The Atheist Bus Campaign, started by comedy writer Ariane Sherine (disclaimer or gratuitous name-dropping: we used to work at the same company. She's got a wicked sense of humor), has done remarkably well. The intent of the campaign is to buy advertising on the side of London buses reading "There's probably no God. No stop worrying and enjoy your life."

To do this, they needed to raise £5,500 to buy the advertising. As of this writing, they've raised a whopping £109,294.83! This is fantastic news and it's a great way to stand up for freedom of thought.

A religious group named Alpha International seems to like this idea and they're also trying to buy signs for buses. However, they're thinking big. Rather than try to raise a paltry £5,500, they're going all out and asking for £100,000!

They've racked up £367 so far.

*snerk*

I remember one college class where we had to write an analysis of an article supporting a controversial social issue. At first, I thought it was a fine article as I agreed with the conclusion. My homework, though, was not to agree or disagree, but to analyze and it turns out that it really wasn't a very good article. It made unsubstantiated claims about history, referred to unnamed "studies" and it attacked opponents as "bigots" (which may be true, but isn't a justification for the premise). I figured that those in the class who opposed the issue would have a field day with this.

The next day, those who agree with the conclusion generally thought it was well-written. I expected this due to confirmation bias. What I didn't expect was that those who disagreed with the premise didn't attack the article at all. Not one. They attacked the conclusion. They were adamant about their opinions, but not one of them thought critically enough about the article to point out its flaws. All things considered, this was a perfect microcosm of politics.

So let's say you're watching TV and there's a major press conference on. An unknown (to you) political candidate, Bill Blatherson is asked about his views on abortion, gun control and gay marriage. As soon as you hear those answers, you probably already know two things:

• If he's a Republican or Democrat.¹
• If you're going to support him.

But what happens if they're talking about a school board voting procedures or adjusting zoning regulations to address home businesses needs? There's a good chance that you'll look for the (R) or the (D) next to the candidate's name. I do this myself and frankly, this is dangerous No political party has a monopoly on good ideas, but people are constantly looking at the (R) and (D) to determine if they support an idea. Everyone's made up their mind about abortion and gun control, but funding for a new sewage line? Let's see which political party supports it and then I'll tell you.

Two perfect examples: plenty of "conservatives" are strongly defending Sarah Palin despite the fact that she completely goes against McCain's strong argument that experience matters. Plenty of "liberals" are defending the nomination of Biden as Obama's vice presidential candidates despite this being completely at odds with Obama's repeated attacks against McCain based on McCain's tenure in Washington. People are lining up and taking sides regardless of truth and this has to stop.

To be perfectly fair, if you've gotten to the point that you tend to trust one political party over another, it's not a crime to defer to them over issues that you don't understand or care about. There's a reason we elect people we are supposed trust on the issues. However, if we get emotional and defensive about issues we don't understand (for example, very few people could begin to describe the background of the Israeli/Palestinian situation), then we're making a mistake by ceding our authority to someone else, but strongly defending positions we're ignorant of.

I think it's time that we stop talking about Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives or other things which "categorize" people politically. I've been part of the problem on this myself and I'm going to try and stop. This doesn't mean that I won't take swipes at stupid things politicians say and do, but I'm going to try and stop the categorization. Furthering the we/they mentality is throwing fuel on the fire. If you catch me doing this in the future, please call me on it!

1. For the Libertarians who cry foul, let's face it: the press doesn't give you major press conferences.

I highly recommend this video. At the first, it might sound "pro-liberal", though I suspect it's the speaker knowing he's speaking primarily to a liberal audience and he wants to hook them (a common technique in public speaking). In reality, the talk compares conservative and liberal values and explores their foundation and how both can contribute to the debate. If you would like to know more and help expand this knowledge, you can help with some of their surveys at yourmorals.org.


The speaker, Professor Jonathan Haidt, studies the psychological basis of morality in different cultures. It's a brilliant talk and I highly recommend you share it.

You know the feeling when the heavy box you're lifting turns out to be empty? I just had the mental equivalent of that.

Apparently Heinz had a mayonnaise commercial showing two men kissing. One of them is "the mum" and making sandwiches in the kitchen for the kids. The "not mum" man kisses the mum goodbye.

