I am currently taking an upper division physics class that deals with energy and the environment. For the class we are to read a book by Paul Roberts entitled "The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World". Essentially, the book talks about the how the world oil supply will reach a maximum output and then be on a permanent decline. The global effects of passing this "peak" will result in many bad things happening like recessions, potential war as industrial countries scramble over the remaining oil, name your fear here.

There is a hypothesis out there that oil and other hydrocarbons are not organic in origin but a natural process that the planet (or any planet for that matter) produces. After all, it is only assumed that the oil, natural gas, and coal are all results of dinosaurs, plants, ferrets (ancient ones), insects, giant flying pandas, and a host of other extinct creatures being crushed, burned, and cooked for millions of years. There have certainly been experiments that have reproduced oil out of organic materials, but then again, we can also make diamonds too, so perhaps there is an alternative explanation.

For example, scientists have used the Cassini spacecraft to map the surface of Titan, one of Jupiter's moons, and have found large lakes of hydrocarbons as big or bigger than the Great Lakes! Hydrocarbons, like methane and ethane, are present. Methane and ethane are found here on earth, they can be converted to oil. What other kind of hydrocarbons are they going to find on Titan? I'm not suggesting we mine Titan (yet), what I am saying is that there may be something to this idea that hydrocarbons are not organic in nature.

If hydrocarbons are produced by natural means and are non-organic, it may be possible to not only find a lot more oil below the earth, but we may look to other celestial bodies to find oil. Such as the moon?

To get back to the book, there is a chapter devoted somewhat to the religion of global warming. That is to say, the belief that man is the element which causes global temperatures to rise so much that we will suffer global catastrophes. Roberts doesn't even bother to convince the reader that man-made global warming is still being debated. Instead, he just starts off that man is absolutely responsible, mentions Kyoto as a means to fix our mess, then blames the US for not joining it. He does mention skeptics to man-made global warming, but he qualifies them as either right-wing nuts and/or a "tiny minority of scientists". Poppycock. Consensus does not equal science.

Roberts lists the effects of global warming by all the doomsayers: world famine, harsher winters(!)/summers, droughts, war, alien invasions, the return of flying pandas. He also lists how our human activities actually cause global warming. What is most humorous about this chapter is that all the evidence he points to for man-made global warming literally have been refuted, most recently by the BBC documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle".

I eagerly await the time in class where we are subjected to watch AlGore's "An Inconvenient Truth" where I can bring an article of a British judge who has ruled both that AlGore's movie is a one-sided political presentation and that there are 11 factual errors in it. I will also request that we watch the BBC documentary as a refutation to Gore's politically-laden movie.

I am probably the only conservative in the class, or at least I'm the only one that speaks conservative ideas. There could be other conservatives in the class, but they are too intimidated to speak up. In any event, I will have fun in the class because there is no reason for me to get all worked up over liberal bias. It remains to be seen if my grade will get affected by my overt conservative positions on things, but that won't bother me either.

After reading this BBC report, I have to give some credit to Saudi Arabia in it's campaign to modernize. I think this change, if real, is a big significant change for them. Even though there is much work to do, even baby steps such as this, even though this is one big baby, we have to give applause to the Saudi government.

I think they realize that their system of justice is obsolete and inhumane. Though based on Islam, they are intergrating moderation into their system, albeit slowly. I don't believe that the moderation is "Western" in nature, as some may claim, it goes well beyond that. It is simply a matter of decency and reason. They have had, like much of the middle east, a warped sense of justice. The underlying principle of "eye for an eye" as their sense of justice is being slowly removed or reserved for certain crimes, like murder. Being executed over adultery is not sensible in any respect, regardless of religious dogmas.

In reflecting over the linked article, I wonder if S.A. continues on this reformation path, if it will become a democratic system on its own like Turkey. Perhaps given enough time, all countries will move towards this model if given the time and freedom to choose.

I have to give extra credit to King Abdullah for decreeing this reform. If am right about the eventual move towards a democratic government in Saudi Arabia, the King may be, knowingly, removing autocracy out of power that his family has benefited from for a long time.

