighbor moved in. The new neighbor was quieter, although they too played the loud music about once a week. But once a week is better than every day. Eventually I saved up enough money to move the hell out of the apartment, and I bought a foreclosure. In today's economy, I feel sorry for anybody renting who can't take advantage of the low house prices of the many foreclosures on the market.

Fast and Furious

I disapproved of "Fast and Furious," a botched law enforcement attempt to track down Mexican drug cartel soldiers. Obviously it was foolish and ill-conceived, betraying a lack of understanding as to how technology works. I don't think it was the brainchild of Attorney General Eric Holder, however, and it is ridiculous to think Republicans require almost a year's worth of private emails from the White House in order to investigate the matter. The Republicans seem to be on a fishing expedition during an election year to discredit Obama, nothing more and nothing less. The NRA is clinically paranoid in raising the fear among gun owners that the White House launched "Fast and Furious" in order to pass gun control laws. NRA members need to be treated psychologically with anti-psychotic medication if that is what they truly believe, but I give them more credit than that. I think the NRA leadership is lying and just wants to help the Republicans any way they can, because they are right-wingers and like the Republicans for reasons not having anything to do with firearms.

The real lesson behind "Fast and Furious" is that law enforcement in this country is out of control, and more oversight needs to be put in place to eliminate the many abuses. Chiefs need to be fired when they make serious errors, instead of permitted to stay on the job, as is currently the practice. Republicans complain about tenure for college professors, but the reality is that law enforcement has tenure and gets away with anything at all under the Sun in many agencies, as long as they do what their bosses want, which is what the elite believes to be useful. The rights of common citizens are viewed as not as very important, something that can be ignored if an individual officer is in a bad mood or if there are other priorities, like career advancement, at stake.

Equal Opportunity Haters

It is consoling, I suppose, to know that Republicans don't just hate gay people. They also hate the workers, defined as anybody who earns under $1,000,000 a year, and anybody who goes to public schools. I was amused looking at what the Republicans have done to the public school system in Texas. Of course, Republicans destroy government institutions whenever they can. They're trying to dismantle the Post Office, so that it will cost $5 to mail a letter across the country instead of forty-odd cents. They hate Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and anything at all that helps working people. They love disease, poverty, prisons, and automatic machine guns. The only government institutions Republicans like are related to weapons and security forces, to keeping the workers down, unemployed, diseased, dying and in prison where they belong according to Republican ideology. Kill the poor and repopulate with rich people's children is the Republican way of thinking in a nutshell. If you work for a living, you are automatically worthless, because working is a sign of inferiority. If you don't work, but fight with weapons or by proxy through your henchmen, then you should make all the rules and control every single thing that everyone does. This ideology dates back to feudalism and is basically the root of Republican thought today. People that vote Republican get what they deserve, but unfortunately those who don't have to adapt to the insanity that Republicans always bring to society. Republicans break down government, because the ideal is anarchy, a state where those with the guns make all the rules.

If Romney does win in 2012, as some seem to believe, then the world will be a much less safe place, America in particular.  But I don't think that he will win, because Obama is the stronger man by any measure that one would care to apply, and this is obvious to anyone with eyes to see. Those among the Republicans who believe that strength is all, and there are some, this faction will not support Romney against Obama, because Romney is weaker. So I predict Obama will win in 2012, but the outcome of other races remains unclear to me. I hope that he carries many Democrats with him in his victory, but I am not familiar with those cases. The best scenario would be a Democratic landslide victory in 2012. Under those circumstances, the future of the United States looks brighter.

Assad Gonna Be Sad

Assad is playing the fool. Messing with Turkey is not a wise course of action during Syria's civil war. I think that Turkey has a right to and will exact payback along the border in a way that Syria's dictator won't like. Assad should be sending Turkey valentines and roses, not any heat-seeking missile. They found the heat, alright, and it's going to be breathing down their necks.

Overbearing Government Agents

One of my pet peeves is government agents that act like bullies. I think that if TSA agent, or any government agent for that matter, disturbs human remains, as in this case, then an arrest and prosecution should follow, as it would if any one of us had done the same. "Searching for drugs" is not an adequate justification for poking a finger in a man's remains, especially when X-rays and other technological gadgets are available.