There is nothing even remotely interesting or original about this ad, aside from the two male parents. This is at least as provocative as if it was a 1960s ad showing interracial parents -- of course, now that I stop to think about it, maybe this still applies :( -- but that's enough for this to be an interesting advertisement.

What really made me mad, though, is that Heinz pulled the ad due to some complaints to Ofcom (they regulate British communications). OK, so some bigoted wingnuts complain about this. This makes me angry. Heinz just went ahead and pulled the ad rather than stand up for decency. This makes me angrier.

Then I notice that Ofcom has an "ex kids" restriction on the ad, meaning that it must not be shown near children's programming. OK, now my rage meter is pegging into the red. Kids aren't allowed to see men kissing? A happy family is verboten because we have bigots out there? Did some religious bastard at Ofcom manage to slip in his or her personal beliefs into Ofcom regulations? This seriously pisses me off. Have our societal values become so fucking warped and perverted that something as unimportant as gender is considered to be this big of a deal? Where the fuck are people's priorities?

Seems the "ex kids" restriction is because the ad portrays food "high in fat, salt and sugar."

Oh, that's OK then.

I can't stop laughing.

In the US in the 1960s, we fought a hard revolution. It wasn't a revolution in the sense that most people would understand it as there weren't really "sides" in a well-defined sense, but it was a revolution nonetheless. Battles were fought. People died. The political landscape was irrevocably altered. No one particular side got everything they wanted, but great strides were made to fix some of the worst grievances in US society.

Some people say too much changed. I say not enough changed.



What a depressing way to start the day.

While I often complain about how heavily the UK government spies on its own people, I also talk about emotions overriding reason and the fact that CCTV just plain doesn't work. Many British agree to trade their freedom for safety and wind up with less of both, but they pay more for the privilege.

What really pisses me off about this is that we know CCTV isn't very useful. Who's telling us this? The same people who are telling us we need CCTV, the UK government! The linked article from a couple of years ago reported on a study where the government admitted CCTV doesn't work. So the Lib-Dems recently applied under the British Freedom of Information Act to get a lot of crime and CCTV data and guess what? Seems CCTV cameras still don't reduce crime. From the article, it appears that Scotland Yard knows this but rather than admit that the government is wrong, they're trying to figure out how to make it right.

Unfortunately, it's not a battle we can win. All we need is one or two high profile cases solved with the help of CCTV and the public will beg the government to continue spying on them. Never mind that, in aggregate, this spying doesn't solve crime. Nobody in government pushing CCTV gives a damn about whether it works. They just don't want to lose face and admit they were wrong.

Meanwhile, wear a hat with a brim and keep your face down.

I realize not everyone will agree with me on this one, but here's more justification that liberty threatening software must be open source. People are winding up with felony convictions because poorly designed software is providing evidence against them in court.

This is a follow up to my earlier OnLamp blog entry on this topic.

So I've been doing a bit of reading about CCTV and crime rates. As it turns out, they're extremely expensive to implement, but since most Brits are willing to trade their freedoms for safety, it's a price they're willing to pay.

The problem is, study after study shows that CCTV often has little to no effect on crime rates and more effective measures, such as better lighting on dark streets, are much more cost effective. So Brits have happily been trading their freedoms for, um, not much.

Pwned!

At this point, some folks might claim that conviction rates could increase, but even the British Home Office isn't saying much about this though they crow about some areas which have lower crime rates after CCTV was installed (which raises the ol' "correlation/causation" question). I haven't found much decent information on this, but I suspect that there are so many crimes and so many CCTV cameras (around 4.3 million with more being added all the time) that trying to wade through all of that data means that it's mostly high profile crimes which get proper attention via CCTV -- and that's assuming you knew where the crime took place.

On the other hand, CCTV has led to the convictions of CCTV operators for spying on women in their flats and it turns out that this is not uncommon.

And in the "I'd laugh if I wasn't so horrified" department (well, I'm laughing anyway), Scotland is considering adding CCTV cameras to monitor their speed cameras.

