Finally...an Update

I didn't start my new job today as I was originally told; that date has been pushed back 2 weeks to 6 November. Tomorrow the waterpark will be closed because we're supposed to get hurricaned and they don't think people other than I would actually want to go to a waterpark that day. My computer has been delayed by the post office so it is not up and running at the moment as I had planned. Hopefully the stuff will arrive on Tuesday so I can start working. I made a midnight run to the store to buy Batman Begins and was able to get it a little early, but decided to hold out for the Deluxe edition instead. I guess that's a good update for the moment, I'll have more after the storm hits.

Need new computer

That's the only real thing that I'm working on at the moment. My computer has issues and I want to get something faster as mine is completely maxed out and the components are starting to show their age. My Barton has spent at least 95% of its life overclocked and most of that time running Seti@Home or some similar distributed computing program. I am now getting weird fatal errors on a regular basis that are hardware related; I reclocked my CPU to a much lower speed and most of them have gone away but they still happen. A windows reinstall didn't help much either. So I am building a new machine this week.

Here are the components that will be in it:
DFI LANparty UT SLI-DR mobo
$135.50 on ebay
I like the DFI's performance and the tons of extra features that it has, and it was a really good price with tons of accessories
AMD Venice 3000+ CPU
Price negligible
I've had one for months hoping to build a system and finally have a good excuse now.
ATI Radeon X600 Pro Video Card
$75 on ebay
I like ATI stuff, it interfaces with my HD card, I needed a PCI-express card, wanted at least 256MB of RAM, and the price was right
Maxtor 200GB HD (ATA133 with 16MB cache)
Pulling it from my Barton system, its performance isn't bad and it's available
Generic 1GB RAM (2x512)
Pulled from my old system, stressed tested it in another machine to make sure it's good, overclocks well
ATI HD Wonder card
Isn't going to be available for long as it does its job too well and studios are suing to make it extinct
LiteOn 12x DVD/RW drive
Pulled from Barton, works well

Out of pocket this transitional system is fairly cheap and should perform well. The first components to be upgraded will be the RAM, followed by the harddrive, then the Vid card. That should hold me over until I need dual layer DVD burning capabilities or a dual core CPU. It will be running WinXP Pro w/i SP2 and Office2003 Pro.

I'll have Florida updates up within the week but I've been kinda busy lately and start my new job on Sunday.

EULA for Life

Many of you will notice that I haven't posted anything about life out east yet, and that isn't going to change today. I did, however, find a great link from INQ that I am ripping off now. Stay tuned for a real update in the very near future.

PLEASE READ this end-user license agreement ("EULA") carefully. By being born, you agree to be bound by the terms of this EULA. If you do not agree, do not exit womb and, if applicable, return to the place of conception for a full refund.

1. GENERAL. This EULA is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or an entity) and the scientific or religious establishment of your choice (“God”). This EULA governs your Life, which includes all seconds from the time you are born until you are legally pronounced dead (. This EULA also governs the container supplied with your Life ("Body") and any support services ("miracles") relating to Life except as may be included in another agreement between you and God. An amendment or addendum to this EULA may be presented to you by your retail suppliers ("Parents").

2. THE PARENT PROGRAM. All complaints and technical support requests should be addressed to your Parents, who may or may not, depending on the subscription level you have elected, offer you additional warranties. Parents are third-party components, and not subject to warranties under this EULA. God is not liable for the quality, competence, character, number, gender, species, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or presence/absence of your Parents, or for the quality of the relationship between them, if any, and does not supply technical support for Parental units. Any Parent may be terminated or exchanged at any time without notice and without recourse.

3 CONSCIOUSNESS. To reduce piracy, God requires certain components to be activated. The license rights granted under this EULA are limited to the first five times you gain Consciousness ("Wake up") after you are Born unless you supply the information necessary to activate your Life. You may also need to reactivate your Life if you modify your Body or alter your Consciousness. God will not collect any personally identifiable information from your DNA during the activation process without your consent.

4. DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT. Content providers are using digital rights management technology to protect the integrity of their content so that their intellectual property, including copyright, in such content is not misappropriated. If your Brain's security has been compromised, content providers may request that God revoke your right to copy, display, and/or play protected content. Revocation does not alter your Brain's ability to access unprotected content, if any exists.

5. OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES. Your Life may not be shared or used concurrently among different Bodies.

