Reform conference.

It's been a year since Liz died, but it's still as painful as ever. I could spend all day cursing the drug war, or even the police, but even if it ended, it would still bring me no comfort. Ending the drug war wouldn't bring her back to us. But that's the closest thing to justice we'll ever get.

Which is why I think it's important to spread the word about the reform conference being held between the days of November 2nd-5th. The articles I've read about it say this event's going to be huge, and people from all walks of life will be there. As for me, only time will tell if I can make it there... Maybe I could make it to one of the community events? Perhaps if they had one near Fort Meyers...

More information can be found about it here.

This one's for Elizabeth...

The Butterfly Effect.

Recently I came into contact with a net buddy of mine who I hadn't talked to for a good while. He was wondering where I have been, and I told him how I had been so depressed and have become... Somewhat... I want to say withdrawn because of what happened a year ago. But I ended up hearing about his relationship problems. See, he has this girl that he's in love with, and they're about to have kids, but some time ago they weren't on talking terms. Well, I remember how excited he was about her and she about him, and it made me even more depressed to think that that spark had weakened in their relationship, because I looked at it in terms of my own life, and I remember Liz had wanted me to move into her apartment, and I was enthusiastic about that. I didn't want to think that things could possibly go wrong.

What this is leading up to is this; After talking for a bit, he recommended to me a movie called The Butterfly Effect. The movie is about a man, played by (I think) Ashton Kutcher, and he's had these black-outs ever since he was a kid. The weird thing is that when he gets older and studies psychology his memories that were blacked out start coming back to him, and each time he does this the world changes, and he's living in an alternate reality where things happened differently than they did in his actual life. All to save a girl named Kaylee. Well, this happens more than once, each time with increasing frequency, until he's eventually at the point where the journal entries he's been using to keep track of these memories don't exist anymore. So in a last ditch effort to save her he looks at some home movies from when he was a kid, and tells off Kaylee to save her (and his) life.

But that has just made me even more depressed. I think I hate life now. We live in such a hellhole in such a way that bad things happen to good people, and trying to make the world worth living in is a futile effort. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I know from personal experience...

I think maybe it's time to change the name of this blog. (again)

... Otherwise I'm about to be eating my foot here. So, I play this game called eRepublik, and as far as browser games go, it's actually kinda fun, and it's free to play. It doesn't require a large time commitment, but thing is, some of the missions require that you get people to join under you. Same as some of these PTC sites, except it's a game, not a way to make extra cash. So, thing is, in this game, you get gold for leveling up, or getting certain trophies (such as reaching a certain number of subscribers, getting a certain amount of Strength, working a certain number of days, etc.), and if you have an upline, they earn bonus gold if you earn gold (don't worry, they don't take away from your own gold, so you're fine.) So yeah, there's lot of advantages to building a downline in this game.

Well, one of my friends in the game had this great idea. He turned me on to this "referral circle", and the idea is that anyone who joins this circle gets a special link, and when they use it to tell their friends about the game, they join the circle, and everyone gets referrals from just being a member, so in this way everyone wins, even if they can't get new referrals themselves. Well, I decided to join this circle, since I have had trouble promoting the link, and since I've been added, I figure I should promote the link to this circle since I don't want to feel like I'm just leeching off the more successful players. So, if I've piqued your interest in eRepublik, then here's the link to the referral circle: http://www.yourwinoffice.net/rotator.php?u=eRepublik.

This needs to be seen.

Maybe all the drug-user haters will change their minds after they see this!

If not, then we have nothing to say to each-other. You are my enemy. People like you are the reason Liz's life was so hard, and I'm blaming YOU for what happened to her!

TV keeps getting worse and worse...

I've found a number of things on TV lately that I just could not laugh at, or which I found to be in poor taste. There are a couple that come to mind here...