Side note: are any of my British friends offended by my talking like this? I realize that me moving over here and ripping on your country could be rubbing some of you the wrong way, but I can't seem to help speaking out about civil liberties.

I realize that my previous inflammatory comments could do with some explaining. When I some people of being emotion-driven rather than rational, I realize that without the context of what I mean, that can sound pretty damned bad.

I linked to a coverage of survey results suggesting that 7 in 10 Brits would be happy to trade freedom for safety. They'll accept mandatory ID, police tapping people's phones for mere suspicion and letting their email and bank details be freely available to the government. Basically, the government sees that you're overdrawn by £32.47 and they have a powerful tool against terrorism.

Or not.

The problem.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

The solution.

Let the government watch you every second of every day because the government, fortunately, has the resources to do this. And they would never, ever abuse this privilege. Tony Blair will take care of that once the cash for peerage scandal dies down.

Anyone see a problem with that?

Here's a little analogy of the problem. Let's say that I'm programming a system which takes financial data and sends it through three computers before finally spitting out company reports.

                    +-------+   +-------+   +-------+
                    |       |   |       |   |       |
(Financial data) -->|   A   |-->|   B   |-->|   C   |--> (Company Reports)
                    |       |   |       |   |       |
                    +-------+   +-------+   +-------+

With me so far? Now what I'm about to explain happens every day, all over the planet. It's a major reasons why the software you buy is so buggy and full of security holes and crashes if you breathe on it funny.

Pam the programmer is picked by her big boss, Betty. She tells him "the reports coming out of 'C' are borked. Fix it now or get fired. Have a nice day."

So Pam looks and sees that sure enough, the reports are indeed borked. Maybe a column of numbers doesn't add up. Maybe the formatting is off. Whatever it is, she changes the code on 'C' and everyone's happy.

Except there's a problem. The bad code wasn't in 'C'. The bad code was in 'A'. Or maybe we were getting bad financial data. Pam, by putzing around with the end result, didn't solve anything. She put a band-aid on it and what's worse, she may even have thought she did the right thing. However, the bug is still there and waiting to manifest in other ways.

Would you trust a building contractor who tells you to just prop up your ceiling and doesn't notice the foundation of your home is crumbling? Would you trust a doctor who just throws drugs at you and doesn't bother to find out anything about your history? Would you want to turn the country into a police state without asking why we're seeing the problems we're seeing and trying to solve them? Apparently, 7 out of 10 people in Britain are quite happy with that.

I actually tried to go to work today. I made it halfway through before a coworker drove me home.

In other news (with sincere apologies to my British friends), 7 out of 10 people in Britain are spineless cowards. From the article:

The survey found seven in every 10 people think compulsory identity cards for all adults would be "a price worth paying" to reduce the threat of terrorism. Eight in 10 say the authorities should be able to tap the phones of people suspected of involvement in terrorism, open their mail and impose electronic tagging or home curfews.

What's worse, I suspect we have similar numbers in the US, but it horrifies me. The problem is summed up perfectly in a Bruce Schneier (a well-regarded security expert) article about CCTV cameras catching a murderer:

I can write essay after essay about the inefficacy of security cameras. I can talk about trade-offs, and the better ways to spend the money. I can cite statistics and experts and whatever I want. But -- used correctly -- stories like this one will do more to move public opinion than anything I can do.

Does it occur to any of them that rather than taking away their freedoms and allowing the government to spy on them 24/7 that maybe a wee bit of root cause analysis might be in order here? Few people seem to be interested in truly understanding the problems we face or determining what would truly bring the greatest good to society. It's all emotion, emotion, emotion.

Guess the answer before reading on.

Poll #876913 Orwell Lives!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 60

What's the most surveilled country in the world?

