Free your mind...

...from the matrix.

The coming dawn...

As the dew turns into frost
There is something that I hope will not be lost
The leaves will change, they'll start to fall
I still wonder if it mattered much at all
When my world starts to fade
I can only hope that every choice I made
Will endure, and carry on ... into the
Coming dawn

The breezes blow, soft clouds drift by
Like some artists' canvas captured in my eye
I am sure, I'm holding fast
I am dying for a lifetime that will last
But when my world starts to fade
I'm still hoping this foundation that I laid
Will endure, and carry on ... into the
Coming dawn

We're so close, yet never touch
Can there be a love that changes me this much
I can't see, eyes open wide
Yet I'll never doubt you're standing by my side
When my world, starts to fade
I can only hope that every choice I made
Will endure, and carry on ... into the
Coming dawn

- Kerry Livgren
Kansas - Somewhere To Elsewhere

Historic

"We reviewed and we can't find a team in the history of the AP Poll that has ever lost to a lower division team..."

- Sports Center



"Uh...uh.....i think it's a combination...i think...uh.... inexperience.....uh....uh......ya hafta play to get it and...uh.....uh....Appalachian State had tremendous speed at the....uh....skilled positions....and......uh....uh .....you know.....uh ......they did a good job.

- "Coach" Lloyd Carr

Pain is a necessary part of beauty...

Artists suck unless they really, fundamentally hurt. And so they seek pain, and in so doing hurt those around them.

Those who believe themselves to be artists are similarly possessed of this tendency. And thus, despite their lack of ability to heal, they hurt - fundamentally.

Damn.

Quotable quotes...

"Nothing says revenge like mother nature."

- Chris Harmon, artist, father, excellent host!

Kids say the darndest things!

"The only thing I want to be is a astronaut, a ballerina, a famous singer, a teacher, a chef, a window sill cleaner, a gardener, a sewing lady, a builder and some kind of fixer."

- C, final days of age five

And the moral of the story is...

So I just watched "The Devil wears Prada". Ok...I'm soooo gay. Whatever. Anyway, it was probably the best acting I've seen in a long time. Which is to say that I'm beginning to wonder how Star Wars suckered in Sir Alec Guinness.

Great story. While the theatrical tension was entirely predictable and the end game preordained by all that is Hollywood, it really came off well for a low-budget, bollywood, cult, conspiracy theory film... That's what it was, right?

Whatever, haters. It made her both horny and self-assured.

Xan Shui
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

There you have it...

Don't worry, Al...you've got Al!

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070730/D8QN2CGO0.html

Wisdom

The last surviving veteran of WWI battle revisits the battlefield.

"Harry Patch, of Somerset, made the trip to Flanders in Belgium to recall his part in the battle which claimed 250,000 British casualties.

...

Mr van Emden showed him the five miles they advanced over 99 days which claimed 3,000 British casualties every day.

He was also shown a recently discovered panoramic photograph of the fields taken in 1917.

"Too many died," said Mr Patch. "War isn't worth one life."

- from the article

Kids say the darndest things!

"Change can be good...did you know that? See? That fart was me!"

- C (age five)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I wanna be funky like Mom."

- C (age five)

Kids say the darndest things!

C: "Daddy, there is such things as ghosts. Did you know that?"

Daddy: "Really? Why do you say that?"

C: "Because I saw a white thing in the bathroom once and it wasn't me."

- C (age 5)

Kids say the darndest things!

"People can't really fly like Superman you know. Only sparrows and ducks and geese and some bugs and fairies can really fly." - C (age five)

Kids say the darndest things!

Mommy: "Are you intense?"

C: "No, I'm in threes."

- C, age five

Kids say the darndest things!

"If I were a girl with a beard that would be just nasty."

- C (age five)

Buddhist thought of the day...

Buddhism teaches that the human mind is adroit enough to conclude that there is no person or thing in this universe that can really change anything meaningful. When your actions are in accord with the inevitable they are irrelevant, and when they are not they are like the fluttering of a bird's wings against the bars of its cage. Once you see this, then you can have peace.

- Paraphrasing 'All Else is Bondage; Non-Volitional Living' - Wei Wu Wei

Suffer the little children?

