Flotsam and Jetsam (03-09-10)

I’ve been reexamining the 100 or so post drafts I’ve accumulated over the years. I once considered writing a piece arguing that the most important intellectual advance mankind has made in the past 5,000 years has been the discovery that there are no malevolent witches looking to cast curses on the innocent.

I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration so there’s no point making a full length post about it. Yet I can’t help but feel relieved to be a free from such a ubiquitous delusion that has inspired so much fear, hatred, and violence, over the millennia.

Flotsam and Jetsam (03-07-10)

I once planned to write a post called “How to Maintain Biblical Inerrancy in the Face of All Those Contradictions,” but I got distracted and forgot all I was going to say. Below is the content of the previously unposted draft.

Reestablish Context.

God wasn’t a societal reformer.

Prove it to me!

Only in the original manuscripts.

Covenental sleight of hand.

Might makes right.

Temporary refuge in liberalism.

God said it, I believe it, that settles it!

Mariana Musings (03-06-10)

Conservatism is people protecting the people that people need protecting from.

A Transhumanist’s “Imagine”

Imagine there’s no weakness
It’s easy if you try
No flaws to slow us
Our limit is the sky
Imagine former people
Enhanced cybernetically

Imagine there’s no cancer
It isn’t hard to do
No pathogens to slay us
And aging reversed too
Imagine all the people
Living eternally…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will take action

Imagine true abundance
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
We’re working on a plan
Imagine all the people
Filling every need…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will take action

Breaking Waves (02-25-10)

My Deviantart gallery has been updated. New additions include those fractals I mentioned the other day, my first iPhone wallpaper, and a bunch of “advice dog”-style memes. Ezrian Wiki has also recently received more attention, most of it not especially useful, but worth mentioning all the same.

Mariana Musings (02-25-10)

Vindication! I’ve long supported the idea of “sin taxes” on junk food to aid in our obesity epidemic. Now science has shown that such “sin taxes” do indeed work.

I’m Staying

That guy whose blog was taken down because he criticized a quack doctor has it back now. I’ve got my eyes on WordPress, though and another account at Blogger ready and waiting should they pull this kind of shit again.

I may be leaving WordPress

I’ve recently found out that WordPress has suspended the account of a fellow blogger for daring to criticize naturopathic pseudomedicine. If they don’t rectify their horrendous lack of judgment I’ll have to hunt me up a new host.

I have enjoyed my time as a WordPress blogger and have high hopes that they will correct their lapse in the good sense department, but I will not compromise my principles, and, if they cave into pressure from charlatans, I will leave. Of course, should worse come to worse, I would not be giving up blogging.

Breaking Waves (02-13-10)

I still haven’t uploaded all of those fractals I promised, but a couple are now up at my deviantART gallery. I’ve been trying to get some Ezrian Wiki related work done as well, but it’s slow going. I haven’t been very active at Wikipedia lately, either.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m just generally not being productive. I want to blog more, but the state of the world, and the US in particular sickens me and any examination of current events is just another unwanted source of stress in my life.

Breaking Waves (02-10-10)

My deviantART gallery is going to be updated tomorrow with 5 or 6 “new” fractal wallpapers that I made a while back and never got around to uploading. Most are pretty bleh, but one of them is among the best work I’ve ever done. I’m proud of that one. I’ve tried to make a few more since the time I made the soon-to-be-uploaded ones but couldn’t get anything I liked.

On a more upbeat note, I’ve decided that I’m going to be adapting my better wallpapers for iPhone. So, if you like iPhones and fractals, keep your eyes peeled.

Breaking Waves (02-09-10)

I’ve been doing a lot of work at Ezrian Wiki whenever I have a free moment to devote to it.

The Bought Sold Theory of Democratic Politics

If you want to understand the American political climate of recent decades, you should reflect on certain facts. Firstly, Democrats cannot enact liberal policy due to a conflict of interests at the core of the party. Democrats are typically wealthy individuals whose personal interests are best served by conservative policies who also run campaigns dependent on financing from right-leaning corporate donors.

Although purported to represent the more liberal half of America, were Democrats to actually advocate for liberal policy they would alienate their financiers while simultaneously undercutting their own personal interests. Since Democrats are bound to conservatism by their personal financial interests and dependence on corporate donors, they are unable to vigorously pursue any sort of liberal agenda around which to form an enthused, coherent base. This is an enormous problem in a two-party society where the only two political niches are “the leftist party” and “the rightist party”.

America for Sale

The Republican party, by contrast, is the assumed and explicit advocate of corporate interests. Since Republicans lack any conflict of interests they are ideologically free to saturate and manipulate our culture in the void left by the forcedly-timid Democrats. Since Republicans can speak with no opposition, political discourse has been steadily drifting rightward as Democrats are forced to nod their head a go along with the whatever program their personal benefactors-cum-political rivals come up with. Should they oppose the right, they would lose their corporate sponsorship and their own personal gravy trains.

The Bought and Sold Theory of Democratic Politics has robust explanatory power in other areas, too. Ever wonder why Barack Obama has been continually making concessions to a legislatively impotent mob who constantly accuse him of socialism, wanting to heard Christians into death camps, wanting to confiscate personal firearms, tacit support for terrorism, and wanting to euthanize the elderly while they run around with racist signs portraying him as an African witch doctor with a bone through his nose?

The answer isn’t that Obama is politically stupid or a closet right wing extremist; it’s just in his personal and political best financial interest to enable the political right now matter how vitriolic they get against him.

Verbal Pollution (02-08-10)

hotwu
If I had to choose between altering the certainty of both death and taxes, I would prefer to focus on taxes first.

Yup, the rightard would rather die than pay taxes.

Pearls of Wisdom (02-06-10)

Strangefate
I dream of a world where we could drop all the Randians off in a wilderness with nothing but their rugged independent spirits, a revolver, and a box of ammunition (the right to bear arms being the only part of the Constitution they hold sacred) and see just how quickly their Utopia arises. No roads, schools, city services, or any of that sissy big government stuff. No, just Real Men and Women with firearms and a desire to help only themselves.

I’d give the experiment a week tops before they’re all dead or fleeing back to real civilization. Libertarianism is a parasite that can’t actually survive without a functioning state to feed off of. Their philosophy boils down to opting out of any responsibility to the social contract, while still accepting all the goodies that stem from it.

Pearls of Wisdom (02-03-10)

ehj2
With the exceptions of Alexander and current day America, no country in history has executed Global War. How Rogue (even if potentially virtuous) do we have to be to be labelled Right? Do we now believe in beneficent princes?

Congress is K-Street, the Regulatory Agencies are captured, the executive President reserves the right to declare anyone in the world an illegal combatant and have them assassinated via flying robots or captured and tortured. We ignore international treaties and borrow $1Trillion/year from China and Japan to maintain a military infrastructure that covers the oceans and maintains a footprint in almost every other nation. The fact that we borrow the money is salient … Republican deficits don’t matter “because they defend America” … Democratic deficits are anathema because they are “socialist and betray our self reliance.”

In the marketplace of ideas, and with significant misdirection, Corporatism has won. The repeal of Glass-Steagall and the implementation of NAFTA in the last decades were not simply national statements of corporate power that didn’t solve national problems [...], but international declarations of the rights demanded by corporations and implemented by our Congress. Low taxes and Deregulation are the freedoms that benefit international corporations, not nation states or the citizens that comprise them.

We are now past a tipping point. America (ironically a wealthy country) is purposively in debt so it can’t afford social capital (which includes infrastructure), and the population is so close to poverty it really can’t vote for increased taxes to correct the imbalances (people are persuaded they have to vote Republican to eat).