( How to control your population )

To kill or not to kill, that is the question.
Whether 'tis more profitable in the wallet
To declare war for outrageous reasons,
Or to take arms against a sea of Muslims,
And by killing, end them. To suffer peace
No more; and by a peace to say we end
The uncertainty of a thousand unspent freedoms
That man is heir to -- 'tis a consumption
Some politicians wish. To have peace,
And with peace, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For with peace what dreams may come,
When we have given over our liberties
Which must give us uncertainty. There's the vision
That makes security such an ephemeral thing.
For who would bear the danger and risks of dignity,
Th'leader's vision, the prophet's hope,
The pangs of yearning to be free, the law's concern,
The insolence of aspiration and the spurious
belief that sovereignty is worthwhile,
When he himself might suffer enlightenment,
By mere contemplation? Who would this uncertainty bear,
To worry and to fret under a dangerous light,
But the dread of those we have provoked,
The unknown humans who provoke us in turn,
And no reconciliation will be returned,
And makes us bear the hate we have,
Rather than to acknowledge the heart of others?
Thus conscience does make fools of us all,
And the stalwart cry of resolution,
Covers over the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of loudness and action
With this regard turn morality aside,
And lose the name of decency.

Note: my opinions on "left" and "right" are based primarily on my interpretation of their origins. However, I realize this is an issue which many people have strong disagreements over and that's OK. Hell, you could define government controlled economies as right wing, as far as I'm concerned. What follows is my interpretation of the definition of "wingedness", if you will. If you object to my characterization of Democrats as right wing, do so in the context of my definition. If you just attack the definition, it quickly becomes a pointless argument which no one can ever win since so many disagree.

Someone asked me online in to justify my assertion that the US Democrats are pretty far to the right and I thought that was a pretty fair question. To understand it, though, requires understanding that the world is round. Their are other countries besides the US and in terms of simply US politics, the Democrats are definitely "left wing". Of course, Angelina Jolie (thank god Google Images "safe search" was off for that one!) is fat if all I have to compare her to is Twiggy. Sure, some people can point to the US Communist, Socialist, and Green parties as examples of more left-wing movements in America, but few vote for them and probably fewer even know what they really stand for. So for most Americans, all they really have to compare are Democrats and Republicans (with the odd Libertarian in there to stir the pot).

So let's take a look at what being left-wing is all about. First, we have to make it clear that it's generally used in too broad a context. You can loosely break left-wing down into two categories: authoritarian and economic tendencies. The term "left wing" derives from the fact that traditionally liberal French politicians sat to the left of the French president's chair in the late 1700s. Nobles and tended to sit on the right. Nobles and clergy also wanted more central control over the populace but they wanted their mercantile activities unfettered. They were also exempt from personal income taxes. No trade unions or minimum wages for them! Up with business, down with people, if you will. While people argue over the precise meaning today, I'll stick wth the traditional origins. Interestingly, this view of "left wing" and "right wing" (which I admit that not all share) means that the Libertarians are not an extreme right wing party like many feel. Instead, they are "right wing" on economic issues and "left wing" on social issues. (I generally agree on the latter but I'm moderate on the former.)

For authoritarian tendencies, perhaps the most famous central government was the former Soviet Union. The government controlled what you could say, what you could read, where you could go, where you could work, etc. In terms of authoritarian tendencies, the USSR was very right wing. However, in terms of economic tendencies, they had very strong central planning. This was a natural extension of their desire to exert authoritarian control and, paradoxically, central economic planning is considered very left wing because historically, the right wing French nobles wanted the government to stay out of their business. As a result, the terms "left wing" and "right wing" seem rather muddled in the minds of many. So being "left wing", historically, is to favor greater central control over business and lesser central control over people.

So how does that apply to the US? Regarding authoritarian tendencies, at first the Republicans seem fairly reasonable when they talk about "state's rights". Because we're generally free to pick up and move where we will in the US (obviously, there are often significant economic and social constraints there), the idea of state's rights seems good because each state can pick and choose how they want to run things and people can vote with their feet if the Diebold voting machine doesn't seem to help out. However, there's an interesting problem here. Want to lower your drinking age below 21? The Feds will take away your federal highway funds. Want to legalize marijuana? The Feds will come in and step on your forehead. Want to allow assisted suicide? The Feds will threaten to yank medical licenses and bring out the lawyers. Want to allow gay marriage? They're trying to outlaw that, too.