I use Google's portal as, among other things, a news bank. It allows me to quickly check what's going on in several areas of interest. One being general headlines and, those often being driven by sensationalism, I very often see stories of young children missing and only slightly less often read of the terrible fates they endured when their little abused bodies are found abandoned, and analyzed.

Every time I read of the missing I say a prayer for the safety of that child, and every time I read of the grieving family I say a prayer of condolence for the family. The few times I hear of a safe recovery I whisper a prayer of thanksgiving to God.

For the vast majority of us, our brains can do nothing but see the pure beauty in a child. In all their innocence and energy, they represent nothing but the future. Our brains evolved to protect them from harm, especially when our genes are part of their makeup.

But for a few who have seemingly fallen into an abyss of sexual selfishness that could only be described as monsterous, children represent an opportunity for gratification that they cannot pass up at nearly any cost. Why can we not see that this is an illness whether or not it is also a crime? Why do we let people go free who possess so dangerous a tendency? Would we allow a person who is incapable of restraining his or her anger to buy a gun? <--oops, I guess we do in Virginia.

Human sexuality is a wonderful thing, but in the possession of a chronic, irrepressible, apparently unrestrainable desire, it is also a weapon. And since we criminalize sexual violence, it is a weapon that is used in crime, which means a society has at least some obligation to control it. More, in the case of child molestation, it's a weapon that only attacks two classes of individual - one that is entirely incapable of protecting itself and the other that is apparently incapable (the child and the pedophile). And in this case, without the weapon (the chemicals that allow body to fulfill the desire of the mind), the criminal is as helpless to commit the crime as he or she (let's face it - its most always a he) is uninterested in committing it.

It is legal for me to possess a gun because I can be trusted to use it. But a gun isn't part of my anatomy and so we cross a threshhold of property freedom that is indeed sacrosanct when we suggest that society should be able to take away that weapon. But we castrate hopeless sexual criminals today, so it's not a boundary we haven't already crossed.

In Sin City, when the hero removes the child molester's weapons ("both of them"), the audience cheers. Twice. And they don't cheer for the raw violence, they cheer because of their innate sense of justice that has just been satisfied before them. I suggest its time to consider lowering the criteria with which we medically remove the sexual ability of people who demonstrate even one time the willingness to victimize a child for their sexual pleasure.

If we don't act ourselves then all we have is my prayers. And so far, frankly, their track record is just awful.

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

I have a question...

Who invented the word "hos" anyway?

Xan Shui
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Kids say the darndest things!

C: "I'm gonna be a mountain climber."

Daddy: "Oh, really? That's cool! What do you have to do to be a mountain climber?"

C: "You just have to do what you don't know you can do."

- C, age five.

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy: "What's that you drew on the dinosaur's tail - a firecracker?"

C: "No. It's a drink with an umbrella in it."

- C (age five)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I have TONS of patience. I can wait for ONE WHOLE MINUTE!"

- C (age five)

Lies in the sand...

Lies in the Sand

There's a man, who says there is a light in the sky.
All my friends say he's telling a lie.
But he speaks with such passion that I have to think about.
And his hands ... well they tremble as he points it out.
But I can't see what it's all about
And the voices of many are singing along it seems.

Is it all something new? And will I see it too?
Or is this just continuing man?
Throughout all history claiming they all can see
but the evidence falters just short of my hand.
And there are lies in the sand.

There's a man who says he was a Satanic Beast.
And the many were there at his feet.
And he scared all the people, cause he just what we want.

Is it all something new? And will I see it too?
Or is this just continuing man?
Making more history claiming they all can see
but the evidence falters just short of my hand.
And there are lies in the sand.

There are things that will surely seem as they are not.
And I might not know all that I've got.
But the bluffing is easy, and I haven't seen your hand.

- King's X

An interesting point of view.

"Astrophysicist Nir Shariv, one of Israel's top young scientists, describes the logic that led him -- and most everyone else -- to conclude that SUVs, coal plants and other things man-made cause global warming.

Step One Scientists for decades have postulated that increases in carbon dioxide and other gases could lead to a greenhouse effect.

Step Two As if on cue, the temperature rose over the course of the 20th century while greenhouse gases proliferated due to human activities.

Step Three No other mechanism explains the warming. Without another candidate, greenhouses gases necessarily became the cause.

