Cellojourney.com

Please visit this site and listen to the wonderful music this man has made. If you like what you hear, then "feature" his YouTube videos, drop him a comment, and donate a PayPal dollar to him.

It's things like this that make the internet worthwhile.

Separated at Birth?

Supreme Court Nominee Harriet Miers and Chancellor Palpatine

Darth Prefabicus

Like Anikan Skywalker, this blog turned to the Dark Side--by putting up google ads.

And like Anikan, the transition to said Dark Side destroyed the blogs old body, and in order to save it, its Sith Master (me) has left it encased in this pre-packaged, mechanical husk of a body--a pre-made blogger template.

Nevertheless, like Luke Skywalker (also played by me), I will soon redeem this blog from its current state into nicely looking, nice working blog again.

Kiyosaki's Killings in Real EstateA Snapshot, and Vidication, of "Rich Dad's" Portfolio

Mr. Suleske sent me this link about a critique of Robert Kiyosaki's and his teachings, of whom he and I are big fans. Robert Kiyosaki, the famous author of the Rich Dad series of books, is both famous and infamous in the world of financial advice. His books opened up for me and others a whole new world of looking at finance, with his thesis that you get rich by working smart, being creative and courageous, not just by working hard for the man. But there've been alot of rumors and complaint that his entire portfolio and life story have been made up, and that he's gets rich only by talking about getting rich. People allege that he never owned property where and when he said that he did.

These rumors are false. Any search of online title records show that he was a very savvy investor with a very diverse portfolio, who made very profitable and unorthodox real estate investments.

A snapshot of his feats can be found in the Maricopa County online real estate indexes through the early to mid 1990s. This period represents a transional period in his life, the apogee of his investment career and the start of his writing career, the years he wrote and published his first book, 5-7 years before Rich Dad. Kiyosaki says that he lived in Phoenix for several years and made several profitable investments. And how!

First, Kiyosaki made several purchases in Veteran Association ("VA") properties, apparently foreclosure sales. During 1992-93, Robert and Kim Kiyosaki bought five of these properties: this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one.

The VA also provided financing for this properties, and judging by that financing, they were a steal--between $40,061.00 and $52,468.00. I suspect, but cannot confirm, that Kiyosaki had to pay $4,000.00 to $5,200.00 down for each.

Then Kiyosaki finds inhabitants for the properties, and transacted what is known as an Installment Sales Contract ("ISK")1. Kiyosaki agrees to have the tenant/purchaser pay for the house in monthly installments. At the end of those installments, the purchaser/tenant owns the house. But if he doesn't make the installments, Kiyosaki has the right to kick him out (which, on occasion, he did!). In reality, the arrangement is little more than a rental situation, but it does afford the inhabitant some financial options and additional debtor's rights under the law. Think of it as a rent-to-own situation. (Note that this is a rather big-hearted thing for Kiyosaki to do; he's giving his tenants the opportunity to own their own home, instead of just renting them out, as is standard.)

An good example of the ups-and-downs of his investments is what transpired is his Casitas Bonitas property. It happened as follows

11/24/93--Kiyosaki buys and finances the property from the VA. It's safe to assume something like a 7.5%2, 30-year mortgage, payable in monthly installments of $368.00, plus taxes and other fees.

Between 11/92 and 5/15/95--He finds a tenant names Rose Benally. He makes an ISK with her to live in and purchase the house. The ISK provides for payments of $625.00/mo. Thus, Kiyosaki is earning about $257.00 a month on the deal. But Benally begins to default on the payments. Kiyosaki cancels the ISK and evicts her, and now has about $1,000.00 more in equity than 2.5 years ago.

Between 5/15/95 and 8/96--Kiyosaki licks his wounds and transfers the property to his holding company. He maybe went through another tenant or two, but finally makes another ISK with the Dennis and Elizabeth Lint. This time, Kiyosaki is getting $657.14/mo. Note however that now the house is pretty beat up: The pool pump isn't working, the air conditioning isn't working, and the kitchen stove is broken. Nevertheless, the payoff amount is $74,000.00. Much better than the initial cost. Kiyosaki has made anywhere from $15,000.00 to $20,000.00 from the deal, plus the spread his higher installment schedule compared to the mortgage he's paying down.

8/96 to present--There no more about this property, so we can assume that the condition has stabilized. Kiyosaki is now getting about $290.00 a month cashflow from the investment, which maybe necessitated a down payment of only $6,000.00 or so.

However, this deal was small potatoes for Kiyosaki by this time, much bigger was the office building/hotel he bought from the National Model Railroad Association for about $1,000,000.00 as the initial financing would indicate, then made $28,000.00 in a year when he cashed out the equity in a subsequent mortgage, not to mention whatever rental he was getting. (This may also have been his main offices at the time).

So Kiyosaki's for real! He's done exactly the kinds of deals, with exactly the kinds of peaks and valleys, that he talks about in his books. I wish those people who say that Kiyosaki's full of BS would check their facts first. The internet give no excuse for lack of information.