To many people, these are moral issues. When you want to allow people to decide for themselves what is and is not moral, suddenly, the Federal government is keen to exercise central control. And by "Feds", in this specific case, I mean Republicans. They're not so keen on state's rights if it offends their sense of morality. This desire for central control over the populace is historically very right wing. Ironically, many conservatives feel that the government has no right (ha!) to legislate these issues, so they tend to be further to the left than mainstream Republicans. However, the Christian Right has a strong influence over much of Republican politics, so many conservative Republicans who feel people should be allowed to make up their own minds have been marginalized. If they hadn't, my voting record would be far more balanced.

Unfortunately, as I'm sure many of you have noticed, the Democrats aren't terribly keen on showing a spine when it comes to moral issues, so when it comes to this form of right-wing central control, many say nothing or they outright support it. Thus, on authoritarian issues, many Democrats lean to the right (and notice I've not even brought up the issue of their support for the Patriot Acts). Mind you, on such "moral" issues, many countries in the world are right wing though there are notable exceptions such as Spain and the Netherlands.

As for economic issues, Republicans are traditionally viewed as favoring small government and less government interference in business. Businesses should be allowed to operate relatively unfettered by rules and regulations. Without discussing the relative merits of this position, I'll just point out that many who have left-wing economic tendencies favor ideas such as longer vacation hours, stronger unions, higher minimum wages, public regulation of public goods and even federal work programs and sometimes federal subsidies of business. It's a mixed bag and gets awfully confusing at times, but let's face it, the Republican party today is generally staunchly opposed to these (though most politicians of all stripes cheerfully support Federal business subsidies so they can brag to constituents about how good they are at bringing home the pork).

As for Democrats, they do struggle with some of these, but they don't try very hard. Union membership in the US is very low compared to many other countries. In much of Europe, yearly four-week government mandated vacations are the norm. I don't expect to see many Democrats standing up for that. There's been rampant deregulation in the US since the late 70s and the Democrats haven't tried very hard to stop that, either (anyone remember how successful deregulation was for the Savings and Loan industry -- or which of the Bush family was heavily involved in that mess?). Real wages in terms of purchasing power have dropped dramatically. In fact, the New York Times reports:

As a result [of median hourly wage for American workers dropping], wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as "the golden era of profitability".

"Lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product" loosely means "you have to work longer hours for the same benefit". The Democrats aren't doing too much about this, either, while the Republicans are crowing about how well businesses are doing. (Hmm, aren't most business comprised of people? Won't people still be here if big corporations go away? Which should be a priority? I report -- you decide.)

Now all you have to do is conduct a brief survey of how other countries in the world are handling issues like this and you'll see that while central control over the populace seems to be widely varying -- we do better than some, worse than others -- central control over the economy is an area where both Republicans and Democrats are extremely right wing. Where are your four-week vacations? Where is your guaranteed medical care? Where are your trade unions? What's your government doing to curb corporate pollution?

To be fair, you can pull out a bunch of countries to dispute anything I mention here. However, it's not fair to compare us to Rwanda or Somalia. Trying to compare a mature, stable country with an immature stable country is simply a straw man. But when you compare us to, say, many European nations -- nations which have both stable economies and governments -- we lag far behind in many ways. (This is the point where people will happily drag out isolated bits of information to "prove" me wrong rather than looking at the overall situation).

So in absolute terms, going by the origins of the term "left wing", Democrats aren't very left wing. In relative terms, so long as that relation is to many countries with both stable governments and economies, the Democrats still aren't very left wing. However, the situation still isn't that cut and dried.

In the US, the media still has great freedom to print whatever they will. However, in this area of greater and greater media concentration, many news outlets appear to be driven more by profits than the public interest. Anyone else remember when radio and TV stations were legally required to offer news and present balanced viewpoints? That disappeared with the 1987 elimination of the Fairness Doctrine. (Rush Limbaugh, of course, felt that those who supported the Fairness Doctrine were part of a conspiracy to "Hush Rush".) This, combined with media concentration, has allowed "news" channels like Fox News to dominate the airwaves. The Federal government, by exercising less control over the public good of the airwaves, has, without mandating it, allowed mega-corporations to decide much of what we see and here. This is not official censorship, but it does change the quality of the news in a way that many don't feel comfortable with.