6. YOU ALSO AGREE:

a. Not to remove or obscure any copyright, trademark or patent notices ("Birthmarks") that appear on the Body as delivered to you;

b. To indemnify, hold harmless, and defend God from and against any claims or lawsuits, including attorneys' fees, that arise or result from the use or distribution of the Life;

c. That God reserves all rights not expressly granted.

3. RESERVATION OF RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP. God reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this EULA. The Life is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws and treaties. God or Its suppliers own the title, copyright, and other intellectual property rights in the Life and in any derivative works produced by you during the course of your Life. The Life is licensed, not sold.

4. MEMORIES. You may make a single back-up copy of the Life. You may use one (1) back-up copy solely for your archival purposes and to reinstall the Life in the Body. Except as expressly provided in this EULA or by local law, you may not otherwise make copies of the Life, including the imprinted materials accompanying the Life. You may not loan, rent, lease, lend, or otherwise transfer the back-up copy to another user.

4. LIMITATIONS ON REVERSE ENGINEERING AND DISSASSEMBLY. You may not reverse engineer or disassemble the Life or the Body, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation. In some jurisdictions, genetic mutations that might lead to evolution are prohibited.

5. NOT FOR RESALE. Life may not be resold.

6. REINCARNATION. Life may not be reused.

6. NON-TRANSFERABLE. Life is non-transferable.

7. TERMINATION. Without prejudice to any other rights, God may terminate this EULA ("strike you dead") without notice if you fail to comply with the terms and conditions of this EULA. God also retains the right to reinstate your Life, either in whole or in part, after termination.

8. REPRODUCTION. You may not propagate without authority.

8. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, God and Its suppliers provide Life as is and with all faults, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and conditions, whether express, implied or statutory, including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose.

9. EXCLUSION OF INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL AND CERTAIN OTHER DAMAGES. In no event shall God be liable for any special, incidental, punitive, indirect, or consequential damages whatsoever arising out of or in any way related to the use of or inability to use the Life.

10. APPLICABLE LAW. this EULA is governed by Divine law. Depending where you are Born, some national and/or natural laws may also apply.

11. ENTIRE AGREEMENT; SEVERABILITY. This EULA (including any addendum or amendment to this EULA which is included with the Life) is the entire agreement between you and God.

Orlando

Yes, I live in Orlando now. It's a little different than Seattle. I'll have more for you when I get the time to write it, but now I'm going to bed.

Moving

I leave in 46 hours for my new job in Orlando. This will probably be my last post until I can rebuild my computer which will be dismantled about 10 minutes after I finish this post. I will spend the next 5 months living out of my backpack. At least there are more intelligent people in Florida than in Washington, and everything is cheaper since they don't have a state minimum wage. I'll be making less per hour there than I do here, but I'll be working a lot more and living and going to school for free. It's a trade off I'm willing to live with at the moment. I'll be spending next week with the family back in Mississippi so I might try to post while I'm there.

On a happy note, concealed weapons permits are much cheaper and easier to get in Florida, so maybe I'll be able to LEGALLY carry a gun on me now. I'll have to check with the boss to see if I'm allowed to do it @ work or if I should just keep my mouth shut and do it anyway.

Nothing New

It's been a month since my last post and there isn't much new to report. I've spent the last week cleaning out my garage, basement, and shed of all things that I don't want/need anymore. Last night I decided to have a binge movie watching party where we watched Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Shaolin Soccer. When everyone was gone I started reading "The Ezekiel Option" by Joel Rosenberg, the next thing I knew I was halfway through the book and the sun was beginning to rise in the east. Oh well, back to work with only a little time left.

And Now, Time for Something Completely Different

Now that Independence Day is over, I can finally take some time to relax. I was running a fireworks stand, which is a 24/7 job from the time the fireworks are delivered until the early morning of the 5th. Skyway is a tiny island in the middle of King County (which the governor is trying to have renamed for Martin Luther King Jr.) that still allows people to carry out the sacred, American tradition of lighting cheap, Chinese explosives in celebration of their country. Skyway is also considered to be the ghetto and where I lived for the week at my fireworks tent. For nighttime security, I brought my digital projector and watched movies on the side of the tent all night.

My dad just got back from his business trip to China, and brought a bunch of stuff home with him. He brought me back a new Rolex watch and DVDs of Revenge of the Sith and Batman Begins. Unfortunately Batman is in Chinese so I’ll have to put a new audio track on it before I can watch it. Owning a region free DVD player really comes in handy in these situations.