Dr. Shariv, a prolific researcher who has made a name for himself assessing the movements of two-billion-year-old meteorites, no longer accepts this logic, or subscribes to these views.

Dr. Shaviv reconstructed the temperature on Earth over the past 550 million years to find that cosmic ray flux variations explain more than two-thirds of Earth's temperature variance, making it the most dominant climate driver over geological time scales. The study also found that an upper limit can be placed on the relative role of CO2 as a climate driver, meaning that a large fraction of the global warming witnessed over the past century could not be due to CO2 -- instead it is attributable to the increased solar activity."

- from the article.

Kids say the darndest things!

"I really do wish I was a jaguar so that I couldn't have hands but have claws instead because that would teach me to swim deep underwater without holding my nose because if I held my nose I might scratch my face with my claws."

- C (age five)

.

Kids say the darndest things!

"I'm really strong and I can figure a lotta stuff out."

- C (age five)

.

On Your Side

Kevin apologizes, before the Superbowl, for a commercial that will air for the first time on it.

Dude! Who's side are you on?

Kitty Washing Machine

Life it feels better down where it's wetter take it from me!

(Ignore the error message, just click on the video again to go to youtube and view it.)

Kids say the darndest things!

"There's no such thing as a 'master'."

- C (age five)

.

Kids say the darndest things!

C: "Daddy, when I grow up I want to be a jaguar."

Daddy: "Well, then you'd have to eat animals raw."

C: "What does that mean - raw?"

Daddy: "Well, it means you have to catch an animal, then kill it with your teeth, then tear it open and eat it without cooking it."

C: "Oh....COOL!"

- C (age five)

The world catches up...

They finally realized...

And a more direct reference to the impact's impact on orbital debris from ABC news from February 2.

D'oh!

A couple of wiseguys stole a cache of what they thought were mobile phones. Turns out they were GPS devices which led police right to their home!

Wise indeed.

Do as I say not as I do...

Looks like the Chinese have decided to show us just how vulnerable our testicles are. When there's nothing but loose bolts and smithereens floating above us in 16,000 mph freefall and we realize that we've just imprisoned ourselves on this planet for the next hundred thousand years or so because there is no longer a safe path into space, I wonder if anyone will write about how incredibly brilliant human beings are.

Chinese destroy satellite

Why can't they just leave us alone?

Why do they have to count things? Takes all the fun out of it. All we want is to sit back on our recliner, drink beer and feel superior to women...is that so wrong?

Article: Women are better drivers than men

Kids say the darndest things!

"You can only try to think of an idea for so long before you must say there is a lack of one."

- S, age 14

Let there be bass

In the beginning there was a bass. It was a Fender, probably a Precision, but it could have been a Jazz - nobody knows. Anyway, it was very old ... definitely pre-C.B.S.

And God looked down upon it and saw that it was good. He saw that it was very good in fact, and couldn't be improved on at all (though men would later try.) And so He let it be and He created a man to play the bass.

And lo the man looked upon the bass, which was a beautiful 'sunburst', and he loved it. He played upon the open E string and the note rang through the earth and reverberated throughout the firmaments (thus reverb came to be.) And it was good. And God heard that it was good and He smiled at his handiwork.

Then in the course of time, the man came to slap upon the bass. And lo it was funky.

And God heard this funkiness and He said, "Go man, go." And it was good.

And more time passed, and, having little else to do, the man came to practice upon the bass. And lo, the man came to have upon him a great set of chops. And he did play faster and faster until the notes rippled like a breeze through the heavens.

And God heard this sound which sounded something like the wind, which He had created earlier. It also sounded something like the movement of furniture, which He hadn't even created yet, and He was not so pleased. And He spoke to the man, saying "Don't do that!"

Now the man heard the voice of God, but he was so excited about his new ability that he slapped upon the bass a blizzard of funky notes. And the heavens shook with the sound, and the Angels ran about in confusion. (Some of the Angels started to dance, but that's another story.)

And God heard this - how could He miss it - and lo He became Bugged. And He spoke to the man, and He said, "Listen man, if I wanted Jimi Hendrix I would have created the guitar. Stick to the bass parts."