Felids

I'm pretty conservative in most things outside the political realm, so that may be why I haven't tried Felids until now, but they are an interesting species. I never cared for Vampires (too much bother with the blood), but Felids seem low maintenance. One needn't even bother with weapons or armour.

Precipitous Actions in Paraguay

I don't like it when people or nations act in a precipitous manner. That is how the South behaved after Lincoln won the Presidency, and it is how Paraguay's Senate behaved in ousting President Lugo. To give the man only two hours to prepare a defense was simply ridiculous, no matter what he was accused of (incompetence? who knows?). Clinton was given ample time after the Lewinsky scandal to prepare his defense against impeachment.

The world is complicated, and people need time to consider all the details and facets of a situation before leaping to a rash conclusion. Chessplayers, at least, understand the value of taking one's time before making a decision.

The Sandusky Case

This writer for USA Today seems to suffer from Histrionic Personality Disorder himself. I agree with the verdict that Sandusky is in general guilty of the crimes for which he is accused, but I think some voices in the media are blowing the case out of proportion. No one was murdered, maimed, or wounded. All over the world, worse things are happening to people and to children than the disgusting things that Sandusky did (now after the guilty verdict, it can be said he did these things). I would like to see such words spoken for victims who are bullied, beaten, driven to despair and suicide or even killed. No one spoke up for me when I was getting bullied in high school, and I thought suicide was the only way out. Is it because sex was not involved? Is sex the magical ingredient that makes people care? I don't see why sex is worse than bloody beatings.

It is reasonable to assume that some, though not all, of the victims who came forward were motivated by the benefits of proclaiming their victimhood, in terms of future financial rewards and also the ability to blame all their misdeeds, past, present and future, on Sandusky, and also the sympathy they are bound to receive from all quarters. However, they need not be "scarred for life," a common mantra repeated by too many people. The idea that one is scarred for life is harmful and should be rejected. People are more resilient than that or should be. If I were scarred for life by the tortures I endured as a young man, then I would prefer not to think about it, even if it were true. One has to move on. An uncouth, horny, sad old man who couldn't control his urges will be punished in due course and that should be the end of it, but it is likely that some people will sue Penn State to enrich themselves. I would have liked to have sued my high school for a million dollars for all the bullying I endured. As for my gym coach, there has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that he deserves a life sentence for what he did to me. I would stand in the jury box and I would testify and I would attend every court hearing and every parole hearing in order to see justice done.

Target Shooting

When target shooters cause wildfires, they should be held liable for all property damage caused by those fires. Target shooters are also guilty for littering when they fail to retrieve a bullet casing or bullet.

The Witch

I encountered another ex last week and again felt relief at having dodged another bullet. I do regret my last and final sowing of wild oats, but the blood must out and there's nothing to be done about that. To be born a man is to feel instinct about certain things at certain times of life and at such times instinct can overpower Reason. At any rate I am on civil terms with all my exes and that is the best to be expected, all things considered. But when I embraced this individual I thought to myself, now here is a real witch, and thank the Heavens my destiny did not intertwine with this one.

I'm at peace with not procreating, but I notice many people don't have the same kinds of qualms that I do about it. It does seem to me that there are a lot of people procreating that haven't given very much thought to the future for themselves or their offspring or considered whether the time, place, and most especially the choice of partner is right or wrong. I don't know whether this practice is for good or ill (and it could even be for good), but in any case it doesn't matter to me as an individual, since my remaining lifespan in this world is limited. It may or may not be a problem for future generations. Of course if the race is diluted very much, then the ancient corrective methods will emerge to reset the balance, but that unpleasantness is for others to worry about. The question of right or wrong in this area is very contentious and hypothetical, although I am in favor of birth control and family planning and careful selection of partners, more careful than I ever was.

Kaspersky Labs

Since Kaspersky Labs aids and abets Iran and its acquisition of nuclear weapons, it may reasonably be regarded as an enemy of the United States. Any firm in the United States that purchases products from Kaspersky Labs may be regarded in a similar light.