A friend of my grandma died a few weeks ago and I was hired to haul a bunch of her old furniture out of her apartment with my truck. I got a new couch and antique cabinet out of the deal as well as some old clocks painted with UnDark paint (which is radium based). My mom took a few random things that she liked and I’m going to haul the rest of the stuff to the Good Will in Seattle sometime later this week.

Finally, we have enough signatures to put the newly imposed 9.5¢ gas tax onto the ballot in November. This is the fastest Initiative to ever qualify in Washington, in 30 days, and gathered the 4th highest number of signatures ever for an Initiative with 420,518. The opponents to this Initiative say: “This initiative's signature-gathering campaign will exhibit the worst aspects of direct versus rep resentative democracy. It will urge a yes or no straw vote in place of the months of negotiation, compromise and balancing of diverse state interests that went into the lawmakers' package” because “Citizens shouldn't override well thought out legislative decisions.” These “interests” mainly include the unions who would benefit the greatest from some of the projects that would be paid for with the new tax money; and a dozen of the larger businesses in the state. The two largest multi-billion dollar projects that this money is allocated for haven’t even been designed yet; there is no estimates as to the actual costs involved, nor an estimated completion date for either of them, only that they will require further tax increases to fund and none of the other projects will be started until these two are completed.

Of the 200+ projects that would eventually be funded by this tax increase, the only one that I can see as urgent is the widening of I-405 between Renton and Kirkland. This project is ready to go at the moment, and about 5 years overdue, but it will not be started until 2013, assuming that all of the other projects are completed on time and on budget (a very rare thing). This is why I will be voting to repeal this new tax in November; no one knows exactly what they are getting for the money or when they’ll get it, they don’t know how much any of it is going to cost, and I’m just pissed off at the state right now; all good reasons for me to vote down the new tax that I’ll hopefully avoid paying before it gets repealed.

Articles for the Age of Reason

"WE, THE SENSIBLE CITIZENS of the United States, in an attempt to help people get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more needless riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great- grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt-ridden, deluded, and other bed-wetting morons. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so stupid that they require a Bill of NO Rights."

ARTICLE I: You do NOT have the right to a new car, big screen TV, fastest new computer, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but our government is not obligated to guarantee these luxuries. Live with an old car and a 13" B&W TV.

ARTICLE II: You do NOT have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone - not just you! You may leave the room, change the channel, express a different opinion, etc., but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III: You do NOT have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you independently wealthy because of your stupidity or lack of skill.

ARTICLE IV: You do NOT have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we have grown weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes!

ARTICLE V: You do NOT have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in our own health.

ARTICLE VI: You do NOT have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you sit in the electric chair for a short period of time.

ARTICLE VII: You do NOT have the right to anything that belongs to others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods, services, or money of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you STILL won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You do NOT have the right to any job regardless of your race, creed, sexual preference or religion. Take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful and self supportive. Don't expect a free ride from the government or your community.

ARTICLE IX: You do NOT have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness. Make your own happiness, don't sit there and wait for someone to hand it to you.

By Mitchell Kaye & Titus Carter

Your Contribution to the Spanish-American War

I received this from Glenn not too long ago, since I haven't had time to come up with anything new since finals week is always busy, this will have to do until I get bored enough to actually post something.
Here it is:

A hundred and seven years ago, in 1898, the federal government began levying a temporary 3 percent excise tax on telephones, ostensibly to fund the Spanish-American War.

Flash forward to 2005 -- and every American with a telephone is still paying this "temporary" tax. The war was over after just a few months, but the tax has been in effect for over a century. On top of that, the tax does not go for any specific purpose. Rather, the funds are simply added to the general fund.

Congress attempted to repeal the tax in 2000. Both the House and the Senate passed legislation to eliminate the tax -- it was a 420-2 vote in the House -- but then-President Bill Clinton vetoed the bill when it reached his desk.

Once again, the House has been presented with a bill -- H.R. 1898 -- that would repeal the tax on telephone and other communications services. The bill was introduced in late April by Rep. Gary G. Miller of California, and has been cosponsored by 39 other congressmen. It currently sits in the House Committee on Ways and Means.

The outrage?

This tax should have been repealed more than a century ago, but some members of Congress still support the tax -- and some even want to expand it. Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation issued an opinion in January, saying that the tax could be expanded to apply to wireless Internet and data connections.