And the man heard the voice of God, and he knew not to mess with it. But now he had upon him a passion for playing fast and high. The man took the frets off of the bass which God had created. And the man did slide his fingers upon the fretless fingerboard and play melodies high upon the neck. And, in his excitement, the man did forget the commandment of the Lord, and he played a frenzy of high melodies and blindingly fast licks. And the heavens rocked with the assault and the earth shook, rattled and rolled.

Now God's wrath was great. And His voice was thunder as He spoke to the man.

And He said, "O.K. for you, pal. You have not heeded My word. Lo, I shall create a soprano saxophone and it shall play higher than you can even think of."

"And from out of the chaos I shall bring forth the drums. And they shall play so many notes thine head shall ache, and I shall make you to always stand next to the drummer."

"You think you're loud? I shall create a stack of Marshall guitar amps to make thine ears bleed. And I shall send down upon the earth other instruments, and lo, they shall all be able to play higher and faster than the bass."

"And for all the days of man, your curse shall be this; that all the other musicians shall look to you, the bass player, for the low notes. And if you play too high or fast all the other musicians shall say "Wow" but really they shall hate it. And they shall tell you you're ready for your solo career, and find other bass players for their bands. And for all your days if you want to play your fancy licks you shall have to sneak them in like a thief in the night."

"And if you finally do get to play a solo, everyone shall leave the bandstand and go to the bar for a drink."

And it was so.

- Unknown

.

O-H!

I-Ow!!!


CHOMP!

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy: What would you do if you had a pet elephant?

C: Leave it outside.

- C, age five

.

Sister Moon...

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.
My hunger for her explains everything I've done.
To howl at the moon the whole night through...
and they really don't care if I do.
I'd go out of my mind but for you."

- from Sister Moon, Sting

Rainmaker

Have you ever seen a miracle - you couldn't doubt or imitate?
What's it really worth to you to shake the holy hand of fate?
Well I did what I could to make ends meet
Been a gunrunner and a medicine man.
In a Kansas town I was a rainmaker - there the hand of fate got out of hand.

Rainmaker Rainmaker save this one horse town
Rainmaker pray to heaven!

From the Flint Hills the land was cracked and dried
Thirsty streets in misery
I took the sign down that said medicine man
Put one up that said rainmaker - that was me.
So the townspeople gave me money up front
To light a fire - pray, and dance around.
Tell them it'd rain so they'd all go to bed
And I'd make my break clean out of town.
But I started this dance and a storm kicked up
The sky went black from coast to coast.
It was too late to stop - it was to late to pray
I had summoned down the Holy Ghost.
Oh the searing wind and the clouds of dust
And hell came raining down!
What came out of me and the powers that be
Was the last of that one horse town!

- Kansas, In the Spirit of Things

Kids say the darndest things!

C, getting ready to go to school with Dad on a cold December day:

"Look, Daddy. You have gloves on. That means you have five fingers. I have mittens on. That means I have one thumb and a whole pack of fingers."

- C (age five)

The worm turns...

"Potentially, the techniques could one day be adapted for human use, with doctors perhaps being able to offer parents pre-natal tests to determine the likely sexuality of offspring or a hormonal treatment to change the orientation of a child.

Roselli has said he would be “uncomfortable” about parents choosing sexuality, but argues that it is up to policy makers to legislate on questions of ethics."

Article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2524408,00.html

It seems that the same guys for the "right" of people to have an abortion are against the idea of parents choosing the sexuality of their child. Looks like this one hit a little close to home.

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Phanthropist, Honest Man

Political Leanings

Got into a great discussion the other day on politics, so decided to just state what I believe about life, the universe, and everything:

- God exists and created the universe.
- All human beings are animals and we have all evolved from other life forms just like every other animal. And this has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not there is a God.
- Guns aren't evil. Machine guns, however, are overkill and should be illegal.
- Life is beautiful and we don't have the right to take it away (even from criminals or unborn babies) for any reason.
- Pregnancy is a CHOICE. If the mother's life is in danger because of a child she carries then we should allow it to get close enough to term to save it.
- Government in the U.S. is too big, costs too much and knows way too much about me.
- The greatest thing we can do for world peace is to create a strong middle class all over the world.
- People should be required to take responsibility for their lives. People should have to give something back to society (work in some way) for what they want and need.
- Once people have earned something it should remain theirs.
- We need to improve our educational system in order to compete with other countries.
- Wars are too expensive. Our military should only be used to take countries who threaten us down and not to rebuild them. The U.N.'s should own rebuilding them if needed.
- The left is demonizing President Bush as unfairly as the right demonized Bill Clinton.
- There are too many people in this world not to use birth control.
- People have the right to be gay but marriage is a religious tradition that we shouldn't alter to handle homosexuality any more than we should alter it to handle more than two partners.
- The health and tax benefits associated with married people should be available to any two adult people living together (whether they're fucking each other or not) and all their dependents living with them.
- The U.S. tax code is too complex and should be simplified. We should tax consumption not wealth.
- In a sexual relationship, in is unfair to require monogomy from your partner without taking responsibility for the sexual happiness of that partner.
- Americans are in for a very rude awakening when India and China get their economies moving. However, we're in a better position to recover from losing our dominate status in the world than Europe. Africa will be pulled out of the third-world by China and India.
- In 2050 radical Islam will have about as much influence as the KKK.
- Any given woman and man are not equal in terms of their capabilities - but neither are any two given men or any two women.
- Buffalo chicken wings from BW-3 are the single greatest cullinary achievement the world has ever known.

That's it for now!

Saddamned

So I understand that he was evil. And I understand he was a threat to not just his own people. I understand that he was convicted of killing about 150 people and i'm more than 150% sure that there was much more beyond that. His children were child-raping animals and he let it be that way. I understand that if we hadn't intervened he and his own would still be raping children and causing unrest in the region and I believe that we thought we needed to do what we did when we did it - not just because Bush says so, but because the legislature overwhelmingly supported it.

He wasn't human - he was an animal who truly deserved death. But, in the end, honestly, we became less human for giving it to him. Not only that, we gave him the honor his pathetic sons did not have.

But I guess such is our lot in the shadow of tyrants; victims too.

Xan Shui
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Dead.

My Way News - Iraqi TV Says Saddam Hussein Executed: "It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader"

We're no better.

Xan Shui
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

In the news...

BREITBART.COM - Final Plans Made for Saddam's Execution: "'The Americans want him to be hanged respectfully,' al-Nueimi said. If Saddam is humiliated publicly or his corpse ill-treated 'that could cause an uprising and the Americans would be blamed,' he said."

So we'll execute someone for executing people...BRILLIANT!

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honst Man

Alembic

Main Entry: alem·bic
Pronunciation: &-'lem-bik
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French & Medieval Latin; Middle French alambic & Medieval Latin alembicum, from Arabic al-anbIq, from al the + anbIq still, from Late Greek ambik-, ambix alembic, from Greek, cap of a still
1 : an apparatus used in distillation
2 : something that refines or transmutes as if by distillation (philosophy...filtered through the alembic of Plato's mind -- B. T. Shropshire)

The mind's alembic...

Ideal Beauty

"Ideal beauty is not the mind's creation: it is real beauty, refined and purified in the mind's alembic, from the alloy which always more or less accompanies it in our mixed and imperfect nature. But still the gold exists in a very ample degree. To expect too much is a disease in the expectant, for which human nature is not responsible; and, in the common name of humanity, I protest against these false and mischievous ravings. To rail against humanity for not being abstract perfection, and against human love for not realising all the splendid visions of the poets of chivalry, is to rail at the summer for not being all sunshine, and at the rose for not being always in bloom." . . . .
"But to make ideal beauty the shadow in the water, and, like the dog in the fable, to throw away the substance in catching at the shadow, is scarcely the characteristic of wisdom, whatever it may be of genius."

---Mr Hilary, in Nightmare Abbey, Chap. XI.

Kids say the darndest things!

C, helping us decorate our Christmas tree, holding up a perfectly spherical ornament with a white ribbon tie hanging over its side:

"Daddy, can I help with the bombs?"

- C, age five

2nd highest victory margin in history...

Yes.

What was that huge sighing sound?

My Way - Sports News: "Southern California and Michigan will meet New Year's Day in the granddaddy of 'em all, with each playing in the game for the third time in four years."

Let the record show that Lloyd Carr's job was saved by one one-hundredth of a BCS point!

