Episode 1

Open Letter to the Marriage Conservatives

2009-12-09T14:54:00.001-08:00

As you're well aware no doubt tomorrow NJ legislature will be voting on the topic of Marriage Equality.

Now we already have Civil Unions in NJ. They're part of a half-measure that stinks of the 'separate but equal' bull the Black civil rights movement fought against in the late 1800's and early 1900's. It affords inferior legal rights de facto and serves only to reinforce the image of a culturally inferior demographic that homosexuals have struggled with.

Striking gender specificity from the definition of Marriage is the least evil solution. We make a bunch of gay and lesbian people happy and all us straight folks get to stay Married too. As an added bonus we enhance the parsimony of Marriage as it pertains to law and don't have to tread all over the cultural conditioning which prescribes such weight to 'being Married.' Plus we come one step closer to stomping out Bigotry. It's a win for humanity and evolution.

And for the record, reducing all non-religious Marriages to Civil Unions or some other form of psuedo-marriage discriminates against non-religious folks like myself.

If the logical argument doesn't work for you try the following Reductio Ad Hitlerum: The Nazis hated gay people too.

Fire in the Sky

2009-12-09T14:29:00.000-08:00

*sniff* *sniff* Is something burning?

This could be a lot of things. I'm going to go with 'plasma phenomenon' since a plasma filament in arc mode would exhibit both the traits of vorticity and luminosity (accounts compared it to the Aurora which is a well known plasma phenomenon). There does seem to have been a rocket involved. It doesn't seem plausible that a malfunctioning rocket would spin so as to produce such a perfect light-show nor that an ion trail from a spinning rocket would glow so intensely.

Predictably, most investigators will conclude that the rocket was the common cause of both the boost stage picture in the back and the spiraling light show.

The Missing Link

2009-12-08T11:43:00.000-08:00

Recently it came to my attention that the article on Wikipedia regarding the Electric Universe model had been deleted. I found this distressing and yet further evidence that Appeal to Popularity continues to dominate what is seen as valid information and what is dismissed as 'pseudoscience.' Nonetheless the lack of a Wikipedia presence is a minor setback and highlights one important point: There is no clear consensus view on just what constitutes the Electric Universe theory. I've watched the video put out by the Thunderbolts group and it still fails to present a solid cosmological model but rather relies heavily on covering the weakest points in the prevailing model. This is a shame because it gives the impression that EU theory orbits around Big Bang theory and that just makes it easier to ignore.

Self-Determination: The Crux of the Healthcare Debate

2009-09-09T14:22:00.001-07:00

It has occured to me rather recently that the crux of the healthcare debate has been lost. Popular media regarding this issue has been faught with distractions of the most ingenius and disingenuous variety. The word 'death panels' invokes visions of jackbooted Nazis and mentioning the word 'socialism' in mixed company is likely to result in a lot of culturally conditioned anger. People talk about the US as if it were built on Capitalism, but nothing in the Constitution specifically protects this oft misappropriated economic philosophy. If anything, the Constitution simply determines the separation of powers between the federal and state level governments in regulating commerce, but makes no direct assertion as to just what sort of commerce shall take place. Capitalism is no more American than nationalsim, racism or any of the other isms that have been tossed about recently like verbal apples of Eris.

Ultimately the central Crux of the healthcare debate, aside from the reforms and regulations proposed for the established institution, is the Public Option. Nothing has polarized the public quite as much as this one piece of the legislation. And what is it really? I'm sure you've heard all the arguments about it being the first step in a government takeover of healthcare. I won't say it's an impossibility, but that argument is based on the assumption that a Public Option would have the same motivations as private insurers, and that's just not the case.

Let us consider a bill without the Public Option. By themselves, reforms which force private companies to insure all comers would probably have a detrimental effect on health insurance as an industry. Take as an example New Jersey's "take all comers" auto insurance law. That legislation was originally enacted with the intent of combating discriminatory insurance pricing and forcing private insurers to extend insurance to all but the worst drivers. It ultimately had the effect of financially damaging many NJ insurance companies. When the law expired at the beginning of this year several NJ insurers stopped taking new business and petitioned to leave the state. In this case, a public Auto Insurance option might be a better answer. I don't believe health insurance is any different.