1 That's the standard legal abbreviation. Don't ask me why "kontract" is abbreviated with a "k">

2 The going interest rates in 11/1993 were around 7.08 to 7.31%.

__________

UPDATE: Greetings, visitors, from The Carnival of the Capitalists

The Second Most Dangerous Book Ever

Another Evangelical Outpost article on the world's most dangerous book got me to thinking about more deep philosophical issues. Hat tip again to Joe Carter for keeping me blogging and keeping me from sleeping.

The Bible is a little like Atlas Shrugged. the scenario of Atlas was that when energetic, intelligent and productive people are removed from society, the world becomes virtually hell-on-earth. The thesis of the Bible is that when an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent God departs from earth, the world becomes literally hell-on-earth.

Now Atlas and The Fountainhead are dangerous books! I've heard of people who've left careers, left spouses, left churches because of those books. But Atlas is the darkest and most negative, most dangerous if taken too literaly. In that sense, they're like the Meccan and Medinan verses of the Koran; the former extolling benevolence and human virtue, the latter wanted to see people destroyed who don't tow that line. People can make alot of mistakes when they fail to see the flaws behind her philosophy.

The dirty little secret of Atlas is this: Rand doesn't care that everyone dies and society shuts down--even if it effects relatively innocent parties. She does not think that other people--simply for being people--have any value to an individual, so that she should save them. To her, I would posit that if her housecat were about to jump out of the window of her high-rise apartment, for the selfish reasons of preserving the aesthetic beauty of the cat, and preventing the aesthetic uglyness of seeing it die, she would intervene to save it. If so, would not the aesthetic beauty of a human soul be worth saving, and the uglyness of its death be worth preventing?

Biblical agape love is appraising value to a human being because he is a human being, made in the image of God, and worth preserving. Such love is based just as much on rational self-interest as it is on God's commands.

The Postman Fails to Deliver

Over at The Evangelical Outpost, I criticize the worse "graduation speech" ever (not) given.

Due to Bar Review and a work situation from hell, I've gotten 2.5 hours of sleep in the past 40 hours. But that didn't stop me from (and may have even aided me in) expressing my disgust over Prof. Postman's cerebral masturbation. I gave the following comment:

Horsecrap! (If I may borrow a "visigoth" term)

You must be an Athenian or a Visigoth. Some philosopher Postman is. His entire speech is based on a logical fallacy--false dilemma/excluded middle. Furthermore, it reeks of the unctiousness that I and many other former college students have come to hate about academia "I'm better than you because I'm smarter. It doesn't matter if you do more or have more."

Oh the glorious Athenians! Never mind the ups and downs of their mob rule, regularly morphing into and out of tyranny. Never mind their popular persecution of the same great thinkers Postman lionizes. Never mind their chauvinistic and perpetual wars, their mass slavery, their sexual perversion, their thoughtless idol worship, and a host of other social ills.

And all the social ills of Athens, and the Greco-Roman world, would eventually ossify into the decrepit, pyramidal, hundreds-years tyranny of the Roman Emperors. This was the most static period of human civilization; there's virtually no technological/artistic/scientific differences between 100BC and 400AD. The only thing that changed was how they prayed. It was this tyranny which was so easily brought down by the plucky Visigoth frontier dwellers who became the equal, then superior, of the Romans.

More fundamental wrong with Postman's speech is his thinly-veiled hatred of success and false hope in nouomenal fulfillment.

To contemplate, to reason, to experiment, to question-these are, to an Athenian, the most exalted activities a person can perform. To a Visigoth, the quest for knowledge is useless unless it can help you to earn money. Why shouldn't the quest for self-fulling theoretical knowledge be superior to materialistic utilitarian knowledge? Are the two mutually exclusive? In fact, can knowledge really be knowledge if it doesn't apply in the real world, or just a complex hallucination?

And a good noble Athenian values social bonds while a mean ole' Visigoth only wants power over other people? What's the real difference? Both are seeking validation from the opinions of other people rather than a reasoned analysis and esteem of their own condition. At least the Visigoths were proactive in getting that opinion.

The northern barbarians, with their materialistic view toward life, now enjoy unprecedented prosperity and knowledge. The Greco-Roman world, with its solipsistic view toward life, peaked with the cruxificion of Christ.

UPDATE: Some people think I'm too tough on the old boy, to which I respond

All you compliments of Postman are valid, but the speech is still B to B- work, not the speech of a great intellect of our time.

He's simplistic. There is the false dilemma he presents, but more ineptly, there is the "package dealing" (to borrow an Objectivist phrase) of some key concepts.

He equates seeking fame to seeking money; but one provides slavery to other people's whims while the other creates independence.

He equates privacy with isolation and solipsism, and social activism to being virtuous and giving. I'd prefer a Communist who kepts to himself and is self-sufficient than to a Conservative Christian who thinks it his life's goal to make me as "conservative" and "Christian" as he is.

In other words, he splits concepts which should be split, and combines concepts which should be combined. And he does so because its a popular archetype to do so, and he fails to think through the premises behind that archetype.

Also, the entire speech reeks of the philosopher's will to power: Postman creates a worldview which puts someone like Postman on top. Yet the janitor who never finished high school, but now runs a multi-million dollar custodial enterprise, is on the bottom. That's not right.