Good Ol' Fashon Justice (follow up)

The two men responsible for defending their car will not be facing criminal charges for the death of the Edward Zanassi, who tried to steal their 1967 Camero. The county prosecutor also said that they may start treating auto theft as a crime and prosecute those who do it.

Mp3 Players

This is an almost final draft of my latest writing assignment for my English class, enjoy if you wish.

The music industry has centered on forms over the decades. The media has changed many times; from analog to digital, from LP to CD, it continues to evolve before our eyes. The current mutation is in the form of compressed files that reside on a computer hard drives. Wav, Mp3, Ogg, and Mid are everyday words in my circles, representing 4 of the dozens of music file formats that live in cyberspace. New technology allows us to carry these files with us in small devices wherever we go with ever increasing capacities. The Apple iPod has become one of the most visible and popular of the music players seen today. Ask a random group of people and most of them will probably tell you that iPod is the best music player available, but that is only because the advertisements tell them that.
Turn on the TV, read a magazine, look at billboards and you will see an ad for an iPod, you practically have to go out of your way to avoid one. Apple followed the lead of such companies as Rio and Creative by releasing their own player, the iPod, named in the same fashion as their iMac and iBook computers. They realized several years ago that digital music players were going to be the next hot consumer music medium, and they were right. Dumping millions of dollars into their marketing campaign has allowed them to seize a sizable portion of the market. Now, thanks to the total media saturation, when most people think digital music, they think iPod. Apple’s marketing executives have done their job very well; I hope they all retire as billionaires.
The most common form of digital music today is MPEG-I Layer 3 Audio, more commonly shortened to Mp3. This format was revolutionary upon its introduction to the world in the early 1990s. Before Mp3, when computer hard drives were measured in megabytes, it was inconceivable to store an entire CD on a computer much less an entire collection. Mp3 made it possible to store music files on a computer hard drive as the data files were as much as 20 times smaller without substantially hurting the sound quality. The seeds for the new music revolution had been planted.
It took until 1999 with the introduction of Napster.com to make Mp3 mainstream. People now realized that they could copy entire CDs onto their computer, and share them with others, while getting new music from all over the world for free. Many music artists embraced the new medium that allowed them to share their music with the entire world, without having to deal with the large record companies who would never sign them to a contract. The music industry took notice and sued Napster out of existence. They did this because people were stealing their music instead of paying for their songs. Napster and many of its successors are now gone, but the Mp3 craze has stuck to this day. Creative Audio, a company specializing in consumer audio equipment, decided to release a small digital player that would hold the downloaded music for people to play on the go. Unlike a CD player, these devices were small, never skipped a beat when moved, and lasted a very long time on a single battery. A handful of companies soon released their own Mp3 players, including Rio, Sony, and eventually Apple.
Apple’s iPod was not a landmark technology when it was released, but it did influence the evolution of today’s digital music players. It incorporated a new interface that had not been seen before and a sleek design. A tiny hard drive replaced the memory commonly found in an Mp3 player which allowed for an impressive five gigabytes of music storage; this was half of the storage space of the average desktop computer at the time. Apple marketed their new iPod niche as their Mac computers where it was quickly embraced by their loyal Mac users. The fad had been born.
It took more than a year for the iPod to be introduced into the mainstream market where it began picking up a dedicated user base that is growing even as I type this. The iPod has evolved through several newer generations and can hold as much as sixty gigabytes of music at this time. The sleek design graces countless ads and people everywhere sport their trademark white earphones. Go into any major electronics store and you will see a large display featuring the iPod and many accessories. From the media saturation, you would never know that any other model of Mp3 player existed. Today, the name “iPod” itself has come to be worth about $100 by itself; the average cost of having the Apple logo on your Mp3 player. If you want an Mp3 player with more features than an iPod, a simplified interface, or more music storage they are readily available. If the 14 hours of battery found in an iPod not enough for you, get something with 40 hours of juice. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the iPod is a very good Mp3 player even if it is the most expensive, but it is not the best available. The early pioneers of portable audio players are still developing and releasing new and improved players that are several steps ahead of the iPod in features and functions. Why don’t I see TV commercials and billboards being graced by the Creative Zen or the Rio Carbon players? I don’t see them because the companies would rather invest in new technology than advertisements. This is what will keep these companies alive after the iPod trend fades like the 8-track tape.
Apple has everything bet on their iPod at the moment, completely eclipsing their other product. The other Mp3 player manufacturers have several lines of audio devices on the market, Apple has one. I’ve tried to stay away from the huge, name brand fads because the better product is lurking closely in its shadow. With technology advancing at the fastest rate in history, being left behind is an easy feat no matter how advanced the technology is at the moment. The iPod will someday be surpassed by its nameless competitors just as the BetaMax tape player was replaced by the VHS system which has been replaced by the DVD, which will be replaced when something better comes along.