- I was watching SNL this week. Remember when they used to be funny? It seems like SNL has fallen a long way from what it used to be. Yes, it's still political humor, and maybe some sex jokes, but it has gotten less tasteful lately. There was one skit that made my jaw drop in disbelief this week. They jumped on the Wienergate bandwagon, by making fun of his "dick pic". I could not laugh at that. I found it stupid in the first place that people are up in arms over this sorry excuse for a scandal. There's loads better things to be talking about. But let me be clear about this; I am not for adultery. I am not for anything which brings harm to another being, and he does his wife a great injustice by cheating on her. But that doesn't mean that the media should make a big stink out of it and jeopardize his career over small shit like this. It's dumb. That's the only way I could describe it.
- The other thing I wanted to talk about was these ads I'm seeing for this show called "Dance Moms". There is something which does not sit right with me about this show. Here we have these kids that look like they're barely in their teens, and they're wearing THE skimpiest outfits I've seen a 12 year old kid wear! (maybe younger, I'm not a good judge of age...) This is a point where most kids are just entering puberty, they aren't even aware of their own sexuality at this age, and they're already wearing over-sexualized clothing like those leotards you're seeing on the commercials. Yeah, young people do date. I had a friend like that when I was 7 or 8, so there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, that's too early an age to think about wearing something that a GROWN ADULT would be sexually attracted to. But that's not the only thing. In some ways I think this show is child abuse! They're YELLING AT THEIR CHILDREN! And it's not discipline either, it's for the purpose of RATINGS! They just want to act like drama whores so people will pay attention to their show.

Speaking of shows, I'm going to play the devil's advocate here... I think all the negative press surrounding the show "Skins" is largely unwarranted, and has more to do with societal taboos than moral concerns. It's old news, and in case you've missed it, let me fill you in; Skins is a teen drama from the UK, and it follows a group of 8 high school teenagers, different in each season, and explores different issues, including the one that got the show cancelled in the U.S.; Teen sexuality. Now, having been in high school not long ago, I can attest to the fact that at this point in my life, people had been talking about, and sometimes experimenting with, sex. It's a way of life. But the media attacked Skins, saying that it's like child pornography. To me, this is reach, because Dance Moms seems a lot more pornographic than skins, and these girls are 12! Yes, Skins has racy scenes, but at this point, their hormones are kicking in, so it's more believable and acceptable, in my opinion. Also, there are countries in other parts of the world where the legal age is lower than here, so playing the child pornography card seems unfair to Skins when other shows on our corner of the world have done worse. Now, in Britain, the show hasn't been received as negatively, and has in fact earned its share of rewards. Although I haven't seen the show, I thought while I was talking about television, I should at least shed some light on this, since the media reaction to Skins offended my sensibilities. I just felt like this show got bullied, and like the bully hater I am, I felt a need to stand up and say something to defend it.

I'm confused...

I have a feeling that there's something everybody doesn't know about the Casey Anthony trial. Her verdict was a major upset, and the media is all over it. But, despite the evidence that has been mounted against her, the jury decided that there wasn't enough evidence to prove her guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. That's the important thing, because, in the court, all are, and I can't stress this enough, INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY! And the jury decided that the evidence wasn't conclusive. I haven't followed the case very closely, though, as I've been paying more attention to Bradley Manning and his role in the Wikileaks case, and its role in the Arab Spring. But, though I don't want to make a rush to judgment, I don't take murder, especially against those that can't fend for themselves, lightly. But I'm containing my gut reaction and waiting for the truth to come to light. Here's what I think I know;

- Her body was found in a swamp.
- The defense claims that they buried the body, and that the victim drowned in a pool.
- Some pieces of evidence include a couple Google searches, including chloroform and how to snap necks.
- In her car was found duct tape and the trunk supposedly smelled like a dead body and had hair in it. (haven't heard about what the forensics dept. had to say about the matter.

I can think of how this could lead to a conclusion other than Casey Anthony murdering her daughter. This could have been set up. Someone could have used her computer and car. What they needed is evidence that proved SHE was the one who killed her daughter, and I don't know if they had that or not. But supposedly they have 300 or so items of evidence if I remember correctly. So I don't know how to feel about the verdict. Is she really innocent or did she really murder a defenseless child? I wish I knew for certain, so I could understand why everyone is angry about this. Are they mad for the right reasons or the wrong reasons?

Hot Coffee

You know how they say "there's more than one side to any story"? Well, here's a good example:



Did I ever mention that I miss seeing this show? Back home I used to have satellite television, and there was this channel on the far end called "FSTV", and DemocracyNOW aired on that channel. It was in the 9,000s range, and I got it with a deal from Dish Network. But I digress. I felt this clip should be shown because it challenges how most people understand the hot coffee lawsuit that was ridiculed to death. I bet most people watching this didn't know that the coffee got her hospitalized, and that they tried to reason with the fast food giant, only to get an insultingly low sum of money for compensation. Now you can see why this whole case against "lawsuit abuse" is poppycock, but it was enough to pull the wool over our eyes. No wonder Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission was allowed to happen. No wonder people sign away their right to a lawsuit through arbitration contracts (and most likely your employer will insist you not read the fine print before signing.) No wonder people are having a hard time fighting for justice against a corporate goliath that seeks to take and take and continue taking until there's nothing left to be taken. It's as they say, the love of money is the root of all evil.