I've read Postman's work before and have not been impressed. Technopoly was a quasi-luddite screed filled with little more than worry to justify his broad conclusions--with a healthy dose of arrogance towards religion thrown in. In a book discussion we had about it back in college, a Chemistry professor said "Your will not find any anthropological evidence of a species--which we would recognize as human--that did not use tools," and thus blasted away the lion's share of what Postman had to say.

Speaking of objectivists, if you want to read a really good graduation speech, check out what Ayn Rand said to the West Point Class of '74. She expressed, with much more thoughtfullness, the ideas which Postman was grasping for.

A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define you philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation--or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified whishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.

(Perhaps the silliest scenario for a graduation speech was this
sixty-something icon of anti-authoritarism giving a speech, with a
thick Russian accent, to hundreds of young American cadets.
Nevertheless, probably one of the best ones ever given.)

Rejoice! For the World Sucks!

Meanwhile in bizarro-world, where born-Again Christians are flaming moonbat leftists.





NCC General Secretary claims "these may be the darkest times in our history."

You see, in bizarro world, people smile and are happy when you tell them the world is entering into the new dark ages.

Hat tip to Daimnation!

Episode 27: Attack of the Tree Vermin

Meryl Yourish blogs about squirrel troubles in Richmond.

I had the same problem. In my apartment, two squirrels started nesting in the living room walls, constantly scratching and burrowing. Our apartment people were delaying sending pest control out. The problem was that they were right where the cable jack was, which they were chewing on. We started losing reception for all our end channels: around 1-12 and 50-72.

At first I tried banging on the walls, which didn't help. Then I got from 7-11 a cigar and a long Big Gulp straw and tried to smoke them out, and that didn't work. Finally, after a very trying friday of a very trying week, I got fed up. I took the hammer and widened the hole they already made. The rest involves a carving fork, a carving knife, a fishbowl, and a scene that resembles what Anakin Skywalker probably did to all the Paduwan children. Killed one, mortally wounded the other after I tore its tail off and threw it off the patio.

These things are a complete nuisance and destroying thousands of peoples' property. I say have one year--just one year--of open season on these monsters. I'm sure the species would survive, and the city's pest problems would be eliminated for 5-10 years.

Your Money's No Good HereDeflating the Legend of the Liberty Dollar

In my travels in the conservative blogosphere, and the blogads therein, I stumbled across this gimmick.

One universal desire of "The Right" is the return to the gold/silver standard and rejection of fed-issued greenbacks. Be they conservative Christians hoarding up for the end-times, a paleo-conservative Idaho militiamen rejecting the "Zionist" economy, fiscal conservatives worried about deficits/inflation/interest rates, or Rand-worshipping libertarians fawning over d'Anconia's monologue on the glorious nature of money, their common belief is that we'd all be better off trading in silver talents and gold shekels. This is one of the “conservative” viewpoints I don’t agree with, simply because it contradicts logic and observable fact.

First off, the NORFED/Liberty Dollar people are selling silver at $10.00/oz, when its market price is $7.00/oz. To their defense, NORFED/Liberty Dollar admits this markup. Their defense is that it’s selling transferable currency and not metals; they openly tell people to go elsewhere if they simply want to invest in specie. Despite some of the odd claims by "Mr. von Nothaus" on his website and the high possibly this could be an outright scam, I'm going to assume that this is a legitimate business. Any google due diligence shows only positive praise for the company.

However, NORFED/Liberty Dollar claim that their currency is not subject to the inflation that greenbacks are, and that their money will maintain it value while the dollar collapses. True, paper money is decreasing in value. True, our currency could collapse. But gold and silver are inflating just as fast, if not fast. Nor is the collapse of the greenback nearly as certain as the value of “precious metals”.

In 1975, silver was worth $5.25/oz. Now it’s worth about $7.00/oz—falling from nosebleed peaks in early 80s. A 35% return on a 30-year investment is paltry. But the investment is a complete disaster when you consider in the inflation you were trying to hedge against. In 1975, $5.25 would have bought the equivalent of $20.00 in 2005. Now $7.00 will buy the equivalent of what $1.87 would’ve in 1975. You lost 65%!

Granted, the “investment” hedged somewhat against inflation. The $5.25 would be worth $1.40 if you had left it under the mattress. But there’s good reason to believe that gold and silver could become base metals overnight, faster than any currency crash. Consider the famous wager between population-bomb eco-nut Paul Ehrlich and economist Julian Simon. Values for precious metals dropped across the board, even disregarding inflation. The possibilities for more gold and silver are limitless: sea-mining, space-mining, mining at the core of the earth, and sub-atomic generation are all possibilities. These possibilities are made more possible by our exponentially growing technology.

I don’t know the future of our dollar, but I confidently say that goods and services that the dollar chases are becoming more plentiful everyday. Our future will be wealthy one, regardless of the form in which that wealth manifests itself.

So Pretty He's Ugly?

Jeez! Even then he looked like an animated CGI image!