Ultimately it boils down to self-determination -- a freedom which this country _was_ in fact founded on. Right now poor people in the United States have two choices: pay an exorbitant price for health insurance and suffer, or go without and suffer. The idea of a Public Option merely takes the latter choice and replaces it with something more humanitarian by far. The idea that a Public and Private companies can't find an economic equillibrium strikes me a ridiculous. They don't compete for the same demographic assets, nor do they have the same basic motivations.

Is it Socialism? Yes. But what is Socialism other than Politics with a Conscience? Of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Morality v2.0

2008-04-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

So I have been trying to codify my feelings regarding right and wrong into a lexicon of sorts, partly for my own reference and partly to share with others. Here's what I've come up with so far.

Lee's (N) Commandmants

1) I Shall Not Access the Internet Unprotected.
Surfing the internet without a firewall and anti-virus protection (at minimum) is a very bad idea. There are millions of ways to have your computer hijacked or infected. Cyber-sexually Transmitted Diseases account for a good 90% of infections world-wide. I made that number up really but still, no Cyber-Condom means No facebook, filesharing or otherwise.

2) I Shall Not Engage in Activities Unfaithful to my Wife
Marriage is sacred and in it is an implicit desire for intimacy. Activities which spread out my sexual energies also dilute the power of the intimacy between myself and my partner. This is counter-productive to happiness and fullfillment.

3) I Shall Not Endanger or Cause Harm Others Unless Save To Prevent Harm To The Innocent
Kinda the martial artist's version of the hippocratic oath.

4) I Shall Not Steal From Those Who Cannot Afford the Loss
This is a general indictment of greed. I have no compunctions about stealing or pirating from major corporations or the extremely rich.

New Job, New Wages, New Responsibilities

2008-04-23T07:19:00.000-07:00

I honestly feel like I'm just barely keeping my head above water. I honestly wonder what level of experience they thought I had before I stepped into this job.

2008-03-30T09:18:00.000-07:00

My wife and I are currently going through season 2 of Star Trek: TNG and I must say that I had completely forgotten how wonderful the series was. Oh sure, I remembered my enjoyment of it as a feeling of pleasure at mention of the series but the memories of the episodes themselves had faded long ago.

To be fair season one was highly didactic in its scripting and dredged up the worst memories of the original series without nearly half the action. Still one has to admire the daring vision of the Federation. The idea of a future where mankind is free to pursue enlightenment and fullfillment without fear of daily privation is both wonderous and incredible to the modern observer. It is a paradise emphemeral, a dream that we as a species can only dare to aspire to. Power and responsibility in tandem as the norm. A truly awe inspiring vista.

Yet as I am on the subject, viewing it with an adult eye I can see the flaws more clearly. One of the greatest of these is Patrick Stewart. Now before someone crusifies me for that statement let me also add that Stewart is the series' greatest strength. The problem with having him on the show is that he is such a damn good actor that just about everyone else manages to look foolish when he's not there. This isn't to say he overbears the others, by no means is this the case. However when the man really gets going the spell he weaves is so enthralling that the next person to speak will inevitably let us down.

More reimpressions will follow, but for now I've a starship to catch.

Who Holds the Troof

2008-03-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

He is strong who holds the Troof. His name is great and wide. For soof tis de Troof.

Thunderain Insomnata

2008-03-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

Thunderain Insomnata

Lordy loo
Two-o'clock
Comes a knock
Lock the door
Speak no more
Let it roar
Toward the sea
Vocif'rously
Let it be
The dragons' lee
See arrayed
The thunder-lei
Bright as day
Says the rain
Speaking plain
Please insert a poetic device to continue...

To Lilith

2008-03-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

Dearest Lilith,

Our time as a pairing draws to an end I fear, Forgive any triteness in this missive but we humans are ultimately creatures of habit and intellectual slackards.by nature. To wit the matters of the heart are the greatest motivator for complacency of this order in a man -- so I will spare you tribulation and be brief.