A movement to stop the war on drugs.

Just take a look at this article!

And then look at which country is the most reluctant to change their policy! We really ARE living in drug war Hell here.

NEVER try to argue with the person that's trying to help you!

Especially if that person knows more about computers than you do. For instance, I was trying to help my dumbass of a father set up a hotmail account today, and my mom said something about their old email address appearing on the page where it says "Sign in". So my dad thought that we'd be able to sign in using that. So I had to humor him and when I go to type in their password he's like "Why did you use a password? We don't HAVE a password!" And I tried explaining to him that they set up a password when they signed up for Windstream, and that Outlook Express automatically uses that password to log them in, and he STILL denies having a password. So it came to me shouting "You're STUPID!" It was totally justified because he WAS being stupid about not listening to me when I was trying to tell him what I know. And that brings me to another thing, it seems like he has this idea that he knows more than I do, which is false. He has to ask me how to spell simple words which anyone with even a grade school education would be able to figure out on their own. So then he starts calling me stupid! That's rich! That's probably the only rebuttal he can think of. He couldn't have said anything intelligent to try to prove me wrong. He just had to go and say the equivalent of "No, YOU'RE stupid!" And I even tried to tell him, "Well, who's the one who's been trying to solve YOUR computer problems this whole time?" and he STILL insists that I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah, he's one of THOSE! There's no reasoning with people like that, I ought to just have him thrown in the home.

This site isn't adult.

So I've turned those stupid notifications off until I post something that IS adult. It may or may not happen, but I've considered making works of art that may include nudity, which in turn may be used to get its message across.

The Yes Men Fix the World.

Share you say? VERY YES!



Seriously, if you haven't watched the movie by the time you see this text, you need to, these guys play pranks on some of the largest, most unethical corporations EVER! Can you say Punk'd?

Ooooh Haaaaroooold, you got some 'splainin' to doooooo!

Harold's response; Awwwwww, Yahweeeeeeeh!

References to 50s television aside, Armageddon has NOT happened yet!

In case you missed it, Harold Camping predicted in the mid 40s that the world would end May 21st, 2011. He claimed that there was a mathematical equation in the Bible that revealed that the world would end 7,000 years after the flood which wiped out nearly all of life on Earth, which Noah survived by building an ark and loading it with... Well, the most popular account has it that it was 2 of every animal, but it varies from passage to passage due to the fact that the Bible, even within the same book, had different authors. But you get the idea. And I REFUSE to call it the "Flood of Noah" because it wasn't Noah's flood, he just survived it. There's gotta be a better name for it out there.

Anyway, I think even the Christians themselves should have known better. Anyone who has read the Bible and payed close attention to it would know that there's a passage which clearly says no one but God will know when judgment day will come. So, trying to say you know when the end will come would also mean equating yourself to God. Assuming you believe in God, that is. And I don't.

Let's look at that argument using a logical formula. For this, let's assume that the argument "Only God knows when the world will end" is true, since it's what's written in the Bible. Now, here's what the argument would look like;

If only God knows when the world will end,
and Harold Camping knows when the world will end,
then Harold Camping is God.

Like I previously stated, the first argument is assumed to be true. Now for the second line, "Harold Camping knows when the world will end", empirical evidence shows us that this is false. It is, in fact, the 22nd of May, and the world didn't end, like Camping claimed it did. So if one part of the statement is true, and the second part is false, then the conclusion has to be false as well. So, Harold Camping is not God, because only God knows when the world will end, according to the Bible, and Harold Camping didn't know.

However, I don't believe that was what was intended. I think he was just a bad interpreter of the Bible. But it would be difficult for me to put that in the form of a logical equation. I only took one semester of college logic, and even then I sold the book, so reviewing what I learned is out of the question, unless I use Google, but having the book to read would have been easier.

... Actually I think it would look something like this.

Harold Camping claimed to know when the world will end
and only God knows when the world will end.
Therefore, Harold Camping is a lousy interpreter of the Bible.

Both are positive statements and I'm assuming both of them to be true. Harold Camping DID act like he knew when the world will end, so I think that's true. Also, "only God knows when the world will end" is assumed to be true in the last argument, and will remain so in this one. So if both of those ARE true, then I would reason that the conclusion is true. The conditional statements do seem to lead up to the conclusion, but I'll leave that up for the readers to decide. Any feedback (as long as it's constructive) is appreciated. But if you're going to be rude, don't waste your breath because I don't listen to people who are rude.