Friends That Are Not Friends

I remember when I was a youngster, there were boys that would point a gun at their friends, supposedly in jest. Let me be clear: anyone that points a gun at another person is not a friend, but has become exposed as an enemy. Guns and other weapons are not toys and anyone who thinks they are is a damned fool and an enemy of the human race and all that is good. I was at a friend's house one day when his friend pointed a rifle at me. Afterward, I slipped away without a word and did not return. It is unwise to associate with fools. I have made it my lifelong policy to avoid fools. This recent news article is illustrative of my point.

Liberal Scandinavia

In modern times, Republicans in the U.S. scorn Scandinavia (as "socialist"), because it is highly educated, healthy, wealthy, and not involved in continual warfare. One thing Republicans are correct about is that Scandinavia has had a liberal and inclusive thread in its culture for a long time. Scandinavia was liberal many hundreds of years ago, when peasants were permitted delegates in the early parliaments. At that time, the only other European parliaments to permit peasants' delegates were Switzerland and some areas in France. I am sure that Republicans, if brought via time machine back in time, would have disapproved of peasants' delegates.

McCain

McCain looks sillier than ever for his foot-dragging on letting gays in the military. I will always remember his silly and illogical remarks and objections during those hearings on Capitol Hill. Turns out that there have been no problems as a result of "gay being OK" in the armed forces. The experience of other military forces, such as Israel, should have made it obvious that there would be no problem. Once again, McCain got burned trying to cater to the dwindling number of religious right bigots. If he had only listened to the more enlightened and charming members of his family then he would have been better off.

Stanford Goes to Jail

The sentence of 110 years for yet another business criminal was exactly right. Stealing millions from little investors all over the world is a crime that does untold damage to people's lives. It also shakes the confidence that people have in our financial system. The reason our economy is in such poor condition is because of all the business criminals selling out workers and middle-class people. Through their actions, it is quite clear they care about no one and nothing save themselves.

Putin, the New Soviet Dictator

Looks like Russia is sliding back into Sovietism again under Putin. It's no surprise really, coming from a former KGB officer. To work in the KGB, one basically had to have no conscience. So Putin fits the bill on that count. He's a psychopath who has no problem trampling on the flower of Western civilization. Once again, George W. Bush's blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan are clear. Russia, China, Syria, Iran, and North Korea are the new Axis Powers, sworn to evil and nothing but evil all the time and everywhere. North Korea in particular is so evil that it is comically and ridiculously evil.

 I think evil has a lot to do with stupidity. Stupid people and stupid leaders tend to be evil, because they fail to understand a great many things about the world and about human beings. Evil and stupid leaders tend to be boring, predictable, and very narrow in their interests. Certainly the leaders of Syria, Iran, North Korea, and Russia fit that bill. I don't know about China, because their leaders tend to stay in the shadows or else do not get much press in the West.

I never understood the fascination that certain people have with Hitler. To me, he seemed boring, bland, and tasteless. Just because a human has great wealth or power does not make him interesting. A toad with a crown is still a toad. In the case of Hitler, the toad was particularly loathsome.

Ogre Death Knights

I don't know why Death Knight is not a recommend class for Ogres. No other race is better suited to the profession. Injury Mirror works best with a character that has high hit points.

Guns

With the exception of hunters or people in high-risk professions, a fascination with and collection of guns is a good indicator of a person who has problems with anger management.

The Telegraph

I'm reading the UK-based Telegraph for the last time. That conservative rag manufactures bogus "news" slanted against gay marriage on a daily basis. First, a "poll" showed "statistics" that said gays didn't want gay marriage. Today, teachers will be forced to "promote" gay marriage to kids. I don't know what is wrong with the owner of the Telegraph, whether he is a closet case homophobe or what, but the Telegraph clearly promotes a negative hate-mongering agenda. Newspapers are useful if they print news. If they print lies, then they are not useful. The Telegraph is like the Fox News of the UK.

Time for Socialism?

Has the time come for socialism in the U.S.?