I have to correct myself on an earlier posting. Two postings ago, under the title "Crazy Idea: Are the Democrats secretly helping Mr Bush with Iraq?" my premise, as a mental exercise, was to suggest the Democrats who have been advocating withdrawal out of Iraq because of both the failures of the Bush Administration in running the war and the Maliki government for gross incompetence and petty power struggles advocated such rhetoric because they were really trying to bluff the Iraqi government into acting straight and getting the job done. I have to admit that I was terribly wrong and was foolish to have even brought up such a proposition. After this week's treatment of General David Patraeus by the Democrats and their masters, Moveon.org, it is plain to see that there is no possible way the Democrat Party neither has the best interests of the country in mind but also wishes the defeat of their own country for political gain.

Call it optimism, or just being naive, I didn't want to think fellow citizens, elected representatives no less, would wish what the Democrats have genuinely wished on their own country, which is failure. We are neither a country of failure or one that roots for it. Our exceptionalism as a Americans commands us up to greatness, not down to oblivion. This exceptionalism we posses has been part of the driving force behind the just over two hundred years of first becoming a country to the most powerful nation the world has ever known.

The Democrats do not operate on a post 9/11 realm of reality. Why would anyone who supposedly thinks in a post 9/11 way do things like oppose such effective programs as the NSA program that listened in on calls going to and from the US? There was no evidence that anyone's civil rights were violated, yet the Democrats quickly jumped on the bandwagon to end it. They wanted to end it partially for the potential violation of civil rights. Now, after seeing the successes acquired from the program and the usefulness, do Democrats now, several years later, wish to keep the program. Huh?

What kind of post 9/11 thinker has the sworn enemy of their country, Osama bin Laden, speak almost verbatim the same talking points against the Administration over issues, mostly regarding the "GWOT"? Every time a new video comes out from Night of the Living Dead zombie bin Laden, his message points are eerily similar in message as liberals and Democrats. Liberals and Democrats can be comfortable with the knowledge that the Hair Club for Men satisfied customer not only cares about Global Warming too but also blames the US for its cause as an added bonus

Why would any serious patriot, let alone a post 9/11 thinker, degrade and vilify an honorable man, calling him a liar before he even has a chance to speak? It has already been repeated many times already, the Senate unanimously voted in Gen Patraeus with zero (0) "nay" votes. Senate Democrats happily agreed to put Gen Patraeus in charge of Iraq, talking about how there had better be an improvement in Iraq due to the "Surge" plan and how the Administration should have done this correction of leadership for the military strategy in Iraq earlier.

Once word got out Gen Patraeus was going to give a report that was mostly positive about the results of the Surge, Democrats quickly began a campaign to both frame the report as a lie and the General himself as a liar and a toady for the Administration. The Democrats wanted to get the meme well in place that the 'reality' in Iraq was the Surge was a failure and anything saying to the contrary is political spin by the Bush Administration. I'm talking about congressional leaders, not including the roughly 6.5 million membership strong, traitorous Moveon.org's detestable "General Patraeus or General Betray-us?" ad.

A success with the Surge meant, long term, that continued perserverance will pay off for Iraq. A failure of the Surge meant both political leverage of Democrats to initiate total withdrawal of US forces, and a crushing blow of political defeat for the Bush Administration, and Republicans by extension. A failure in Iraq would guarantee a Democratic presidential victory, in the Democrats minds. A defeat in Iraq is a victory for Democrats, a victory in Iraq is a defeat for Democrats. With their lust to regain the power they believe is rightfully theirs since FDR, they will deny all realities that move them away from reaching that goal and embrace those that bring them closer.

With their failure at trying to get the Surge framed as a failure, the Democrats are going to be shifting strategy to some other defeat-oriented way. It too will fail, and they will pay a price, electorally, from their McGovernizing.

I just don't get the argument of eliminating the Electoral College (EC) to electing the next president by popular vote. Such a proposal completely underscores the inability of the proponents of such a change to the system to understand the rudiments our country was founded on. (If I may be so bold, it is extremely asinine and ignorant of history to propose such a change to the system.) If in the unfortunate event those proposing this change do understand, but still propose the change, then these people are dangerous and must be kept out of office in every respect. The EC is just as ingrained within the foundation of our unique, representative democracy as the ideas of separation of powers, federalism, states rights, minority rights, "checks and balances", et al! The Founders were neither short-sighted or ignorant of history. They were certainly aware of the dangers of direct democracy from the ancient Greeks and implemented the EC to avoid making the same mistakes as history did. The EC is also a way of protecting the minority --another tenet of our great nation-- from the majority.