I almost forgot to mention though... A part of me was wishing he was right...

I quit!

Almost everyone on this planet is stark-raving MAD!

Osama Bin Laden has died. America rejoices at their LOSS.

Yes, that's right. I said loss. I didn't like Osama, he ordered the attack that killed tons of unarmed civilians. It was awful. But the US government responded with the same disregard for the well being of other human beings with their campaigns in the Middle East. And then, after 10 years, they did it. They killed Osama Bin Laden. Supposedly. I don't know how far I can believe what the government says, but here's what the politicos are saying; Osama was hiding in Pakistan, and when they raided the facility he was staying at, he was unarmed, but resisted arrest. He then was shot in the eye, and had part of his skull blown off. Now, the US is celebrating its "victory" over Osama Bin Laden. But this victory is a shallow one. For in the process, we have become that monster which we have been fighting. Justice had not really been served. Tyranny and spite have. In winning we have lost. In winning the battle against this one man, we, as a whole, have lost our collective cultural soul. And we are bound for damnation in the eyes of the rest of the world. We are now complete monsters.

We have lost. End of story.

UPDATE: Apparently Osama Bin Laden WASN'T behind the 9/11 attacks! So why is the news media saying he was all of a sudden? Why is the entire country being misled into thinking they have been avenged!? And at this point does it matter? Should we really be answering bloodshed with bloodshed? I think not. All I know is me and millions of people within the nation have been lied to.

That still doesn't change the fact that we lost. And Osama supposedly wrote in his will not to engage in Jihad. Awfully merciful for the man America wanted dead. What's the true story behind this war? Is it really just for oil, or is there something far more sinister in the works? All I know is I want answers.

All I know is this was personal before Osama died...

Holy Smoke.

By now this is old news, but remember that Florida priest who said he'd burn a copy of the Qur'an? Well, guess what? That shithead did it. And now the Muslims in the Middle East are in an uproar over it. If any of them are reading this, then let me say this; He does NOT represent America, and if he does try to, don't even listen to him. He's just an attention whore. That aside, you should have heard his reasons. He said that the Qur'an needs to be looked at closely and that it is a violent religion. Well, haven't you read your own holy book, Mr. Holier than thou? Your religion is pretty violent, too! But the worst part about all this is it's behavior like this that will set us back to the dark ages! In fact, I'm reminded of a song by called "Holy Smoke", which is about religious book burning. All you have to do is listen carefully to the lyrics. Honestly, though, we shouldn't even need to worry about this kind of thing anymore, book burning should have gone out with the renaissance! What's gonna happen if this kind of ignorant behavior is allowed to continue!?

The Cult of Wal*Mart.

So after adding a personalized message to a petition to keep Wal*Mart out of New York, it struck me. I think people may, whether they want to admit it or not, WORSHIP Wal*Mart! I mean, how else do you explain why people will try to defend the biggest sweatshop corporation in the world? They can get away with it because Wal*Mart has everything people are looking for, and all at a low price! People don't understand the economics behind it. They don't see the sweatshops in China, the wage slaves in the U.S., and the amount of discrimination that happens in some of their stores. All they see is they're getting what they want cheaper at Wal*Mart. And even if you told them, they either wouldn't believe you, or they wouldn't care. I should know. My family is one of those families that worship Wal*Mart. And it bugs me.