In terms of personal freedom from government coercion, it's a mixed bag. We're no longer thrown in jail for sympathizing with Communists and, to be completely fair to the current administration, they don't throw you in jail for sympathizing with terrorists -- they just listen in on your phone calls and tell you that you can't board airplanes. However, while we're usually not thrown in jail for engaging in homosexual acts (is that still a possibility somewhere?), the government is still denying many gay people the basic rights that straight people have. I could cite many similar examples, but it does seem that for every inch we gain, authoritarian control tries to gain an inch somewhere else. However, on the issue of personal freedom, we've definitely been winning the last few decades, but the last few years have seen that drag to a halt and even a reversal in some ways. In left wing economic terms, though, we've skewed far to the right of where we were.

There's a hell of a lot more I could write and I know many things presented above are incomplete, it gives you a good start on why I feel the US Democrats are pretty far to the right (especially in terms of what I've experienced over here in Europe). Business reigns supreme in US politics, we still have no right to basic medical care, individual wages are falling and there are far fewer protections in place for US worker than for other mature economies (though we do a hell of a lot better than immature ones, but that's comparing apples to oranges). Until the Democrats find their voice and admit that silence is approval, they will remain firmly in the right wing of world politics despite appearing to be the left wing of US politics.

And just to hammer the point, home, take a look at Bill Clinton.

• He supported NAFTA
• He supported "don't ask/don't tell"
• He supported the "Defense of Marriage" act.
• He supported dismantling much of the Federal Welfare system
• Allowed drilling for oil on Federal lands.
• Allowed the timber industry to clear-cut some old-growth forests.
• In 1997, he signed a budget which slashed billions from Medicare and Medicaid.
• He slashed government spending.
• His "reinventing OSHA" plan meant that OSHA did far fewer business inspections.
• In 1999, he supported deregulation of much of the US banking system.
• He worked with Gingrich to support deregulation of the energy industry

Those are a small sampling of his activities and many of those those actions (and I support more than one of them -- though the context of them is often convoluted, so be wary of what I say) are ones which many right wing Republicans would be proud to have on their resume. And let's face it, if Clinton could run for a third term, he'd probably win, though why the Republicans hated him, I'm at a loss.

So that's enough for one evening. You can decide for yourselves how "left wing" the Democrats are.

There is a terrible irony in the fact that many ancestors of Americans fled to the new world to escape religious persecution yet their descendants are still fighting the same battle. When I was growing up, I was a Christian. Today, it seems that all you have to do is say "I'm a Christian" and whether or not you follow the tenets of Christianity is almost irrelevant. There are many good, decent Christians out there. However, in the crisis the US faces today, they've been largely silent. I firmly believe that silence is agreement, so when the Christian Taliban tries to take over our political process and the masses of Christians remain silent, I blame most US Christians for this evil.

The following is presented with the view of Christianity I held when I was a Christian. Much of the following is just from memory, so my apologies if I get little bits of it wrong.

( Modern Christian Hypocricy! )

Probably the most memorable thing said to me in my weekend trip to Scotland was a gentleman saying "I like your cock". He was instantly horrified by what he said, but in the context of the conversation, it was a perfectly innocent comment. However, it's so delicious that I refuse to explain the circumstances. Don't ask because I won't tell.

When my friend Paul invited me along to his weekend trip to Scotland, I was only too happy to accept. However, I confess that I felt a bit odd about it. You see, though I was born in Texas, I was conceived in Scotland. Had my mother not had to leave the country under circumstances I've heard at least three contradictory versions of, I would have been born there. I'm not the sort to attach any mystical import to such an event, but it weighs on my mind all the same. I felt like I was going home, in some nonsensical fashion.

The drive, not surprisingly, was beautiful. This is a rather common sight in the English midlands.

( Many more pictures )

This might seem to be about World of Warcraft, but it's not, so bear with me. It's worth reading and thinking about the implications.

If you're not familiar with the game "World of Warcraft", it's a massive online world with over 6 million players, divided across many servers. The server I play on (rather sporadically, I might add), is named "Twisting Nether". I'm in a guild named "Disposable Hero" (if you know how much I like Michael Franti and you know his first group, I can assure you that the name is merely a pleasant coincidence).

The guild leader of Disposable Hero is named Kahierden. He's 17 years old, but there's only one other thing I really know about him. More on that in a moment.