The Zork of the 2000s

I just spent the whole day playing this game and don't regret a minute of it. This is one of the best analytical problem-solving games I've seen in a long time.

This brings back alot of good memories of playing the old Infocom text-based adventures and the text/proto-graphic World Builder Mac games. I credit about 10 to 15 of my IQ points in adult life to playing those games between the ages of 4 to 12. (And yes, I've been able to read, write and type basic and not-so-basic english as long as far back as I can remember.)

Since then, I've worried that video/computer games with stunning graphics and complex player controls were going to crowd out these austere, yet complex and challenging games. Instead I see that IT, and those who utilize it, can expand these types of games to ever more levels of complexity. Notpr0n spans not only the game display, but the "gear and sprockets" behind that display. It utilizes not just set player commands, but the basic commands that the player uses to control his computer. It problems require no just interacting with the program, but utilize other files and applications to solve problems on the program.

In short, I'm really optimistic about living in a world with engineers who can create games like these, and make them available for only the cost of (maybe) closing the occasional pop-up ad.

Media Conspiracy Time!

The AP reports the following:

Bush was also using the formal question-and-answer session with reporters - his first in the evening in over a year - to talk about skyrocketing gas prices. The White House asked television networks to broadcast the news conference, scheduled for 8:30 p.m. EDT in the East Room of the White House.

Th press conference was instead scheduled for 8:01 pm EST. Did the AP get the time wrong?

Or did they say that so that no one would see him speak . . . until he's being grilled by reporters.


IIIIINNNNTERESSSSSSTING!!!!

Crichton Speaks

Michal Crichton give us a lot to think about in this speech.

Here are some thoughts:

(1) You cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of man

That’s a more literal truth than he may think, especially since there are parts of the brain in which religious fervor is based. An atheist would say that this proves that religion is only a hallucination. A deist would argue that man’s physiological ability to believe in God is proof, and not disprove, of God’s intelligent design of man.

(2) What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago.

I hate it when people have this view of early man as constantly knocking on death’s door. The uniform legends of ancient history and mythology were that people were larger and lived longer in pre-historic times. Anthropological evidence also shows that pre-agricultural, hunter/gathers people were in much better physical condition than their farming, carb-consuming descendants.

(3) Crichton makes the analogy that radical environmentalism = doomsday, blind-faith religion. Yet we’ve seen that both of these phenomena, and other destructive beliefs, have some unknown common root: a philosophy that is anti-life, anti-reason, subjective, cynical, and has a strong aversion toward human virtue and achievement. On paper, the wacko religious nut and the wacko environment nut have extremely different beliefs, but exhibit almost identical psycho-epistemological motivation as they cheer for the world to come to an end. A teenage “goth”, a aging Maoist hippy, and a Hamas jihadi all share that same metaphysical flavor—an unnamed fear and loathing toward the idea of a benevolent universe and the good, happy people who would inhabit it. I don’t know why people end up that way. I also wonder why large portions of mankind choose this course toward extinction.

(4) Environmentalism needs to be absolutely based in objective and verifiable science, it needs to be rational, and it needs to be flexible. And it needs to be apolitical.

Well, this certainly makes my spidey-sense tingle! In other words, we need someone who knows all fact, who’s supremely rational, and with lots of discretion and power . . . without any of those smarmy politicians or judges getting in the way. Would Crichton like to recommend himself for this job?

How Do You Say "Phony Reporting" in Malay?

Courtesy of LGF . . . .



Notice something odd. . . ?

Why would an Indonesian write a protest sign in English? Complete with rhyming, punctuation and stylizing letters?

I smell a rat over at the AFP.

Hippie Hypocrites

While were speaking here about entertainers, here's something to chew on:

How could Donovan have written both Universal Soldier and Remember the Alamo? The themes of the two songs are absolutely irreconciable! Compare

Fear not little darling of dying
If this world be sovereign and free
For we'll fight to the last for as long as liberty be

And

And without him, how would Hitler
kill the people at Dachau,
without him Cesar would have stood alone,
he's the one, who gives his body
as a weapon of the war,
and without him always killing cant go on.

He's the universal soldier,
and he really is to blame,
his orders came from far away, no more,
they came from here and there,
and you and me ain't brothers,
can't you see,
this is not the way we put an end to war.

Then again, the sixties were a murky time. Perhaps there were several Donovans? A J-source and Q-source Donovan?

Also, if John Lennon was such a commie, then why the hell was he complaining so much about the Tax Man, or why does he want money so much, even though money can't buy him love?

The Stars in Twilight

Wel, well, well. I was just contemplating how I was going to end a half-a-weeks worth of blogger's block. I get back to my web browser, hit refresh on Drudge, and get a glimpse of this little chestnut: Land of the Freeloaders.

Rule #1 of Economics: Everything obtained must be paid for!

Something can be paid for with barter, with money, or with work. It can be paid for by you with you're resource, by someone else out of charity, or stolen from a victim. But it will be paid for!

So who paid for all this swag? Ordinary people, albeit through a chain of transitions leading through the multi-media, telecommunications, advertising and entertainment business.