In response to this, I felt inspired to create my own, home-brewed website to hang a lampshade over how much people worship the corporation. Well, people have already made sites. Plain text and stuff, nothing fancy. But I would take it a step further. I wanted to make it the OFFICIAL site of the cult of Wal*Mart. So, the premise was something like this; You would enter the site, and you'd see a little welcome screen, talking about the Cult of Wal*Mart, and you'd see the smiley. On the bottom you'd have an about button, and it would give you the amount of members, people who worship Wal*Mart (it could even be based on actual research, you never know!) Further into the site, you'd hear about their mission, and then you'd start seeing symbols littered across the site. It's no longer the smiley, now, you'd start to see different religious icons. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, stuff like Ying Yangs, and other spiritual stuff, it's all going to be there. And then you venture further, and you start seeing much darker icons, pertaining to the Illuminatis, the Freemasons, and finally, the disembodied head of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, for good measure. Maybe even a mural of the flying spaghetti monster at the very bottom of the page. Finally, you would arrive at the initiation video. It will consist of one of those hypnotic swirlies, complete with a flashing smiley, which would be a simple 2-frame animation of the Wal*Mart smiley, one normal, and one with the colors inverted. Also, throughout the site, you'd be hearing chanting. I chose Dies Irae, an old Gregorian chant, since I doubt anyone would have the copyrights to it (and if it IS, copyrighted, well, then, whoever you are, you're a piece of shit for privatizing CHANTING, and I wish an eternal life of pain and suffering on you!) Then, on the initiation video, I'd use "Giygas' Intimidation" from the Earthbound OST, because no one really CARES about that copyright anymore since NoA apparently can't defend its Mother games (Dali's Clock being the official key reason. Fucking copyright laws.) I would also probably throw in a demonic-sounding version of the Wal*Mart cheer, to drive home the effect of being brainwashed.

... But it looks like the site will never be made. I was hoping for my own domain name, something like thecultofwalmart.com or something to that effect. But you have to pay for those. The only way to do that for free is to set up a computer as a server, and I can't even begin to tell you how complicated the process is, let alone the risk to not 1, not 2, but 3 computers that share the same network with the would-be server computer. Say some right wing zealot decided that they love Wal*Mart with all their heart like some blind zealot, and decides it is in his best moral interest to hack my site because I offended their god. I would be putting my entire home network in danger! So, there goes my inspiration to bring a corporate Goliath down to size. I guess I'll have to find some other way to subvert the corporation. Or maybe even the "dominant paradigm" my late friend turned me on to...

Here's a reason you should never lie to your kids.

Today I was reading the Friendly Atheist's blog, looking in the section on death. I was wondering if anyone else had been through what I have been through, losing someone that you cherish deeply, and feeling that they are "lost forever". It's a horrible feeling and no one should have to go through it. But the first thing I noticed was a question, raised by someone who lost his mother. The thing is, he's an atheist, and he's trying to explain to his kids what he believes.

What happened is I was reminded of a certain event from my childhood. Now, I never used to be an atheist like I am now. I grew up in a Lutheran family. We used to go to church all the time (until they started getting greedy with tithes, or so my parents claim) but the fact that I was on that site, at that time, feeling the way I felt, made me put my life experience into perspective. I think I know why I'm a skeptic. It's because of Santa Claus.

Who knows if I'm the only one who thinks this, but I'm sure 99% of the people reading this remember at some point in their childhood, the myth that is Santa Claus. He's fat, he rides a sled pulled by 9 reindeer led by Rudolph (which was actually created by Montgomery Wards, believe it or not) and he hops down the chimneys of all the good boys and girls in the world, filling their stockings with goodies, and leaving presents under the Christmas tree, all for the measly price of a plate of milk and cookies. Not a bad deal, really, since money wouldn't really be that useful to him. And if you're one of those 99% of people, then surely you remember being told that him, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and all those other fantastical creatures you might have believed in as a kid, were just things that your parents made up. Complete BULLSHIT! I don't know how most people would feel about it, as I don't get many chances to REALLY socialize with people, but I can tell you how I felt. It was as though I was lied to, and even though I know I'll never have kids, I can say that if I ever did decide to have kids, I would never tell them a bald-faced lie like that. Ever. I still give my parents crap about leading me on about this "Santa Claus" person. They try to say it was for fun or whatever, but then my response is usually "How is LYING to me FUN!?"

More recently, though, that's how I've been feeling about religion. Too many unanswered prayers and a heartbreak later I'm completely confident that God, or whatever else you want to call it, is a lie. Just like Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, or anything like that. But this isn't just some kind of lie that your elders will tell you doesn't exist when they think you outgrow it. Even the elderly believe it. After all, your average person probably would tell you "The Bible" is written by God or some crap. It was written by various people, over different periods of time. The Bible has several different authors, and they just happen to write about the same thing; God. But the impact that THIS lie has on entire groups of people is more widespread and perverse than Santa Claus will ever be. Groups of people get killed for lies like these! (Native Americans, anyone?)

Well, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm going to go detach myself from this screen for a little bit to take a breather.

Think nuclear energy is safe? Think again.