O to be powerless in your grip has been long a sweet torment of mine. You once spake to me that you have loved me since I was but a tender thirteen cycles and first discovered I was a young man. We spent many long nights listening to the televised sounds of men and women in coitus, all the while you whispered to me of your love and devotion. With college and terrifying freedom came my imprisonment at your hands. Broadband and internet pornography were your tools of sweet seduction, the drug of choice with which I blissfully sunk into your arms and gave of myself daily.

Sadly I now know it to have been a lie. You never loved me, and I never loved you really. You were my captor and I a willing slave to your whims. Lilith, dear, forgive my sang-froid but its over. Live with it.

Never Always Perfect

2008-02-11T08:31:00.000-08:00

Perfection
A Neverist's Sojourn

Never always perfect,
Strumming to conceit,
Lead to play
In my own way
The cantus of defeat.

Always never perfect,
A sad and affair of state,
To suffer through
A point of view
Where lacking is my fate.

2008-02-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

So my stepson Jonathan is reading the first book in the Dark Tower series by the redoubtable Steven King entitled "Gunslinger." He has the mass market paperback edition in his hands and he leans over to me and points out that the foreward and introduction to the book occupies a full 19 pages of text. Crazy.

Bottoming Out

2008-01-28T14:10:00.000-08:00

I'm a wreck today, not sure why but I suspect it has to do with having no good way of coping with anxiety left to me. My wife and I sat down this weekend and had a frank discussion about my porn habit. I didn't really think it was that bad but somehow she managed to make the IDEA of porn so uncomfortable that I can't dwell on it mentally let alone watch it. Bleh. Blech!

Anyway this job isn't as bad as I sometimes represent, provided I don't allow my supervisors to walk all over my personal rights. Of course the low pay does nothing to recommend it and that in and of itself makes anythimng beyond my due dilligence frankly intolerable. Pins and needles in my brain.

So when do I get my big break? Maybe I should go into selling flowers on the street. At least it'll get me into the open air.

2008-01-28T14:00:00.001-08:00

--
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Movie Pre-review: Wanted

2007-11-26T07:20:00.001-08:00

Okay, so I saw a preview for this piece of hollywood garbage and I quickly found myself disgusted with it. I can safely say that, having read the original comic I detest the thouroughness with which hollywood has pureed the story and themes into conspiracy/action/scifi/morgan freeman/angelina jolee poop smoothy. Yes I said it and that's how strongly I feel about it. For one thing the idea of passing the Fraternity off as having some kind of balancing effect in the universe...what the hell is that? In the original comic the fraternity was an organization that existed solely because its members did whatever the hell they wanted and sometimes killed people for money. There was NOTHING heroic about the protagonist save that he was more of a bastard than the rest of his ilk and 10 times better. He raped, murdered, and stole whatever he felt like and enjoyed it. There was no morality, no ethics, no boundaries and that was the POINT. Wanted was like a Clockwork Orange without the part about being captured by the law.

Oh and Angelina as a supporting actress? The original femme fatale from Wanted was black and was a thief rather than an assassin. So yeah I know there are no black A-list actresses but can we please at least TRY to be true to original material? This movie could be called something completely different and I might respect it, but when the title and bits of the material look so similar and yet so cliched as to have copious bullet time sequences in just the preview I think I can put this on the list of movies I wouldn't buy even from the bargain bin.

Snow Day!

2007-11-19T14:00:00.000-08:00

It snowed like crazy this morning, and that got me thinking about the US economy of course. The entire practice of economics is like a grand snow job. It's one big, outrageous lie where the people behind the scenes are paid ridiculous amounts of money to invent reasons why they should be rich. I wish I could make tons of money selling something that I made up, but if I did it I'd probably be in fiction.

A Question for the Senator

2007-11-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

Recently we've been hearing a lot about Senator Clinton and the pre-written questions disseminated by her staffers amongst the audience in Iowa. Now as a general rule I refuse to watch anything from Senators Clinton or Obama unless I know a good laugh is in it. I wouldn't call myself a conservative but I'm definitely not a Democrat.