The elite in the U.S. has abused the working class, in many cases denying them health insurance, job security, jobs, and sending them off to die in pointless wars. If the owners were competent, wise, and benevolent, it would be a different story. If they were just competent and wise, but not necessarily benevolent, it would be a different story. But the owners are incompetent, foolish, and malevolent to a great extent. Leaving so many decisions in private hands now looks like letting the animals run the zoo. They don't know how to wipe their own behinds. The government needs to step in and teach the owners how to tie their shoelaces.

The Good Old Days

I often read editorials, essays or books with precious claims that times were better in the past, people somehow more ethical or gentle. Such hogwash. Our ancestors were as stupid as the day is long. History is a series of wars, with just a few scientists sprinkled along the way to enable us to enjoy the fruits of technology today.

I was not too surprised to read a recent report at the U.N. that the world has not done much about the environmental problems facing humanity. People can only see to their immediate selfish ends. Instead of doing anything about the environment or the economy, the Bush Administration got the U.S. bogged down in two pointless wars, wasting over a trillion dollars.

Due to Republicans, the U.S. has declined since the year 2000, not advanced, and it continues to contract, getting weaker every year. There are fewer jobs, and what jobs there are pay less and tend to be menial. Crime is up, education is down, and more and more pollution and war is likely in the foreseeable future. This is the fault of the Republicans, who want the U.S. to turn into a Viking nation, waging war for profit and pillaging other nations. They hate the Democrats because the Democrats won't let them pillage, rape, and kill due to an annoying concept known as "morality."

Walker's Win

Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisc.) did not so much "win" as survive a recall election, and upon reflection over Wisconsin, his survival is not surprising. I do not think the recall election has major implications for the Presidential election, although it does suggest that Romney could win overwhelmingly white, Republican Wisconsin in 2012.

I am always puzzled when otherwise decent people vote for Republicans. However, I remind myself that in 1860, a large majority of the United States either was neutral about slavery or was even willing to die to defend it. Only a minority favored abolition and not many supported forcible abolition. The experience of slavery in the United States demonstrates that people in general tend to have an ill-developed moral sensibility. They will go along with whatever they are told by their social superiors to go along with. What matters to most people is how they seem to others. The people who vote Republican today are the descendents of those that fought and died for slavery. In that light, they have progressed a long way toward morality, and one should not expect much more from them. However, I suspect that they would accept slavery once again if they were told by their social superiors that it was okay.
 

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On a different subject, Gore Vidal maintained that the Civil War was not about slavery, but was about President Lincoln waging war to force the South back into the Union. I suppose he felt that the South should have been permitted to go its own way, or else that Lincoln should have made the war about slavery from the very beginning. Vidal said he would have supported the war if it had been about slavery, but since it was about states' rights versus federalism, he did not support the war. Vidal is technically correct about Lincoln's initial intentions I think, in that Lincoln was not adamant about ending slavery in the beginning, but intentions don't matter so much as the final result. Vidal does tend to quibble quite a bit, for what reason I don't know, but he seems to favor radical opinions (the Civil War was unjust, and Lincoln was a dictator) just for the sake of provoking obscure scholars. I think he craves attention. Lincoln was a few shades closer to dictator than some other Presidents, but he was no Mussolini. The Civil War probably could not have been avoided, because the South fired the first shots and seized federal forts and lands. The South did not even wait for Lincoln to make a provocation, but acted in a precipitous fashion based on dislike of Lincoln's anti-slavery views.

I would prefer that the Civil War had been avoided, but the Southern elite was extreme and radical itself, eager for conflict and unwilling to compromise. Their ideological descendents now populate the Republican Party, weaving conspiracy theories about Obama (socialist, communist, Muslim, gay, non-American, and the list goes on) and, before him, Clinton and just about anyone who is a Democrat or liberal.