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Perfect.

SI.com - NCAA Football - Ohio St., Michigan�stay 1-2 in BCS standings - Sunday November 19, 2006 4:41PM: "The No. 1 Buckeyes locked up a spot in the BCS title game Jan. 8 in Arizona with their victory over the Wolverines on Saturday, their 19th straight overall. They also became the first team to have a perfect score of 1.000 under the BCS formula introduced in 2004. Ohio State is a unanimous No. 1 in all the polls and the best team in the country according to the BCS computer ratings."

Probably the only thing in the world that can save Saddam.

BREITBART.COM - Iran Calls for Saddam to Be Executed: "Iran called on Iraq Tuesday to carry out its death sentence on Saddam Hussein, saying the former dictator who waged an eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s was a criminal who deserved to die."

In the news: An eye for an eye?

Vatican says 'don't hang Saddam' | NEWS.com.au: "'For me, punishing a crime with another crime – which is what killing for vindication is – would mean that we are still at the point of demanding an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,' he said.

'Unfortunately, Iraq is one of the few countries that have not yet made the civilised choice of abolishing the death penalty,' said Cardinal Martino, effectively the Pope's justice minister."

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy: "Is it yummy in your tummy?"

C: "No. It's yummy in my head."

- C (age five)

.

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, can you see your own eyes?"

- C (age five)

.

Those crazy Japanese!

My Way News: "TOKYO (Reuters) - Police are looking for a robber who held up a noodle bar in western Japan then paid for his meal and waited for his change before making off."

Read the story, and then ask yourself: Whose the crazy one - the waitress or the robber?

Kids say the darndest things!

"Little kids are magic, except for everyone else but me."

- C (age five)

Kids say the darndest things!

C: "Daddy, my throat hurts and my head hurts and my fingers hurt."

Daddy: "Really? Oh my goodness I don't know what we're going to do with you!"

C: "Umm, take care of me?"

- C (age five)

.

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy: "Wow, look outside. It's raining it's brains out today."

C (after looking out the window for some time): "Daaaad, rain doesn't have any brains."

- C (age five)

.

Heavy cloud but...

...no rain.

The sun won't shine 'til the clouds have gone.
The clouds won't go 'til their work is done.
Every morning you'll hear me pray,
'If only it would rain today'.

- Sting
Heavy Cloud, No Rain

.

In the news...Execution

Florida executes "Ripper" who terrorized campus: "The macabre murders began August 24, when Rolling broke into the apartment of 17-year-old university freshmen Sonja Larson and Christina Powell. They were found mutilated and stabbed to death. He had raped both women, one after she was dead. "

Did he deserve it? Probably. Should we have done it? No! Death solves nothing.

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy: "Holy shit!"

C (age five): "What does "holy" mean?"

.

The world less traveled...

Welcome to Info-Scape, EAI Consulting with a Difference!

A sad little epitaph to a man who lived in a fantasy world of encoded purity. To Bruce.

Martin, maintain the site please.

"(c) 2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005 Copyright Info-Scape Ltd., All rights reserved"

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, what happens if there is no God anywhere?"

- C (age 5)

.

The only way to stop this...

My Way - News - News Home: "A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three people before committing suicide."

The only way to stop this is to stop publicizing it when it happens. When you have nothing to lose, then fame is free.

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

There is no such thing as safety.

My Way News - Milk Driver Kills 3 at Amish Schoolhouse: "A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday"

Effortless.

"In much the same way they did at Texas three weeks ago, the Buckeyes made their 38-17 victory over No. 13 Iowa look so effortless they might as well have been playing it in a library."

Sports Illustrated Online

Life Conclusions

Nothing angers a woman so much as showing her how womanly she is.

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, my name needs a 'w'."

- Chloe (age five)

Times employee arrested in sting�-�Metropolitan�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Times employee arrested in sting�-�Metropolitan�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper: "Randall Casseday, 53, was arrested at 9:45 p.m. yesterday in the 1300 block of Brentwood Road NE, where police said he had arranged to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old girl. "

What is it about conservatives and kids?

Those crazy Thais!