Why do they pay for it? Out of a misguided sentiment for entertainers which can only be described as "idolatry". Yet even the First Commandment doesn't do justice to describe the psycho-epistemological crime being committed, both by the worshipper and the worshipped.

Media consumers are paying money to people portraying the virtues they wish they had (but have not the passion to obtain them), and vices they wish they could commit (but know they can't get away with). Rather than achieve these states of being--through thought, planning and action--they take the shortcut and live vicariously through other people pretending to do these things in unrealistic ways. Meanwhile, the stars gobble up all the perks available in a state of quiet desperation, internally struggling to convince themselves that they're actually achieving what they're pretending to achieve. Supposedly, when she went crazy at the end of her life, Vivian Leigh actually believed she was Scarlet O'Hara. By behaving in the manner described, these Hollywood stars are trying to steal their own piece of Tara.

At least on the production end, the party can't last forever. As the world economy improves, cheap foreign films are getting better in quality. As world techonology improves, "indie" films are getting much better. As IT improves, the humor, genius and passion of ordinary people is more and more vividly on display; the TV is becoming the background noise for the websurfing. As AI improves, all attributes of an entertainer--voice, image, improv and imitation skills--can be replicated by software. In a generation, maybe in this generation, the beautiful people are going to go the way of silent film and AM radio stars.

Separated Reincarnated at Birth?

Frank J. -OR- Buster Keaton

Turkish Surgeon, Christian Butcher.

One of these paintings portrays man as heroic, intelligent, and beautiful. The other portrays man as a grotesque monster. One of these painting extols technology as facilitating man's virtue. The other portrays invention and shelter as the tool of the Devil. One of these paintings portrays a benevolent universe full of promise and joy. The other portrays the universe as an ugly, Kafkaesque nightmare.

Guess which one of these paintings was made by a Christian? Guess which one was made by a secular humanist? I'm ashamed of the answer. If Christians are to witness to the world, they need to use the later view of man, instead of the former.

Obligatory Pope Blogging

Comparing John Paul II to Pius XII is unfair to both of them. (Hat Tip to Damian Penny).

Pius XII made concordants with fascist regimes only to keep Catholics from being persecuted. Otherwise, he was extremely critical of them. Hitler said that Pius XII was "the only human being who has always contradicted me and who has never obeyed me." Pius also hid thousands of Jews in the Vatican to keep them from concentration camps.

If Pius made any mistake, it was underestimating the political influence the Catholic Church could have. From the French Revolution to John Paul II, Popes have let socialists, communists and fascists wreak havoc in Europe with nothing but finger-wagging. John Paul II proved that if the Holy See denounces unjust regimes, the world will listen.

But this much idolazation of John Paul II is getting a little out of hand. They're now openly calling him "John Paul the Great". I doubt he would've approved. And if nothing else, the JPII worship makes it harder for his successor.

Today's Random Binaries

Today's Random Numbers are the following:

0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1


Brught to you by Random.org

Quick Quiz . . .

Will the boys pictured in the photo grow up to be:

(a) Bull queers, due to their identification of masculinity with force & domination.

(b) Anti-authoritarin socialist hippies, due to their ingrained fear & loathing of power & authority.

(c) Objectivist/libertarians, due to their repressed desires for individuality and identification of the mystical with madness.

or (d) A stain on a concrete wall?

This piece of Palstianian child abuse brought to you by LGF

Don't Have to Live Like a Refugee . . . .

Blogger's up this morning, but it's impossible to say for how long. The service is becoming exponentially undependable. Like others, I may have to move this site in the near future.

Problems With Homosexual Marriage

Jane Galt began writing about Homosexual Marriage, but ended up writing about conservativism and the preservation of institutions in general. She doesn't give much thought to the more "mechanical" problems with letting homosexuals marry. So I took the liberty of doing so.

Consider the following questions:


(1) In the case of divorce, who has custody of the kids when one is the parent and the other is not? (Note that one spouse being the natural parent, while another is not, is inevitable.)

(2) How is the parent/child bond strained when the child is the natural child of one parent, but not the other?

(3) How is the child affected when he knows only one natural parent, but not the other?

(4) How is the non-spouse egg donor/bearer of the child affected if he is locked out of the relationship with the child? What should be his/her legal rights against the other natural parent? Against the step-parent?

(4) Suppose a spouse bears or fathers several children with different donors. How will the half-siblings get along with each other, knowing they have different fathers/mothers.

(5) Suppose both spouses bear or father different children? How will the "siblings" get along, knowing that they are unrelated to each other by blood?

(6) Would the child/natural parent relationship form a bond more close than--and possibly eclipsing--the spousal bond?

(7) In the case of a spousal dispute, would not the siblings be inclined to favor the natural parent over the step-parent? How would this "taking sides" affect the relationship?

(8) Under scenario (5), in the case of a serious "sibling" dispute, would a parent feel more inclined to favor his/her own child rather than his step-child? How would such a situation affect the children?

(9) Under scenario (8) how would such a situation affect the relationship between the two spouses?

(10) Suppose both spouses die, with the last spouse dying without a will. (This happens more often than not in Anglo-American law). What are the inheritance rights of the natural children versus the step-children? (Note that under current law, the majority rule is that step-children have little if no inheritance rights).