I don't know whether it would have been a good idea for Lincoln to let the South go its own way. I think that slavery would have persisted for a long time, and that the South would likely have remained a thorn in the side of the Union for generations to come, even allying with Hitler during WW2 and bringing at least one of the world wars, if not both, to North America. Where I fault Lincoln is in his poor choice of generals. Commanders should always be chosen based upon ability, not political or social connections. Lincoln was also impatient for victories and tended to press his generals to attack even when their troops were not ready or the conditions were not favorable. It takes cold blood to wage successful war, and hot heads tend to lose themselves. Conditions at the military hospitals were abominable. Either Lincoln did not devote sufficient time or thought to the prosecution of the war or else did not have sufficient ability.

Sober View of Syria

Usama Matar, an optometrist who has lived in Russia since 1983, said he did not harbor any illusions about Russia’s motives for defending Syrian Christians like himself, whom he called “small coins in a big game.” But he said there were few international players taking notice of Eastern Christians at all.

“The West is pursuing its own interests; they are indifferent to our fate,” he said. “I am not justifying the Assad regime — it is dictatorial, we know this, it is despotic, I understand. But these guys, they don’t even hide their intention to build an Islamic state and their methods of battle, where they just execute people on the streets. That’s the opposition, not just the authorities. And we are between two fires.”

--From the New York Times

I think that is by far the best explanation for Russia's position regarding Syria and it is comprehensible. Muslim regimes such as Iran and Saudi Arabia tend to be barbaric, backward, and bloodthirsty, and Syria certainly sounds like a candidate for another Islamofascist regime. In many places around the world, Islam is intolerant of other religions, of atheism, of women, of homosexuality, and of sexuality in general. Until some of these Muslims crawl out of the Middle Ages, they will not be ready for self-government. They merely would replace Assad with something worse, as in the case of Iran where the Shah was replaced by Khameini, who rules as absolute dictator and pursues the acquisition of nuclear weapons with a single-minded mania. It is better for Syria to remain in a permanent state of civil war than to emerge as another Islamofascist regime, committing assorted cruelties against women, gays, and minority religions such as Christians, Jews (if any live there), atheists and others. I am glad that so far our leaders have shown enough wisdom not to intervene. Syria is not our concern, but Syria's, and I am sure the opposition has no love for the United States. However, I do detest Assad and would like to see him get his just desserts for committing so many crimes against civilians. Perhaps there could be some way for the Syrian opposition to overthrow Assad without installing another Islamofascist regime.

Dos Equis / Heineken Does Not Honor Rebates

Anyone considering buying Dos Equis beer on the strength of their seemingly generous rebates ought to think again. They took my rebate and the UPC codes I painstakingly clipped out and mailed and threw it in the trash can, mailing me a little postcard that told me my rebate had been rejected due to "No UPC Code submitted," which was a lie. Now I will think of one thing whenever I see Dos Equis or Heineken beer, and that is their Lie, and the liars that lie about things in order to sell their product.

Ashenzari

Mummies suck at most things, so Ashenzari is the god to worship if your character is a mummy.

Incidentally, Mummies have been reformed since olden days, and now the Mummy race is very playable. I recommend trying out a Mummy Necromancer worshiping Ashenzari.

• 10-31-2012 Update:
  I have changed my mind. Nemelex Xobeh for Mummies. All the way. Until the NX altar is found, remain atheist. Because Mummies suck at everything besides Necromancy, they are in dire need of attack diversification, and Xobeh's decks provide just the remedy, not to mention Mummies are immune to many of the side effects of unlucky cards such as Famine and Poison.

The Ex

I met an ex today and felt relief that I dodged that bullet. In the past, I did not have high enough standards. There was a tendency to romanticize too much, an eagerness to experience the high of being in love. Such a high can never be a permanent condition. Once the novelty wore off, I would have made the same observations about the individual that I made today, seeing clearly without my rose-colored glasses. The word that bubbled up into my awareness was goblin.

Thirty-Three Years

Thirty-three years, the sentence of the Pakistani doctor who helped U.S. forces locate Bin Laden, speaks volumes about where Pakistan stands. All their words of friendship are exposed as lies. In reality they have been soaking the U.S. for the maximum amount of dollars while giving lukewarm, minimal support. Our leaders don't care because the rich boys that own the big defense corporations are getting richer. Who cares what happens to taxpayer money? The rich people don't pay the same tax rate we do, they pay much less percentage-wise.