Kahierden built Disposable Hero into a friendly, decent sized guild. He helps out other players who are less experienced, he helped us avoid a rather unpleasant guild takeover and is generally a nice guy. I chatted with him about politics, life, and other things and came away thinking "this is a nice guy". In fact, while I don't know him well, it's safe to say that, oddly enough, I think of him as a friend.

There's just one little problem. I really should have written about him in the past tense. Kahierden had a heart murmur and would often be gone in the hospital for days at a time. A few months ago, he went into the hospital and never came out. He knew he was dying and before he went, he gave his brother his username and password so that his brother could log on and transfer control over the guild to another player named Slyniti. He was dying but he wanted to make sure his online friends were taken care of.

After he died, we didn't know what to do. It's not as if we could attend his funeral. We considered him a friend and our guild leader, but we didn't know who he was. In game, we got together and had a moment of silence for him. This is probably one of the most unsettling things I've encountered, but how else do we honor his memory? One can say "it's only a game", but Kahierden was a real person.

This is going to be more and more common. As more people start transferring parts of their lives to online worlds, they're going to be making friends in a way that society isn't used to. Many of us today have real and virtual friends. What do we do when a virtual friend passes away, particularly one who so many people know and like? It would be unfair to say that I felt true grief over his passing, but I'm disturbed by this nonetheless.

I suppose some folks are going to think "get away from the damned computer", but that's like shoveling the ocean back with a fork. Even if I do it, millions of others are not and we'll see and hear more about this all the time. Our world is changing and the future of the Internet is going to continue to change things in ways we can't even imagine.

Before we start today's class, boys and girls, let's watch a short video¹. Timmy, you're the class nerd, you get to set up the projector.

Good. Now that we've done that, children, turn to the person next to you and observe them. Did they laugh? Did the chuckle? Did they roll their eyes in disgust? If so, they're mocking God. Kill them.

Only kidding! Whoops. Little Timmy didn't get the joke. We'll all miss Sally.

Class, class, pay attention! We'll just tell Sally's parents that she fell down the stairs or something.

Now, if the child next to you watched the video with rapt attention and was nodding along in agreement, now you should kill them. It would be doing a them kindness. These children are gullible and will grow up to lead pathetic lives, agreeing to any stupid thing they hear, so long as it reinforces their beliefs. (Wow. Little Timmy sure can run, can't he?)

For tomorrow's class, children, we're going to take a field trip. We're going to find the guy holding the banana and explain that God wants him to die. I'm sure he'll enjoy our little joke. Before we kill, though, we need to give him a bit of history lesson. You see, the banana the bad man was gripping so lovingly is not a "wild banana". It's a "Cavendish" banana, a banana which has been carefully bred for centuries to have the characteristics the bad man attributed to God.

In fact, the original banana was a small, finger-sized fruit with large seeds. Humans made what that guy was holding.

1. Once you see this video, you might assume that it's satire mocking typical creationist idiocy with a splash of homoerotic humor tossed in for fun. It's not. Instead, it's part of a program of half-truths and distortions cooked up to push the Christian faith.

Dear Brits,

Ever since I've moved over to your lovely country, I've been quite stymied by a little problem which burns in the back of my brain. You see, I don't think George Bush is evil. His actions certainly are, but he's not. Why? Because George Bush is too stupid to understand what's going on. Remember when he attended a photo op to read "My Pet Goat" to children, America was attacked and he was too stupid to realize that it was time to put the book down and get to work? He had to be told by his aides to do that. Of course, we all know plenty of other examples, but the point I want to make is that George Bush is a carefully-planted idiot designed to appeal to the anti-intellectual sentiment storming the US. I have trouble crediting him with being evil if he's too stupid to know he's a puppet.