(11) Suppose the egg donor/bearer dies without a will. What are the inheritance rights of the natural child, when he has been adopted by and raised in a completely different household?

(12) Suppose the child dies without a will? What are the inheritance rights of the step-parent? What are the inheritance rights of the "siblings," along with "nieces" and "nephews"?

These are all serious questions that need to be answered. Marriage is not just a religious or ceremonial institution but has definite, long-lasting, real-world legal and psychological effects. Same-sex marriage is going to complicate problems with homosexual relationships, not simplify them.

All of these problems will no exist in a situation where (1) all children are raised by both natural parents, (2) all natural parents have custody of their children, (3) the spouses share a common bond with their children, (4) siblings share the strongest common bond with each other, (5) people outside of the family are considered such legally and psychologically. That is only possible in a heterosexual nuclear family.

The Pogrom Begins

At least one blogger was banned--not for talking about how corrupt the Canadian ruling party is--but for linking to someone living in a free country who did. Damian Penny is also running scared. This is absolutely disgraceful!

The God Who is Not There

Over at Charlotte Capitalist we have a rather zealous objectivist fisking Rick Warren. No argument here that Warren needs fisking, but atheism is an illogical dead-end by any standard. Even Ayn Rand backed off from her more militant Anti-God stances later in life.

To Andy, I said the following:

You’re way off-base, and I’m ashamed you’d make such weak arguments. You didn’t prove the non-existence of God; you proved that Warren didn’t prove the existence of God. Congratulations on knocking down his strawmen. Now how about we play a big-boy grown-up game of philosophy

Existence exists. I’m glad we have this jumping off point, the benefic of talking to an objectivist. I don’t have to argue this point with some obnoxious kid who thinks he’s Neo and that we’re living in the Matrix.

If existence exists, there are two mutually exclusive possibilities:

(1) Existence is innate. It was not “created”. (An atheistic universe)

(2) Existence was created and is not innate in and of itself. Rather, existence was created by something which (or someone who) is innate. (A deistic universe)

If the first possibly, then we have a perfectly materialistic world. The supreme power is matter and the physical laws of matter. Nothing exists but that which has physical attributes. I admit, it’s a rather beautiful way of looking at the universe: Rather than having a God who commands, which we must obey, the universe is a type of “god”, which to command, must be obeyed.

The problem is that certain pieces do not fit into this universe. Namely you, me, Ayn Rand, every other conscious being in the universe, and the Law of Identification itself.

Existence--in and of itself--cannot cause the identification of existence. Matter cannot cause one to know that matter is present. Nor can lack of matter cause one to know that matter is absent. Nor does your own physical being explain consciousness--the identification of self.

The 9 ball can ricochet off the cue ball. The plant can photosynthesize light and process soil into its cells. An animal can react to a chasing predator or running prey. A person's eyes can absorb the image of a rainbow in the sky, and experience emotional euphoria therefrom. These are all natural phenomena, effects from a cause. But the ability to say “There’s a 9 ball”, “There’s a cue ball”, “Look at that plant grow”, “There’s an animal, and it’s running” “There’s atmospheric water refracting light into multiple colors, and it's beautiful” . . . these are not effects from material causes, but an unexplained, physically unnecessary, mysterious process.

The otherworldly aspects of identification can also be proved in the negative. You can look around and say, “There is no rainbow”. How and why? Such a reaction is not effect from a cause, but an independent identification of a lack of a effect or a cause. The faculty of identification exists independently of the physical world being identified!

You’ve asked why there is no scientific evidence of a God. In other words, you want material proof of someone who exist independent of matter. Rather, you should ask where you consciousness came from. Not from matter, since it would be circular to say that the ability to perceive matter came from matter. Nor is consciousness innate, since it is the object and not the subject of reality. Matter does not make your consciousness and your consciousness does not make matter. Therefore, they both must have an independent third cause, that cause being God.

You believe God doesn't exist. You’re correct. Rather he “hyper-exists” and transcends the material world and our consciousness. Sorry if such a statement is a cop-out, but any attempt to explain God’s “non-being” and “non-perceivablity” is impossible. It’s safe to say that God is the one exception to Aristotle’s law, the one entity which exist and doesn’t exist at the same time, in the same matter. For he created matter.

Springtime in Hell!

Well, it's good to see that I'm not the only one being driven batshit crazy insane by the spring weather in Richmond. I just hope this won't be another spring/summer of rain and cold.

When I first moved to Virginia, aside from some rare spectacular rainstorm, the weather was constantly great. Yet everyone was complaining about some illusory "drought". Now the place has turned into Seattle, with the occasional flood, hurricane and earthquake. I'm beginning to sense that God wants to see this city torn down and renovated as much as I do.

POS!

The damn online disk-space thing I subscribed to says that I've "exceeded the bandwidth limits" for the pictures below. So now they won't show.

Meanwhile, I tried looking into gmail, only to find that the thing is a promotional ripoff of Amway/Quixtar proportions. Not only do they not any email service set up yet, you apparently have to subscribe to some paying services to get it. In other words, it's most likely a red herring for other stuff their selling.