Good Ol' Fashon Justice

A man in Grahm tried to steal a 1967 Camaro Wednesday morning. He figured it would be an easy deal even if he got caught since car theft isn't generally prosecuted around here. He didn't count on being caught by the owner and his roommate who sent him to the hospital in critical condition. The would-be thief, Edward Zanassi, has a repeat criminal history including auto theft, identify theft, and drug charges. I say he had it coming.

Other sucky stuff

Now that they have effectively raised property taxes, they are milking more money out of me on top of that. The state legislature passed some fun tax bills. First, they repealed an initiative of the people which required a 2/3 vote of approval for all tax increases. Then they passed a 9.5 cent increase in the gas tax over the next 3 years. As of July 1 of this year, we will now have the second highest gas tax in the country, thirty-one cents on the state level, just a single cent behind New York. This will be remedied on January 1, 2006 when another 3 cent increase will take effect, giving us the highest gas tax in the country. I probably wouldn’t be complaining much if we had the best roads in the country, but there are places on the freeway where it isn’t safe to go the posted speed limit because the roads are about 10 years overdue for being resurfaced. 
The officials say that they need the tax money to fund such projects as their new light rail system. I have a serious problem with their current system; it doesn’t take people from where they are, to where they want to go. The current trains can take people from Everett to Seattle (about 30 miles) in an hour, with 2 stops in between. The budget analysis was just published in the paper; they spent $393 million on this system. The worst part about it is that there are about 160 people that ride the train on a daily basis. THAT COMES OUT TO $2.46 MILLION PER RIDER! Oh and the operating cost? It costs more than $300 per passenger in daily operating expenses to keep the two trains moving. If they are so hell-bent on taking 160 cars off of the road, they should buy these people small helicopters and train them how to use them, they would be saving tens of millions of dollars.
What is the official response to the low ridership? The idiots in charge are going to add another 400 passenger train to the existing two so that it is more convenient for those riding to have a slightly more flexible departure schedule. I’m guessing that that will only increase the operating costs 50% or so, but probably won’t increase the number of riders much. Someone seriously needs to look into this and consider filing criminal charges against those responsible.
The biggest problem is that Seattle residents aren’t fans of public transportation. The current system doesn’t take people from where they live or work to where they need to go. I could take the bus to school everyday instead of the 45 minutes I spend driving there, but it would require 2 transfers, waiting for the next buses to come, and it would take a little over 2 hours each way to get from my house to school. I don’t have an extra 2.5 hours every day to travel to and from school. I took a while on this post, which I don’t usually do, but I can submit it as a rough draft for an events paper I have in English class, so I’m technically doing homework at the moment. But I’ll post more later if I feel like it, whether or not you want to read it.

Taxes suck

Yesterday a special election was held to increase funding for the local hospital. Their emergency room resources have been seriously over extended for several years now because illegal Mexicans have been using it as a free clinic. The current law forbids the emergency room staff from turning anyone away to claims to have need. The increase would raise the hospital property tax to 59 cents per $1,000 assessed value of property. What they did not tell anyone; that I had to look up on my own is that the current property tax is 9 cents per $1,000 assessed value. Top that with the fact that assessed property values in my neighborhood are significantly higher than the market value of these properties. I’d expect the market value to decrease around here because the neighborhood is rapidly declining as the houses age and are not being properly maintained by their residents, many of whom don’t speak English or any understandable dialect.

Better luck next time...

Happy 4-19 everyone!

The Catholics now have a new pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI. My campeign for the papacy has been a rather small and unremarkable one, as less than 100 people knew that I was running. Since he's 78, I doubt he'll be breaking any records for longest serving popes. Now I have more time to setup my new campeign for being the next pope.