Surprisingly, this is one of the few instances where the news media actually care about something important. I saw something on PBS about the disastrous earthquake that hit Japan a little bit ago, and it looked horrible, there was all this rubble where people used to live. Plus, all their nuclear reactors are going haywire, on the verge of a meltdown! The people who constructed those plants should have known that nuclear power is more danger than it's worth. In fact I can't believe India wants a piece of the nuclear pie, either, why would they want to sink to that level. Still, America's not perfect, we have that shit in our country, too. But I HATE nuclear energy! The waste never goes away, and then you have this! The threat of a nuclear meltdown! People can say "Oh, but they have better safety standards now." Well, what happens if a tectonic plate shifts, or a tornado hits, or some other act of God/nature? As long as you have a nuclear reactor, there will always, ALWAYS be the threat of a meltdown, nuclear terrorism or otherwise. People need to realize, there are other, safer, cleaner, renewable sources of energy out there. Japan's disaster is a tragedy, and I'd like to extend my sympathy to the people that have been hurt by the recent disaster. But I think it should also be looked at as a warning to everyone that nuclear fission is NOT as safe as some people will make it out to be. In fact, the people that tell you it's safe probably work for these places and are more concerned about the money in their pocket than anything else. We have the technology to harness the energy of the earth, the wind, the sun, and the water without seriously harming ourselves, or any of the other creatures on this planet. So, LET'S USE IT ALREADY! Everyone on this planet would be all the better for it!

Spices. Really? Is that all?

I've heard of labels on food and cosmetics being vague, but what I saw this morning takes that to a whole new level. This morning, I got into a conversation with my mom about food, and it started when my throat began to hurt after eating a bunch of these garden vegetable Wheat Thins. I looked at the ingredients. The fact that it had a lot of artificial crap is no surprise to me, but my family buys a lot of that, because it's cheaper. I think maybe they miss the point when I say that I'd rather eat organic, but then I have no job at the moment, and I'm trying to save my money to get out of here, or something like that. But I noticed that I was having... Certain stomach problems... This morning, before I ate anything, and I think it was something in the pasta I had last night. So I asked her what was in it, and there was a lot of cheese. She also mentioned Italian seasoning, and so I asked her, "What's in the Italian seasoning?" and she gave me the container. I searched for the ingredients and I found them. All it said was "spices". Really? Is that all? Could you maybe be a little more specific!? All it does is make me wonder what the brand has to hide, when all they're willing to put on the label is "spices", of all things! I mean, is there Oregano? Basil? Garlic? It doesn't help that I'm having a bit of intestinal problems this morning when I don't even know what all was in the food I ate! It could have been in the seasonings for all I know! How does the FDA let that shit slide? They need better labeling requirements!

I have some crazy dreams...

So last night I dreamt I was in a classroom in what seemed like either a boot camp or a prison. Chris was there for some reason, but I remember walking up to a desk at the front of the room and handing in a sheet of paper. And then I said something...

"So, why am I being thrown in here without any sort of explanation? What is the meaning of this!?"

And the woman at the front said something about the government being suspicious of me revolting and causing a rebellion. And then she told me to go to dungeon 101a for some reason... I don't get the meaning of the dream. Maybe I'm feeling trapped. Maybe the dungeon is an embodiment of the way I feel about the course my life has taken. But it's not entirely untrue that I do want a revolution to happen, because I really, really hate society and its ills. I can't help but wonder how many innocent people have been killed by the imperialistic worldview that America carries out so enthusiastically, and I want it to change right the fuck now, before it kills more people! And it seems like the only way to do that is with a revolution...

For now, though, I might just donate $25 to the End:Civ project.

I'm convinced, there is no God...

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” ~Epicurus

The fact that I am alive right now is proof that there is either no God, or if there is he hasn't the slightest idea what the word mercy means.

I've had so many of my prayers unanswered. I wanted to give religion a try, but it's pointless, every time I pray to God, my prayers go unanswered. It all started when my parents wanted to move out of our house in St. Charles. I prayed to God that I wouldn't be taken from what I felt like, and what I still feel is, my home. All that happened was I was let down.

And then, I met Liz. I'd been crushing on her for a long time and we were supposed to move in together. I was going to find a job so I could help her keep her apartment. But every time something would get in my way. Sometimes it was even my family and friends. I knew that she was suicidal, and that's why I prayed that God would protect her and keep her safe. As usual, I was let down. And apparently her ex Reade followed suit, too, he was just as depressed as I am, if not more.