Frankly Hilary scares me...she's too slick. And Obama keeps talking about a "different kind of politics" and then goes and does the same things that every other candidate is doing -- like inviting a bunch of ringers from Illinois.

Anyway back to Hilary and her response to being confronted about the question plants.

SENATOR CLINTON: "Well, it was news to me. And neither I nor my campaign approve of that. And it will certainly not be tolerated."

What a wonderful precedent to set. This is called, 'blaming it on the guy below you.' It's an ancient tactic with a strong pedigree in dishonesty. I'm not surprised but certainly disappointed that Clinton would just outright lie about it. True telling the truth would be politically damaging to her platform but at the very least she would be able to say she was honest...without lying further.

So, Senator, a question then: By issuing such a blatant lie as damage control you must be assuming the voting populace of this country is full of pinheads. If that's the case, are you really interested in leading a nation of pinheads? And if we can't hold you accountable for the actions of your campaign staff to what level does your accountability extend?

Crappy Jobs

2007-11-12T11:05:00.001-08:00

Here's a question to all you folks out there who spend extraordinary amounts of time complaining about your jobs but then come up with excuse after excuse about why you can't get a new one...why?

Really why?

Bloomberg for President?

2007-11-08T04:38:00.000-08:00

It's actually not that far fetched an idea, Mayor Bloomberg as the 53rd President of the US. With the current Republican and Democratic platforms harkening back to outdated administrative approaches the time may be ripe for our first ever Independent President. Either way this means that 2008 will be a year of firsts. Will we have our first Italian American, Black American, Woman American or Independent American in office?

Gives me the shivers.

Podcasting

2007-11-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

This is the future of the video medium, no doubt about it.

Like video games, no one really has the time or the money to spend on things like movies which are ridiculously expensive and require a 1.5 - 2 hour time investment and even television is expanding to a 1 hour time block standard. A busy individual like myself doesn't have the free time to follow a series like Heroes or Survivor, shows that are ripe with annoying commercial blocks and that take up time I could be spending with my family or doing something constructive. Instead I can go stream a 5-10 minute podcast that is just as amusing and doesn't have nearly as much obtrusive advertising. On top of that I can catch the webisodes at my own pace and don't have to invest in a TiVo just so I can keep up with shows broadcast on a network schedule.

Indeed, the future is very efficiently entertaining.

A word on Net Neutrality from the Ask A Ninja guys.

2007-11-05T11:12:00.000-08:00

Let me start off by saying we love all of our friends and fans that we've made through Myspace.
But sometimes Myspace the company does some gross stuff that violates the spirit it was created under and the values of the Internet itself.

Over the last few months there has been a lot of debate over Net Neutrality, which basically boils down to one company blocking access to to another companies servers in order to gain a business advantage. This debate has usually focused on the companies that charge for bandwidth like AT&T, but recently Myspace has pioneered a new form -- blocking sites that users link to in their bulletins and profiles.

Right now if you link to anything at a site like "http://revver . com" (remove the spaces) Myspace will delete the link. Try it. That sucks right?

Revver is not the only site. There are dozens of smaller video and photo sharing sites that they are doing this to.

Why should you care?

Ask A Ninja was created because we were in control of where we posted the videos. That's a big deal because if we're forced to put them on MySpace video then FOX could take the episodes and make money off of them without paying Douglas or me anything. Which isn't fair and takes away the incentive to create cool shows for you to watch.

Why is this against Net Neutrality? Because videos from Myspace Video and Youtube are not effected. It's only these smaller, more innovative companies that haven't been sold for billions of dollars.

Here's what you can do:
Copy this bulletin. Repost it. Blog about it. Make Tom put up a little fix it bulletin saying he's sorry.

Once you've reposted this, send a message to Tom (http://myspace.com/tomanderson) like this (or even better, write your own):

I'm sending this message to request that MySpace stop blocking videos from sites like Revver. Choosing the video-sharing service that is right for me is very important and is why you built Myspace. What I like most about MySpace is that I can generally do what I want here. I like that Myspace is a relatively open platform where I can communicate with my friends (and promote my stuff) in all sorts of ways. I feel good about sharing videos from Revver because I know they respect copyright and look out for independent artists. Please bring back Revver!