On a more important note, AMD is now shipping their 'Revision E' Hammer core processors which mean better overclocking with less heat. With the addition of SSE3 to the chips they may now show higher performance on applications taylored to the Pentium 4. And with the moble Turion64 chips being released as a strong contender to the Pentium M I am now considering buiding a laptop for my next system.

Wow School is Boring

I now have 9 hours of free time to kill at school every week now that the new quarter has started. I spend most of this time reading news online. I also study my quiz book during this time. Yesterday I was even so bored that I did homework. I eventually ran out of that to do, so I made up something to do. I didn't feel like making a cool post, so I am dedicating this post to TBQelite and Rebenstrange. I took their profile pictures and separated them. Here they are:

You can tell which is which because TBQelite was wearing his watch, while Rabenstrange doesn't wear watches.

On March 8, Senator Clinton gave a speech to the Kaiser Family Foundation on the media's influence on teens. Here's an excerpt that had to do with video games:

In the last four decades, the government and the public health community have amassed an impressive body of evidence identifying the impact of media violence on children. Since 1969, when President Johnson formed the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, the body of data has grown and grown and it leads to an unambiguous and virtually unanimous conclusion: media violence contributes to anxiety, desensitization, and increased aggression among children. When children are exposed to aggressive films, they behave more aggressively. And when no consequences are associated with the media aggression, children are even more likely to imitate the aggressive behavior.

Violent video games have similar effects. According to testimony by Craig Anderson before the Senate Commerce Committee in 2000, playing violent video games accounts for a 13 to 22% increase in teenagers' violent behavior.

Now we know about 92% of children and teenagers play some form of video games. And we know that nine out of ten of the top selling video games contain violence.

And so we know that left to their own devices, you have to keep upping the ante on violence because people do get desensitized and children are going to want more and more stimulation. And unfortunately in a free market like ours, what sells will become even more violent, and the companies will ratchet up the violence in order to increase ratings and sales figures. It is a little frustrating when we have this data that demonstrates there is a clear public health connection between exposure to violence and increased aggression that we have been as a society unable to come up with any adequate public health response.

So now we have to figure out why kids are getting dumber when it comes to differentiating fantasy from reality. Fifty years ago, cowboys and Indians were very popular on TV and kids watched gun battle after gun battle on TV. Back then, it was even acceptable for a student to bring a gun to school for show and tell. I can’t find a single instance of a school shooting in the news archives in the 50s. So I have my doubts that watching people shooting each other on TV is cause enough to go out and shoot someone else in real life.

Video game manufacturers are constantly making more violent games than ever before, that is a fact. It is also fact that it is a purely consumer driven industry. If people didn’t want to buy and play violent video games, there’s nothing forcing them to do so. I have my doubts that 90% of the thousands of video game titles contain violence, unless of course you count a tackle in football as violence or Mario jumping on a goomba's head. The real question they should be asking is not “Why are developers forcing violence upon the youth of the world?”, because they are not, but “Why do I like these games so much?” I like them because they are fun. More often than not I play racing, sport, and strategy games but I still like to sit down and shoot up everything in sight every once in a while. I don't think anyone would argue that shooting everyone in sight in Grand Theft Auto is not preferable to shooting people in a shopping mall.

Quote of the moment:
"The new Europe: Being a constant reminder why our ancestors left the Old Europe."

Long time no post!

Well it's definitely been too long since my last post. Do most of you reading this really care? Probably not. Since my last post several important things have happened in the world. I found out that I am listed in the acknowledgements of Claire Wolfe's newest book, The Freedom Outlaw's Handbook. My spring break started about 8 hours ago, and I plan to waste every second possible with totally random and cool stuff, not to mention catching up on a few month's worth of lost sleep. A bunch of students tormented another student beyond his breaking point; now a handful of people are dead. Bryan Suits is back on the radio in his rightful timeslot and I am happy for myself because I can listen to him 5 days a week again. A few other things that might be important also happened, but they are obviously not important enough for me to remember at the moment.

Quote of the moment:
I Solve My Problems Through Violence

I'm busy!

No I haven't posted anything interesting for a while, and no I don't see doing so in the next few days. I have too much work to do to post anything meaningful here right now. I have 4 papers due in the next 7 days and they all suck. I get to quiz this weekend for the first time in a year and a half so I've been studying for that as well. But I also have 2 tests this week that I should also be studying for. So for the last post I should be writing all week here is an anonymous quote that I found while cleaning out my junk mail folder:

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

The Horse Quiz

Thus says the survey.