Donations

Right-wingers that supported our foreign adventures should donate extra taxes to the government to pay for their wars, along with blood and body organs to support the wounded combat veterans that need those items.

The Argument Against Sanctions

The Hindu posted a strong editorial opposing sanctions against Iran. Although there may not be much evidence that Iran is producing nuclear weapons, common sense tells a different story. It is impossible to really know whether a closed, totalitarian dictatorship with nuclear capability is, or is not, in the business of producing nuclear weapons. Given Iran's behavior on the international and domestic scene, I think it is naive at best or actually stupid to claim that Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons. I think nuclear weapons are the #1 desire of everyone in the Iranian leadership. They want it more than life itself and will sacrifice anything to get a nuke. They are right now squandering Iran's economy and much of its treasure on the quest for nuclear weapons. All of Iran's problems basically revolve around the quest for nuclear weapons and a fear of the United States. So I don't buy The Hindu's argument. I would be delighted to watch Iran's leaders dangle at the end of a rope. It is what they richly deserve, based upon their capital crimes and treason against Iran itself. Perhaps Khameini's head would pop off of his body like Hussein's during the hanging due to obesity. But that is just a fantasy. In reality, the U.S. can't afford another foreign invasion. That is why we must use sanctions instead. If they work, fine. If they don't, then at least Iran is reduced economically to the level of North Korea and other pariah states, which is also a good outcome, because they will have less money to devote to terrorism, their #1 export.

Pole Arms

In Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, I have long been a pole arm skeptic. Recently, I found out about the AutoFight key [Tab], and now I'm a pole arm convert. It is an easy matter to extend the range of a pole arm using the Tab key. Before, I thought one had to press 'V' to activate the extension, and then select a target. [Tab] is much easier. My favorite pole arm is one of dragon slaying, because it offers both defensive and offensive capabilities.

I have tried Tengus (formerly Kenkus, before there was concern over TSR's copyright on the "Kenku" name) armed with pole arms, but Tengus are far, far too fragile. I have not had one survive past level 12 or so. One little mishap wipes out a Tengu. The odds are stacked against them.

 I think the advantageous profession for Tengu is Artificer. Gain good mastery of Armour first, along with a decent suit, and then progress into spellcasting later.

Too Much Corruption

The main problem in the U.S. is corruption. I think Gore Vidal was right about that. If there could be a divorce engineered between the politicians and the business criminals, then the country might turn around and start growing again. But I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. People are angry because they perceive that all their tax money is being wasted on pointless things like faraway wars that nobody really understands. Either our leaders are stupid or corrupt, and I'm not placing any bets on stupid.

The Cynicism of Gore Vidal

Anyone who scans the media without cynicism either isn't paying attention or isn't bright.

I think that Gore Vidal was spot on when he said that public opinion is molded by the few largely for the benefit of the few--those that already have their fortunes made for them. This was not unique, I think, only to the modern U.S., but is a global and eternal condition, as true a thousand years ago as today.

It is often that critics of Vidal misinterpret him through oversimplification of his message. My father wrote criticisms of Vidal throughout Vidal's book, "Virgin Islands." But I do not agree with his criticisms of the critic Vidal's criticisms. In many cases my father misinterpreted the meaning of individual words. For instance, to say that a man is unprincipled is not necessarily a bad thing. Principled men can be quite cruel and malicious. Being principled does not equate to being good or just. The word "unprincipled" figures in Vidal's criticism of both FDR and Clinton. My father, loyal to FDR, was unable to concede the smallest thing in his idol. Perhaps he would have conceded Clinton, however.

In reality, Gore Vidal was one of the most patriotic Americans that ever lived. He loved his country more than can be imagined. He was a man of ideas, interested in Right and Wrong, and desiring that Good prevail. I do not think Gore Vidal spared the smallest effort to apply his utmost powers of concentration, research and due diligence to the task of criticism, which is the art of distinguishing good from bad, or the better way from the worse.