UPDATE: Problem (hopefully) fixed thanks to Photobucket. And thanks to Tom at Undercaffeinated for recommending it. Link to him, and read his blog, for he is good.

Prime Real Estate

For some reason, my site comes up second when you do a search for Brooke Lemke.

Did you hear me? I said Brooke Lemke. Brooke Lemke! That's right, Brooke Lemke.

/linkwhoring

Just hope she doesn't file a restraining order against me.

What the Hell Goes on in Canada!

I don't know what's more outrageous: That the Liberal Party has been looting the treasury for almost a decade, or that no one in Canada is allowed to talk about it.

I've never heard of, and will never tolerate, such bullshit coming from the Northwestern hemisphere. As for me, I'll link to whomever I want. If I want to link to Nazis and pedophiles, I'll do so. And I'll slit the throat of any apparatchik who tells me otherwise, and laugh with glee as he dies a tyrant's death.

And while were sharing Old Dominion iconography, let's see Paul Martin try to ban this:

Psychedelic Cardinal

The cardinal resting on the “Virginia” sticker is obviously wondering how it managed to fly to Alpha Dimension X without getting tired.

Brought to you by X-Entertainment

Quadrafecta

It's a Complicated Story

Best to let Frank explain . . .

Post-Mortem

Like alot of people, I'm sick of hearing about Schiavo. The liberal longknives were out for her death, and conservatives didn't have to will to stop it. The end. Ann Coulter's sums up the situation perfectly.

I'll add only one thought: Judge Greer should by hanged by his judge's robe from the nearest palm tree. Hypocritical, you say? Not to kill murders and subverters of justice.

Peep Shows

here and here

Here's also hot content for hardcore sex addicts

If it were me, I'd need to think about it

Ladies and gentlemen, the funniest sentence ever uttered in my lifetime. Perhaps in anyone's lifetime . . . .

I would much rather carry your seed than the seed that would destroy the earth.

--Brooke Lemke playing "Linda", to William Shatner playing "Shane" on Invasion Iowa tonight.

UPDATE: Most of the Iowans get it, but Iowa newspapers, and Mr. Boston columnist doesn't.

What will happen to Iowan Brooke Lemke when she realizes just how awful she truly is in the faux movie -- and that the Spike audience is laughing at her?

She'll probably still be chagrined that she's as good an actor as Shatner ever was.

UPDATE: More Invasion Iowa linkery:

The show's official weblog

The official site for Murph's Bar. With t-shirts for sale.

Supposedly, "InvasionIowaTheMovie.Com" was a dummy site meant to fool people into thinking there was real movie production. Now its in disuse, but registered.

The Funniest Show Ever!

You must watch this show tonight! It's the funniest thing I've seen since Sifl & Olly went off the air.

Two things to be learned from doing so:

(1) William Shatner is an incredibly strange man. I thought it was just his lengendary propensity for overacting and to take every gig he's offered. But no, he's as weird as as a football bat, eccentric enough to make Michael Jackson look like fucking Prince Charles!

(2) Some Iowa farmhands can act just as well as tenured hollywood stars. It's not rocket science to play make believe for a living.

I Lack Subtlety, and So Does God

Well, a earthquake the day after Christmas, and now an earthquake the day after Easter. In almost the same place.

[Insert here a witty, deadpan ironic musing that a Christian God is inflicting his wrath, specifically on all the Muslims in the region, and that the end times are near]

Allah Devours His Children

Some of the folks over at Little Green Footballs wonder where all the supposed moderate muslim are.

Apparently, they're hiding for their lives:

The [Virginia Commonwealth University] professor, Amina Wadud, has been threatened and sharply criticized in many parts of the Islamic world since the March 18 prayer service in New York that was attended by an estimated 80 to 100 people, about half of whom were men. Traditionally, Muslim women do not lead prayers in a mosque, and they pray separately from men.

Wadud called in sick yesterday, according to Pamela D. Lepley, director of university news services. Wadud's home telephone has a security system that permits only calls from approved numbers to go through, and she could not be reached for comment last night.

A conservative can only hope, and relish the idea, that the twin fallacies of Islam and liberal gender egalitarianism will cave in on each other. We have here two dueling memes: "Woman are equal to men in every way" and "Women are subjugated to men by the will of Allah". One can't survive in the other's world. Meanwhile, a philosopher/spectator can curiously observe the two premises duke it out, which strangely enough, are both mutually exclusive and both incorrect. What do they have in common? They're both outside constructs separate from observable reality which make their believers ontologically superior to the rest of us.

The Perverts Next Door

This guy, this guy, this guy, and this guy are registered sex offenders who live within walking distance from me. The links include their addresses and their pictures.

I'll let you decide which is scarier, that so many sex offenders lives next to me, or that I'm able to pillory these people.

ReductIMAO ad absurdum

Frank J. makes a modest proposal.

I'd rather die than be born in Haiti, but that doesn't mean I believe in killing all Haitians.