For those of you who don't know Ask A Ninja feel free to check out askaninja.com. I guarantee it'll tickle your funny bone.

So I Misspelled Rhythm?

2007-11-05T06:10:00.000-08:00

Yeah, sure as corn is shucked. Was it on purpose? OF COURSE! Well okay so it was actually a careless mistake but frankly the cavalier part of me says that I don't make mistakes. It is mistaken of course but being dead wrong in this case isn't bad for my health so I'll humor it. To distinguish between rhythm (from the Greek) and rythmn (from the Lee) let us define the two more precisely.

Rhythm (n.)
1. Movement or variation characterized by the regular recurrence or alternation of different quantities or conditions: the rhythm of the tides.
2. The patterned, recurring alternations of contrasting elements of sound or speech.
3. The pattern of musical movement through time.

Rythmn (n.)
1. To wit, the driving force behind the pathos and bathos of life.
2. A reference to Ryth, an imaginary place where theory and reality collide regularly and dramatically.
3. An unpatterned pattern, also a pattern disrupted and deflowered by the harsh light of honest skepticism.

And so we have it, a new idea is born from accident. Fairly typical I'd say.

Just how wrong is wrong?

2007-11-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

Reproductive Mechanics is a very important field for both medical and sociological study, after all a good 50% or more of our time is tied up in either trying to get some or taking care of the nine-month product of that we have gotten. I propose therefore that all US colleges and universities immediately form a Reproductive Mechanics department to offer comprehensive multi-field analyses on how the act and desire for the act drive our economy, politics, collective sub-conscious and other social engines.

Of course this would involve admitting to ourselves that we are, at base, highly sexual creatures, and some of us are highly concerned that this is not a progressive line of thinking. To those of us who are still convinced that God did not intend for us to fuck like animals I invite you to consider Star Trek -- oft touted by fans as a seminal (har) vision of the future of man -- and the first question that crosses the average fan's mind when the crew of the USS Enterprise encounters a new alien species: "Where does it go?"

So is it wrong? Or Just Plain Wrong? Alien sex that is. Question of the day.

Get a jorb!

2007-10-29T06:57:00.000-07:00

So debt is slavery, in which case an allergy to unemployment would be slavery as well. I find myself in this line of work doing crap I have no real care for and occassionally getting an interesting challenge. I detest copiers, they're messy and annoying and produce all sorts of problems that I can't always fix. Copier tech seems to be about half-a-step above car mechanic -- also a job I don't care for.

I need to finish my resume and get into IT.

My CPU

2007-10-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

My CPU is struggling.
The HDD is sluggish and sometimes emits a distinct cyclic grinding.
And wherever my system memory is tied up it certainly isn't in anything beneficial.

I think I may have a virus today.
Wonder if I should call in sick...

Synchopated Rythmns: Lrod

2007-10-22T09:01:00.000-07:00

Lrod = The rythmn that just keeps on hurting.

Some days I just feel like I shouldn't have gotten out of bed. Take today for example. I get up at 6:00 AM, the baby has been giving me a hard time about sleeping all night and I didn't get to sleep until later due to some personal reasons that were admittedly quite fun. Still, sleep is king and as it turns out I'm one of the peasants today. So I crawl out of bed half-an-hour later than I wanted to and have to arrange for shower space in the tub cause Rachael's washing clothes in it.

Alright, fair is fair the clothes are getting clean and we aren't paying much for it so on a tight budget it's a damn good idea. So I shower clean after sitting on the toilet for some time (been getting weird bowelly stuff laterly) and then debate with myself before getting out clean and squeaky. The pie I ate for breakfast gave me heartburn (been getting that a lot too) and then I got delayed 30 minutes getting on 80 due to traffic from route 10.