My Way News: "'It is not appropriate to entertain soldiers while they are on duty,' Colonel Acra Tiprote told Reuters after a troupe of 10 women in tight camouflage vests and shorts posed with soldiers and tanks while making a music video."

In the news: A projector the size of a sugar cube ! ?

ScienceDaily: A Projector The Size Of A Sugar Cube: "No larger than a sugar cube, a new video projector is ready to use at all times."

Science - making the world a much more consultant-friendly place!

Kids say the darndest things!

"I really like autumn when the wind comes and makes clouds come out of my mouth."

- C (age five)

Those crazy Brits!

My Way News: "A large number of Britons would be prepared to give up sex if it meant they would live to be 100, according to a survey Friday."

Great lies in history...

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."
- Bill Clinton

"It least I tried [to get Bin Laden]. I tried and failed."
- Bill Clinton

YouTube - Bill Clinton Freaks Out

As inspired as I was by his 2004 DNC speech, this really takes the cake. He's brilliant alright...but he's not honest.

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Kids say the darndest things!

"Hey guess what! At school I get to hammer nails and stuff! And you don't because you have to work all the time."

- C (age five)

.

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, why are you just standing there? Jump around or do cartwheels or something."

- C (age five)

.

Young Conservative | Blogshares

Free Thinker Slaves in the top 100 conservative blogshares. Woo!

Young Conservative | Blogshares: "Top 100 Incoming Links

This is a list of the most valuable incoming links at the time OTHER blogs are indexed. It is indicative of FUTURE value not CURRENT value.

1. Part-Time Pundit (B$1,340.59)
2. Joe's Journal (B$443.10)
3. Pajama Jihad (B$431.27)
4. Apologies Demanded (B$287.23)
5. Hip Hop Republicans (B$256.98)
6. Conservative Rebel (B$236.25)
7. From the Bleachers (B$206.29)
8. The UrbaneR (B$187.08)
9. Condi for Prez (B$183.33)
10. Stix Blog (B$182.35)
11. The Neo Con Blogger(TM) (B$165.66)
12. Starting Over...Again (B$162.43)
13. Brain Shavings (B$137.64)
14. Imaginary Conversations and Random Thoughts (B$133.46)
15. Raging Right Wing Republican (B$128.85)
16. OKIE on the LAM - In LA (B$125.18)
17. Free Thinker Slaves (B$119.83)"

Wow - people actually read this!

Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog: Reviewing Anne Rice: "Free Thinker Slaves addresses Rice's essay at some length. A small excerpt:"

Catholic World News (CWN)

Text of the Pope's speech at the University of Regensburg, in which he quotes the writings of Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus: "...he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.

"God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...."

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature."

- Pope Benedict XVI

This is the power and weakness of the global electronic media that only the quoted text, and not the context, is spread around the world. I wonder how many will die because of this selective sensationalism?

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Library List

The Yacoubian Building
by Alaa Al Aswany

Library List

Programming the Universe
by Seth Lloyd

Quotable Quotes

"When Franklin Roosevelt vowed to defeat two enemies across two oceans, he could not have foreseen D-Day and Iwo Jima. But, he would not have been surprised at the outcome."

- George W Bush, President of the United States

Final Analysis

OSU: 24
UT: 7

Case closed...

Hat tip for stealing my idea months before I had it :-), The Shadow

They only missed one...


Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Simply Unbelievable...

Great Lies in History:

May 17, 1933: "The German Government wish to settle all difficult questions with other Governments by peaceful methods . . . Germany will tread no other path than that laid down by the Treaties . . . The German people have no thought of invading any country."

Nov 10, 1933: "I am not crazy enough to want a war."

Aug 17, 1934: "The German Government, like the German people, are filled with the unconditional wish to make the greatest possible contribution to the preservation of peace in this world."

May 21, 1935: "Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria, or to conclude an Anschluss [political union]"

Mar 15, 1936: "The German people do not wish to continue waging war to readjust frontiers. Each readjustment is bought by sacrifices out of proportion to what is to be gained."

Sep 26, 1938: "We have assured all our immediate neighbors of the integrity of their territory as far as Germany is concerned. That is no hollow phrase: it is our sacred will . . . The Sudetenland is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe . ."

Jan 1, 1939: "In general we have but one wish-- that in the coming years we may be able to make our contribution to this general pacification of the whole world."