The view that wants Schiavo to die has, as its basis, that her condition cannot be improved. Such a notion is unprovable, but instead proves that euthanasists hold the malevolent view that human fate is unimprovable.

Cry For Help!

Drudge, on his radio show, just had audio of Terri Schaivo responding to questions from her father about her feeding tube being removed. She is obviously cognizant. This is murder.

UPDATE:

My goodness! Have I been responsible for a thread hijack?! I don't know whether to be sorry or proud of myself.

But seriously, we know this much:

(1) Serious questions exist as to whether Schiavo is cognizant

(2) Serious questions exist as to whether she wanted to be kept alive.

(3) If the federal and state system of law is to be consisent--let along just--then Schiavo should be granted the same deferance toward life that a mass-murderer on death row would get.

I'll add as an aside, if the liberal powers-that-be choose to belligerantly oppose this, it will mean that end of the right-to-die movement in this country. This isn't just about people refusing medical treatment; this is a morbid bloodlust exhibited by the collective left to blank-out undesirable specimens of humanity.

MORE UPDATE:

For those who think that Terri's case is hopeless, I suggest they read this book, another future-shock by Ray Kurzweil.

It's thesis--giving the possible, nay probable, advances in biotechnology and nanotechnology, virtually immortal physical and mental health will be possible within most of our lifetimes. In the next 20-50 years, they're going to come out with stuff that will make the most fabulist stories of science-fiction into commonplace fact.

You can say that again!

Blogger's being a pain in the ass. Thus the reason for some of the double posts--you'll think the thing froze up and didn't post, then post again. And I'm not the only one complaining here.

People pour their heart and soul into these blogs. It would be like Caesar burning of the Alexandria library if blogger FUBARs their network. Meanwhile, I'll be taking efforts to save the source code on a (hopefully) daily basis.

God Made Wyoming to Train the Faithful

Out of an obscure state with more cows than people, The Equality State sure makes some brilliant politicians statesmen. First Vice President Dick Cheney, and now Senator Mike Enzi. Drudge reports:

**Exclusive Fri Mar 18 2005 00:50:07 ET** The
Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee, Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) has requested Terri Schiavo to testify before his congressional committee, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. In so doing it triggers legal or statutory protections for the witness, among those protections is that nothing can be done to cause harm or death to this individual.


Members of Congress went to the U.S. Attorney in DC to ask for a temporary restraining order to be issued by a judge, which protects Terri Schiavo from having her life support, including her feeding and hydration tubes, removed... Developing...

You can thank/congratulate Senator Enzi here.

שלןם

Welcome to all those linked by Meryl Yourish.

Women's Bracelets

Rachel Lucas assaults a female officer (if you can call her the latter). Meanwhile, Ann Coulter says the same thing with much more empirical evidence, though not with much less vitriol.

Meanwhile, Doug Powers questions why he wasn't wearing handcuffs:

"In Atlanta, Brian Nichols, 6 feet tall and a couple hundred pounds, was being escorted by a female officer, without cuffs, into court for his rape trial. ...
"Why wasn't he wearing handcuffs? Because 'studies' have shown that jurors are 'unfairly influenced' when a person on trial is wearing handcuffs. ...
"Quite often, the level of stupidity in political correctness is so high that it's comical. This time, it's anything but. When PC strikes the college campus, young minds are poisoned. When PC strikes the public sector, including the courtroom, people can get killed. ...
"Leave it to the bearers of political correctness to remove the cuffs from criminals, and tie the hands of everybody else. ...
"Brian Nichols wasn't handcuffed, and he's killed people as a result. ... Brian Nichols now faces the death penalty, instead of 20 or so years for the original crime, and four people are dead. Would making him wear handcuffs to, in, and from court have been better for him, or worse for him?
"PC do-gooders assisted Brian Nichols in ruining what was left of his life, and gave him the means to destroy many others — all in the name of 'fairness.' I'm sure the families of the victims will thank them for caring."

____________


BTW: How this guy got a WorldNetDaily column and a book deal, yet has the same blog traffic as I do, is beyond me. /envy

However, in light of this article, the handcuff controversy appears to be moot:

In a federal case in Atlanta in the late 1990s, drapes around the defense table were used, with court approval, to conceal the shackles on a defendant accused of killing a prison guard. Similarly, stun belts can be worn under defendants' clothes - although the devices have still been cited as grounds for appeal.

____________

There's a dozen ways you could physically restrain a defendant without any prejudicial effect.

However, consider the four possible scenarios:

A passive, handcuffed defendant: The defendant is prejudiced and unfairly maligned in front of the jury.

A belligerent, handcuffed defendant: The defendant is not prejudiced or unfairly maligned; he really is a belligerant person who needs to be restrained.

A belligerent, unhandcuffed defendant: The defendant is not prejudiced or unfairly maligned when he lashes out in court; he really is a belligerent person who would do the unthinkable.

A passive, unhandcuffed defendant: No prejudice.

Thus handcuffs should be a no-no only when the defendant gives no impression of being a pugnacious person. I don't see why this fact can't be fairly determined by a bench ruling. The person wearing the handcuffs--and not the cuffs themselves--should determine whether they should be worn.