That's not the little problem that's been bugging me, though. You see, whatever you might say about Vice President Tony Blair, this man is not stupid. I've listened to him speak. He's articulate, thoughtful, and clearly is paying attention to what's going on in the world around him. Yes, you're getting my implication. Your Vice President (hey, you guys coined that term yourself!) is evil. He knows what he's doing and he doesn't care. Personally, I doubt he thinks he's evil. I'm sure Adolf Hitler prided himself on his being a vegetarian. However, Blair's a dangerous evil because he seems like an intelligent, thoughtful, nice guy. An intelligent, thoughtful, nice guy who kills people. Maybe he didn't pull the trigger directly, but if I hire someone to kill someone else, I'm just as culpable. This is what's bothering me. Why the hell are you so complacent about this man? In the US, there's not much which can be done to end Bush's reign of (t)error. If you were to start demanding that your government representatives, er, represent you, then it should be far easier to fire Blair's incompetent ass. Or maybe you like the fact that you're rich and alive and you don't care much about dead brown people several countries away? I guess Brits and Americans have more in common that I thought.

To prove how intelligent, yet evil Blair is, let's just consider how he screwed John Prescott. Just a quick review for those following along at home:

1. An Israeli soldier gets kidnapped by a terrorist group.
2. Israel invades another country, bombs UN Peacekeepers, is still killing civilians, refuses to listen to the international community begging them to back away from the brink, ignores their own promises for a ceasefire and generally seems to have forgotten that they are a lighter in a powderkeg and they keep flicking the thumbwheel.

I'm not saying Israel doesn't have a right to be mad, but please, if a "Hell's Angels" biker shoves me aside to get in a bar, I don't walk over and start pushing over his and his friend's bikes. Unlike the US President, I am not a fucking moron. (A note for neo-con wannabes: I'm not saying that the kidnapping is as minor as a shove. I'm saying that just because you've been wronged doesn't mean you shouldn't think through your response. But then, if you like the neo-cons, you're probably too thick to realize that, so I have to spell it out.)

Given how volatile this situation is, how many people are dying, and how the US and UK have lost virtually all trust of Muslim communities, Tony Blair is smart enough to know this situation must be delicately handled. After a considerable degree of inaction, for which he has been roundly criticized, Blair did the only thing he could do. He went on holiday, thus cementing his new relationship with Muslims worldwide.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the man who caught the keys Blair tossed is one John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister. MPs are revolting and demanding to be called back to parliament because someone has to do something. What's worse, these are Labour MPs, Tony Blair's own party. Mr. Prescott now has a bit of a problem. If he recalls the MPs, then that's giving the proverbial "up yours" to Mr. Blair, something many British people have been curiously apathetic about (see previous "dead brown people" comment). If he doesn't recall the MPs, further inaction will immediately take place. Meanwhile, Muslims might not know who their friends are, but they certainly know who their friend's aren't.

So regardless of how happy you may be with Blair on the domestic scene, on the International scene, he's an absolute disaster. And let's face it, you know he's just hanging on to beat Maggie's record since he wants something positive in the history books. Of course, we Americans think Britain's a great ally because Tony Blair does exactly what we tell him to do, but please, you're a hell of a lot closer to this mess than we are. When are you going to wake up and realize that bombing people into peace isn't the best strategy to mend fences? If a husband got mad at his wife, should he tell her he has to get even with her before they kissed and made up? And then should he proceed to get even with her several times over, telling her all the while that he'll "make up real soon now?" That's what Israel is doing and Tony Blair, probably lying on a beach in the Carribean wearing a wifebeater t-shirt and carrying a can of Budweiser is cheering them on. Hmm, maybe he's not so different from Bush after all.

Cheers,
Ovid

OK, I'm getting sick of it. I am getting so tired of having asinine discussions with people about economics that I've decided it's time to coin a new word.

Religionomics: the study of people whose economics are based on faith rather than observation.

( Money 24:24 "For there shall arise false Credits, and false profits ..." )

My first experience with socialized medicine was as a child. I was a military brat and if you were in the military, you'd sometimes be called upon to protect us from communism and socialism while enjoying the finest socialized medicine our taxes can buy. We never paid for medical treatment. We never paid for medications. If we needed medical attention, we received it, plain and simple. It wasn't always great, but then, as an adult who sometimes not had insurance and sometimes had virtually worthless insurance, I'd happily take the government's socialized medicine over none at all. When you can't get a prescription for antibiotics, much less afford to pay for them, you're pretty damned miserable.
( Socialized medicine under the microscope )