Seinfeld Still the Best Comedy

All four of the regular characters in Seinfeld were brilliant. I'm particularly a fan of Michael Richards, who I think was exceptional. He was extremely well-suited to his role. I think that it is most unfortunate that he was not placed in a well-written movie or television show after the end of Seinfeld. However, nine seasons, with over twenty episodes per season, is quite a run. I don't think in the whole of television and movies there has ever been anything as funny as Seinfeld.


I regard the seasons two through seven of Seinfeld as the best. After season seven, the writing turned zany in the quest for more and bigger laughs. The actors morphed into inhuman monsters, which inspired the writers to sentence them to prison in the final episode.

New Wrinkle in the Zimmerman Case

I read today that there is a new wrinkle in the Zimmerman Case: Zimmerman was badly beaten in the fight. I don't know why that important detail was not included, or was minimized, in media reports. It is also strange that the media displayed an old picture of Trayvon, and stressed the difference in weight between the two, in order to give the impression that Zimmerman was bigger than Trayvon. This seems like an embarrassment for the media. The media either failed to report these things or omitted them or minimized their significance. It definitely indicates a bias in the media or else a flair for the dramatic, something to press the 'anger' buttons in people. Usually the media seems fair. I think so many details about the case fit a certain narrative that Northern reporters are quick to accept about a supposed racial incident in a small, Southern town. In a way, the case was a perfect storm. It would take cold blood indeed to write a story that didn't fit the narrative. There does seem to be a failure in the intelligence of reporters. They are not being objective enough. Perhaps there was a failure in communication.

Sympathy Misplaced, Perhaps

I can't help but feel sympathy for some of the big-shot, rich celebrities that get tangled up in some kind of scandal, legal dispute, or divorce proceeding due to their affair. Some of them are intelligent men, so the question arises, why do men stray? I suppose from the logical perspective, it would be best to remain 100% monogamous or (possibly better) asexual. Of course, humans are not entirely logical animals, and we are animals. I think in Humans 2.0, the next version of our species, when we roll it out of our laboratories, we will be more logical and consistent; some would say boring. But boring can be good. Boring becomes interesting as one's expectations adjust.

Political Advice from JP Morgan

I'd like to know who is going to listen to the CEO of JP Morgan after that fool's fools lost $2 billion dollars playing with investor's money like it was monopoly money. A monkey could make better investment decisions. Thanks but no thanks for your advice. Next!

Pain is Good

One thing some people don't realize is that Pain is Good. It warns and reminds us of internal injury. I saw in the grocery store that most brands of topical antibiotic, such as Neosporin, Bacitrin and generic brands, now contain pain reliever along with the antibiotics.Without pain, one is oblivious to potential problems lurking within a wound. Infections can spread as a result of avoiding an insignificant, manageable amount of pain. If a scratch or abrasion continues hurting without subsiding, then that is information I want to know, because it is abnormal, and indicates there is a continuing problem. Either the wound needs to be cleaned again or it may be that professional medical attention is required.

Cuba Surprises

Castro and Cuba have surprising, enlightened views on gays and even on gay marriage. Republicans could learn an important lesson about human rights--and health care--from the country that they like to demonize.

Tired of Chess Cube

Chess Cube has been going downhill for a long time. There have been no new features in at least a year, but what's worse is that the game history prior to March 2012 was deleted for all users. I had a lot of games stored in my paid VIP account that were lost as a result of their incompetence. So, that nixed any chance I would renew my VIP membership. How can I trust a game site that loses my games? I also experienced random disconnects on a sporadic basis on chess cube. I guess the straw that broke the camel's back was that a moderator in one of the chat rooms decided to use his power as a soapbox for all his backward notions on gays. I don't need to pay a membership fee to be insulted. I was reluctant to leave Chess Cube because I liked the design and homey, small-town feel of the site, but I really don't see that I have any reasonable choice in the matter at this point. Time to buy a membership at another chess site and forget about Chess Cube. I am purchasing a year's membership on chess.com today. Some businesses need to learn that insulting and offending gays is not good business. I am more than happy to vote with my dollars if it will help with the learning process.