Jan 30, 1939: "Only the war-mongers think there will be a war. I think there will be a long period of peace."

Apr 1, 1939: "(We) do not dream of attacking other nations, providing they leave us alone . . ."

- Adolph Hitler

Great Truths in History:

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow."

- Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 (NIV)

Xan Shui,
Philosophical Philanthropist, Honest Man

This is what will ultimately transform the middle east...

KRT Wire | 08/31/2006 | On the streets of Tehran, citizens fear becoming world pariah: "'Everyone's worried,' jeweler Bahram Mehraban said in his small Tehran storefront, contemplating the possibility of UN sanctions. 'Only the common people will be hurt. . . . All the important people here will have prepared and (will) still have a luxurious life.'"

Get the common people worried about having the latest SUV and the maniacs will have no sway.

Xan Shui
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

In the News...Lockheed Martin wins NASA "Moon" Contract

My Way News - Lockheed Martin Wins NASA Moon Contract: "If all goes well, the first test flight of Orion will be September 2014 and astronauts could return to the moon by late 2019 or 2020, NASA estimates."

Mark my words...we will not return men to the moon.

- Xan Shui
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, there's this girl in my three-year-old class who is really made to feel rejected."

- C, age 5, after her first day in Kindergarten

Kids say the darndest things!

C: "We're going to the store to get some bubblegum!"

Daddy: "Yeah, some bubblegum."

C: "And it's gonna be great big bubblegum!"

Daddy: "Yeah, great big bubblegum."

C: "HUGE bubblegum!"

Daddy: "Ha ha, yeah. HUGE bubblegum. The Hugest!"

C: "And it will NEVER lose its flavor!"

- C, age five after her first full day of kindergarten.

Alas, I am finally explained...

ScienceDaily: First 'Encyclopedia' Of Nuclear Receptors Reveals Organisms' Focus On Sex, Food: "Organisms thrive on sex and food, and so do their cells' receptors."

Funny, though, I don't write poems about USDA Prime...

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

All the hubbub about Careers and Marriage

Careers and Marriage - Forbes.com: "Guys: A word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career."

Ok, this article is brilliant in my opinion. First and foremost it did exactly what columns like this are supposed to do - get attention. So it was at least a journalistic success. Second, it is INTERESTING! What a courageous point of view to put in writing nowadays! Of course some are pissed. Growing up in this day and age they can't help but freak out when someone says something that isn't in the mainstream. And, like all FreeThinkerSlaves, they react with exactly what they are conditioned to think.

So anyway, enough rant. Here's my paraphrase of the message of this article in words that even FreeThinkerSlaves can probably accept:

"Don't marry a career woman - they might act just like you!"

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Those crazy Austrians!

"Give me the money now and I'll hold you up later."

My Way News: "A would-be robber was arrested after he tried to hold up his local town hall, mistaking it for a bank, Austrian police said Wednesday."

Those crazy Muslims!

My Way News: "Islamic clerics in eastern India have ruled that a woman divorced by her husband in a fit of drunkenness can remarry him only after she takes another husband for one day, police said Monday."

Tomorrow is August 22. Are you ready?

The big day is tomorrow!

Armageddon is tomorrow. Nervous?

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

And now their failure is complete...

The goal of the attack on the World Trade Center was to strike at the heart of western capitalism and to destroy the US economy. The attack galvanized the US against radical Islam and led directly to the loss of power of the Taliban and a vastly increased US presence in the heart of the middle east. The economy recovered to become even stronger than it was prior to the attacks and now we use the very attack itself to fuel the multi-billion dollar movie industry.

World Trade Center a surprise hit!

Fools.

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Kids say the darndest things!

"My gammaw likes me WAY too much!"

- C (last day of four)

Those crazy Chinese!

My Way News: "Stressed-out Chinese can now unleash pent-up anger at a bar that lets customers attack staff, smash glasses and generally make a ruckus"

Those crazy Germans!

A German scientist has been testing an "anti-stupidity" pill with encouraging results on mice and fruit flies, Bild newspaper reported Saturday.

My Way News

Kids say the darndest things!

Nanna: "Time to come out from the pool to rest, honey."

C: "Nanna, I can rest under water."

- C (age four)