Finally, I just got fed up with everything. I prayed to God to put me out of my misery. So far, my prayer has gone unanswered. Yes, the fact that I am still alive means that my prayer has been unanswered, which brings me to the quote at the beginning of this post. I once watched a program about the teachings of Epicurus. Basically, he was a hedonist, but with the bad rap hedonism has, I should clarify... He wasn't evil, at least in my definition of what "evil" is. Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure, but Epicurus mused that the pursuit of pleasure is the only intrinsic good, and he found that in simple things like friends, knowledge, and virtue. He was also an ascetic. His school of thought is known as Epicureanism. I follow it to an extent; I'm not an ascetic and generally find bodily pleasure to be a good thing, possibly even sacred. But those 3 things, friends, knowledge, and virtue, are also things that I hold dear, and to lose one of my friends to social injustice makes me mad as Hell. But where was God when I needed him? Was he even there? If he was, why didn't he intervene? All I know is that I'm less afraid of death than I was before. I lost Liz, and when you lose someone like her, you've got nothing else to lose. Where were you, God? How could you let her die like that? Or am I speaking to a being which never existed? Perhaps Richard Dawkins was right when he wrote The God Delusion. The 2 television adaptations of it really shed light on what religion does to societies.

Part 1
Part 2

War On Drugs, The Prison Industrial Complex

I need to take a moment to be frank here... I am totally opposed to the war on drugs. I myself am neither a user nor dealer, but a very good friend of mine has been victimized by this so-called war. Well, I demand retribution! No one hurts my friends and gets away with it! I've posted a link to a movie I have been watching about the subject. Appropriately, it was made in what seems to be German, probably because you could never make a film like this in the U.S. So, here it is... War On Drugs, The Prison Industrial Complex!

Take this as a call to action, whoever may be reading this. Then you will see the true injustice of the "justice" system!

... What is this garbage?

I was browsing feministe.us out of curiosity, and I clicked on one of the links that was listed in the side entitled "Boycott American Women". Now, if you've seen me in real life, I'm like a bull; If something offends me I have this weird habit of not actually avoiding it, but charging at it as if it were some sort of matador waving a red cloth over my face. I just get too angry at this shit to leave it alone. And as tempted as I was to report it for hateful content (which is not unfounded, it is pretty misogynistic, as well as targeting women of a certain national origin), I decided to put Liz's philosophy into practice, and let it stay up, because it seems unconstitutional to me to try to censor him. Instead, I'm going to verbally rip it a new one. Here's the site for whoever may be reading this so they can follow along.

Anyhow, the first thing that should come to your mind is the word boycott. Dictionary.com defines it as;

"–verb (used with object)

1.

to combine in abstaining from, or preventing dealings with, as a means of intimidation or coercion: to boycott a store.

2.

to abstain from buying or using: to boycott foreign products.

–noun

3.

the practice of boycotting.

4.

an instance of boycotting."

Boycott, in the site's title, is used like a verb, and I can safely assume that the second definition fits it the best. That seems like it's implying that women are something to be used like, perhaps a robot, to cook and clean your food? A baby factory?

But of course! Look no further than the top right, where the blog's author writes;

"I am an American man, and I have decided to boycott American women. In a nutshell, American women are the most likely to cheat on you, to divorce you, to get fat, to steal half of your money in the divorce courts, don't know how to cook or clean, don't want to have children, etc. Therefore, what intelligent man would want to get involved with American women?

American women are generally immature, selfish, extremely arrogant and self-centered, mentally unstable, irresponsible, and highly unchaste. The behavior of most American women is utterly disgusting, to say the least.

This blog is my attempt to explain why I feel American women are inferior to foreign women (non-American women), and why American men should boycott American women, and date/marry only foreign (non-American) women.

BOYCOTT AMERICAN WOMEN!"

Let's analyze this for a moment...

"American women are most likely to cheat on you..."

I'd like to see the research on this one. Other than that, I have nothing to say about this.

"... To divorce you..."

You know, it could be the guy's fault, too! Men aren't perfect either, and sometimes it takes 2 to tango, if you catch my drift.

"... To get fat..."

Out of all these statements, this one bothers me the most. Are you saying that if the woman you love gets overweight, then you don't love her anymore!? Then is it really love or are you just looking for a trophy wife!? This statement is appalling! Furthermore, you know how many fat guys have girlfriends!? Double-standard much!!?

"... To steal half your money in the divorce courts..."

I honestly don't know what to say about this one, either. Again, I want to see research on it.

"... Don't know how to cook or clean..."

Okay, maybe this one is just me, but is he saying that the woman of the house should do all the cooking and cleaning so you don't have to? Um, isn't there some saying that goes something like "A woman's place is in the kitchen?" Because, as a man, I don't want to stand for that!