Facebook

I read that one of the founders of Facebook renounced his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying any taxes. Just like I've been saying all along, plenty of U.S. executives and owners are traitors, wiling to abandon either the country or the workers at the first opportunity, while expecting plenty of protection from all branches of the U.S. government. Mitt Romney is a classic example of this type of owner. I suppose their ultimate goal is to transform the U.S. into a carbon copy of China, a kleptocracy where the elite steal everything they want and nobody is allowed to talk about it.

The Reality of Gay Marriage

The reality of gay marriage will be that it will not catch on like wildfire. Younger gays will not be in a rush to marry, no more than their straight counterparts, many of whom view marriage with wariness. Mainly the partakers of gay marriage will be older couples who have been together forever. Older couples have every reason to marry--legal and property rights, security and stability. I would like to see some of these opponents of gay marriage get stripped of their hospital visitation rights, home, bank account, and car, and health insurance, and see whether they like that. How about if I vote on whether they have they right to see their wife in the hospital? Maybe their marriage isn't good enough and they don't deserve hospital visitation rights. Maybe they don't deserve the house they lived in for fifty years. These are the type of questions that arise when one questions who is "fit" to marry and who is not. If old monogamous gay couples aren't "fit" to marry, then who is? I really like the question of gay marriage, and I hope it becomes the #1 issue in the Presidential election, because it casts the Republicans in the position of evil. Republicans hate marriage, they hate love, and they want to keep people down and make people unhappy. They want to be the ones saying, "No, you're not family, you can't come in" when a spouse of fifty years comes to visit his husband in the hospital. They want to be the ones stealing the house from him after his spouse dies. They are the thieves and the liars.

Gay Marriage and Personal Lives

I sure wish that some of these opponents of marriage would get the spotlight focused on their own personal lives and whether they are moral or not. I bet in half the cases, unpleasant things would be brought to light about their personal lives. These people who hate marriage for gays (or hate gays, same thing), they like to point the finger at others, but when they do, there are three fingers pointing back at them. The hate-mongers are busy putting evil laws on the books, having nothing better to do with their lives. What is needed is for the hate-mongers to be exposed for what they are. It is a lengthy process. One by one, the hate-mongers are exposed as hypocrites, liars, criminals, drug addicts, and worse. Time is what is needed, time to expose them all. These people hate gays, they hate marriage, they hate people, they hate everything that is good, and they hate God, in that order, and their actions are motivated by those hatreds.

Mitt Romney, Bully

Turns out Mitt Romney was a gay-hating bully in his younger days. I guess being born into a mountain of money wasn't good enough for Mitt. He wanted to control all the people around him, too, and dictate what they could wear and how their hair could look. Here's another article on Mitt Romney's gay-bashing days. No wonder he's opposed to gay marriage. He's full of hate and that's what drives him as a human being.

Two-Headed Ogres

Two-headed ogres might be an interesting new player-character race for Dungeon Crawl. They could wear two amulets and wield two large weapons. They would not be as good at magic as regular ogres, and would progress in levels at a slower pace. Their throwing ability would be poorer as well.

Self-Driving Car

A legitimate reason to buy a new car has finally surfaced, a self-driving feature. It is nice to see that cars have finally progressed in a major way after forty years of stagnation.

Revenge

The prostitute at the center of the Secret Service scandal savors something that is quite rare in this world for working people: revenge, sweet revenge. I had a chuckle this morning reading her blast against the men who refused to pay her. That blast was trumpeted around the world on television and throughout the media. She spoke on behalf of every worker that has been stiffed, in a manner of speaking, by her employer. She really is quite pretty with oriental features. She is probably right about what she says. She reminds me of a modern-day Boudica.

Applicant Tests

I've taken tons of applicant tests and aced them and gotten nothing for all my time and effort. Finally I figured out why companies give applicants skills tests. The reason is not to assess skills, but to disqualify all applicants, because the boss man has a buddy in line for the job and does not want to hire anybody else. The skills tests cover his behind from a legal and political standpoint. He will claim to his superiors and colleagues that everybody else failed the tests except for his buddy. I've changed my policy on tests and refuse to take them anymore because they are just a giant waste of time and energy. It is a more efficient use of time to clip coupons.