So after all that I get to the hospital and wander around for almost an hour because I can't raise anyone on the nextel and we haven't been told where Ricoh would be. When I find the group I'm frustrated and stressed an then one of the techs has to be a smartass at me. Meanwhile I have no idea what's going on and I SWEAR I hear Bob Ruth and Rob Pomante cracking a joke at my expense (might be my imagination). So then Ralph calls me over and tells me that he needs me to go back and handle the machines that will be coming into the warehouse. Of course that's reasonable, but still it's frustrating.

So that's the story so far today. I've got about 50 machines to find space for in the warehouse and a bunch of counter pages to print. Great.

The Global Warming Question

2007-10-19T09:52:00.001-07:00

I don't know about anyone else but I am extremely tired of hearing about things like CO2 emissions and the greenhouse effect. I feel nauseous every time someone mentions the Kyoto accord or An Inconvinient Truth or Al Gore's peace prize (all respect to the man he deserves it for entirely different reasons than the subject of his recent works). Truly I don't see how the world has gotten to this point of selective ignorance, but I suppose we can blame society for it.

The source of my ire has less to do with the fact of global warming than its popular cause. My meaning there is two-fold as well; popular in the sense of culture and cause in the sense of effect. The popularity of the issue bothers me because hardly anyone listened 10 years ago when scientists first started documenting the temperature rise in global thermal sinks. Now, all of a sudden, it is both popular and thusly politic to be concerned with global warming -- though it is also assuredly futile.

And here is where we as a society are, barking like ravening eco-dogs up the tree of global emissions when in fact the problem lies in a wholy different forest. The mechanisms which power geo-themal production, weather systems and even gravity are poorly understood and currently accepted paradigm is based almost entirely of relational models...the problem with this being that drawing relationships from a flawed basic theory leads to flawed results (like multiplying by zero). The existence and observed behaviors of such things are global warming, gravity and weather are fact but our misunderstanding of their mechanics has lead to poor predictive results. This is especially amazing in the case of gravity because you'd think the simplicity of things falling would make it easy to explain. Instead we get explainations like mass warping space and dark energy/matter and other imaginative speculations.

Suffice to say, Global Warming IS happening, of that there is no doubt. The bad news (ha ha) is that there's jack we can do about it given our currently embraced theories on the topic. So for those of you in California, I'd start buying clothes for the Sarhara. Oh and here's a few predictions for you based on my personal Global Warming theory...

1) We will reduce CO2 emissions and the Earth will still continue to get hotter. It may seem to stabilize (temperature wise) for a decade or so and then will continue to climb.

2) Earthquakes...many more of them. Get used to it, they're tied to sunspot activity.

3) Tornados and Hurricanes + other severe weather effects will be more frequent and appear in places they're practically unheard of in.

4) Wildfires and hot burning building fires will also increase, these will be poorly explained at best.

5) The Aurora's will become more intense and last longer.

6) It will be harder and harder to get reliable cellphone reception.

Bon appetite!

Anti-narcissism

2007-10-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

In keeping a voice journal lately I have discovered just how much I dislike the sound of my own voice. It's not just that I don't like the tonality of my voice but I also don't like the method by which I speak. It's too slow, I say "Um" far more often than I'm comfortable with and I'm terrified of silences so I just keep speaking even if what I'm saying doesn't make sense. It bothers me. As if that wasn't bad enough I was playing back yesterday afternoon's entry in the car to listen for quality and I found myself falling asleep. I bored MYSELF to sleep. This simply won't stand! For the next several days I will be developing my speaking habits till I am satisfied with the sound of my own voice. I will start with the basics.

1) No speaking unless I have something pertinent to say.

2) No saying Um

3) Put more energy into my voice.

4) Try to speak more through the mouth than the nose.

5) Stop dragging out words to fill space.

I shall try following these rules and see where I get.

Feel the Rythmn...

2007-10-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

We live our lives at a rythmn, cycles within cycles that sometimes leave us feeling like we're really just catching life on the instant replay. The Q-Rythmn is an idea, the crux of which lies in examining that which is outside from or even anti-thetical to the frequency of this cycle. Explore and expand, that is the quintessential mandate of intelligence and to that end I intend to journey where I have never journied before. The Internet is invited for the ride. Seating is infinite but please mind the other passengers.