"... Don't want to have children, etc...."

Okay, maybe he's looking for someone who wants to have kids, but that shouldn't be used as an argument to say that American women are not worth dating in some way. I don't want kids, either, does that make me less of a potential partner? And maybe I DO want a woman who doesn't want kids, because they share that with me! (Don't get the wrong idea, I'm not currently dating...)

"... Therefore, what intelligent man would want to get involved with American women?"

So, is he trying to say that men who get involved with American women are dumb?Personally, I'd rather have partners who live near where I live. And that happens to be in America.But that's just my opinion, and you have your good and bad everywhere, so it's all up to the person doing the dating. But, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's throwing an entire group of people into a basket! (Okay, yes, he did say MOST American women, but by and large, it feels like that's what he's doing.) Furthermore, that statement indirectly implies that if you date an American woman, you're not intelligent. I see this as a sort of way of enforcing your values on your audience. Let's be honest, no one wants to be thought of as "not intelligent", or worse yet, "stupid". To use words like that in such a way to make anyone who deviates from this "ideal" feel like less of a person can be hurtful, and I think that is wrong!

Okay, that was long enough. Onto the next paragraph.

"American women are generally immature, selfish, extremely arrogant and self-centered, mentally unstable, irresponsible, and highly unchaste. The behavior of most American women is utterly disgusting, to say the least."

Again, while a word like "generally" is used, he's throwing American women in one large basket. But most of these words can be used to describe a lot of people! It's too general! But what irks me especially is that last words; highly unchaste!

In this day and age, it's not unusual for more and more people to experiment with sex before marriage, because sex is a big part of a relationship. If the sex isn't good, you're probably not right for each-other. And again, it's mostly up to the person doing the dating. But, I am a believer in sex-positive culture, and to me, the word chaste represents an old-fashioned way of thinking which forbids sex for pleasure, especially if the person having sex is a woman! As an egalitarian and advocate of sex-positive culture, this bothers me!

Next, the final noteworthy paragraph;

"This blog is my attempt to explain why I feel American women are inferior to foreign women (non-American women), and why American men should boycott American women, and date/marry only foreign (non-American) women."

Again, the word "boycott" appears, as if women are something to be used! Also, notice how he says that he feels American women are inferior to foreign women. Hmm... Doesn't that sound like something Thomas Jefferson wrote about the African Americans? He would have been called a racist now if he wrote that today, and it was then, too! But what this person is writing in his blog reminds me too much of that! (Not racist, but you get the idea.)

I'm not going to go into any further detail, as listing any of the individual posts would be exhaustive and pointless, considering they just state the same thing in different words, sometimes by other people who are just trying to reassert his argument. In any case, I find this blog extremely misogynistic, reasons being;

A) Objectification of women. American women to be boycotted, foreign women to be married. Probably subconsciously on the author's part, but it's still clear as day if you take a moment to read it carefully.

B) Gender-specific roles. Most notably, they are meant to be in the kitchen cooking, or cleaning the house. If they don't know how, they're worthless. (That's what he thinks...)

C) The double standard. Women can't get fat or else they're disgusting. But who cares about the men? Why? Because they're men! It makes perfect sense! (NOT!)

Please, men, don't be like this! You're better than that, right? Right!? Please don't prove me wrong!

Dropping Adsense.

Why? Well, the whole reason is because there are certain types of sites that Adsense doesn't approve of. I'll keep my account just in case I decide to pick it up later for something else, but for now, yeah, I'm dropping it.

That means there's gonna be some changes around here. For one thing, I won't be afraid to post pictures containing some degree of nudity here and there (No, this isn't gonna become a porn blog, there's plenty of those to go around.) Also, there's gonna be a little more swearing and shit. There! Taboo broken! Now that I have a little more freedom to type what I want, I'll let people decide whether they want to advertise on my site or not, and it most definitely will not be like shit you don't want to see, but actual stuff that isn't invasive and/or annoying. But this isn't going to be about money anymore, seeing as there's little point in that now. (the only reason that I enabled AdSense was for Liz, but she ended up getting evicted, anyway. For all the people who wouldn't help her, thanks for nothing, you really let me down hard!)

Also, I'm not going to go on a schedule. Screw schedules, if I feel like writing something, I'll write. Otherwise it will sound forced, and I don't want that to happen. Ever.

So, in closing, welcome to my new blog. I hope you enjoy it.