How are the minority states represented in a popular vote system? Large states win under such a system, because the candidates would spend all of their time and energy in those states campaigning entitlements up the yin-yang, while ignoring probably 40+ states in the process. If the POTUS is supposed to represent the entire country, how do they represent the country under a popular vote system? They currently do under the EC system because every state has a say in the outcome of the election, so why change it to make a bunch of socialists and liberals, who are really the ones pushing for such a change in the system (because they just can't get over the Election 2000), happy?

If such a system were to be implemented, heaven forbid, then we might as well abolish the US Senate as well, because that too, was designed to protect smaller populated states against bigger states by giving every state equal representation in the government with two votes each. Since the smaller states are now irrelevant by  working purely by direct democracy, let's just use the House of Representatives. Just think of the possibilities! The citizenry would be able to get their entitlements and other goodies passed much more efficiently and quickly, with a lobotomized bicameral mono-cameral Legislative Branch to work through. As an added bonus, with a president elected by this popular vote, they would be able to sign into law what this pluralistic block wants with impunity.

Forget about eliminating the EC anyway because it would take a Constitutional Convention to add an amendment to the Constitution to do so. There is no way 3/4 of the states would agree to voluntarily eliminate themselves from the election process. But since the type of person who tends to favor the popular vote over the EC is generally immune to such petty things as logic and facts, they'll just keep on harping about the subject ad nauseam regardless.

I have a wild and perhaps totally crazy proposition regarding the Democrats and their seemingly sudden switch on Iraq. It all stems from this interview I read from Hugh Hewitt's blog of his interview with Victor Davis Hanson. In it, Mr Hanson talked about how the Bush administration was using the Democrat harping about "pulling out", "withdrawal", and so forth as leverage against the Iraqi government by telling them, basically, "Look, you guys had better get into gear here and get serious or Congress is going to pull out the troops and you'll be screwed!" I'm beginning to wonder if the posturing from the Democratic Leadership is really all that anti-war and anti-Iraq. How possible can it be that their rhetoric against the war in Iraq is all smoke and mirrors to put extra pressure on the Iraqi government to help convince them to get on the ball because the US will not always be there to carry the weight. It is, at least in part, a political campaign to bluff the Iraqi government into getting their act in gear. (I told you it was nuts!)

I take this view not only because of what Mr Hanson had said in his interview, but because I am under the belief that a vast majority of Democrats are neither anti-american or are hell bent on giving the US a big defeat. Sure there's a fair share of true believers (in defeat) like Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Charles Rangel, but there is also just political rhetoric and the Democrats have never actually proposed a bill to withdraw out of Iraq, despite all the talk, low poll numbers for the president's approval rating, forgetting Congress' own approval ratings (which are lower than the president's), the low poll numbers for the support in Iraq, and all of the nonsensical "Bush's war" diatribes. In fact, I'll bet it is for the same reasons they not only won't invoke articles of impeachment against Mr Bush, but they even won't allow either a bill for impeachment or defunding of Iraq to be brought up in any committee or, for that matter, the floor for a vote. The perception is that the Democrats just don't have the gusto to do either thing, but it could simply be they just don't want to. The Democrats know the seriousness of what's going on in the world, and they are certainly involved in a big gamble to pressure the Iraqi government into cooperation. The big gamble for the Democrats here is being perceived by the American people as being defeatist and the like, which would doom them as a party from being in the majority for a long, long time. It's a big gamble and the Democrats are well aware of it.

All of this, of course, is being based on my premise the Democrats are really secretly helping Mr Bush with the Iraqi government by publicly posturing themselves as having nearly given up with Iraq and push for withdrawal. Soon, General Petraeus is going to be giving his assessment of the "surge" that has been in effect for several months now and, so it is reported, he is going to say that not only is the surge having fantastic success, but that there can even be a draw down of troops. If the Democrats are changing their tune, coincidentally, with the news of a successful surge campaign, all still assuming they are secretly helping Mr Bush, their sudden turn around in outlook can also be read to mean they want to give credit where credit is due not only because they should praise success, but also because they don't want to be too negative and downplay actual positive results, since the world, especially the Iraqi government, is watching. Since the "whole" US government, the Executive and Legislative branches, is in agreement the surge is a success, albeit a cautious praise from Democrats, this can send a clear message to the Iraqi government that if they put as much effort into their side of the equation, the political one, they can achieve just as much success as the surge has. In other words, the Iraqi government can have a "surge" of their own and accomplish the benchmarks that have been set for them. If they don't, they run a terrible risk of having half of the US government, Congress, losing the confidence and patience with the Iraqi government and initiating a complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

So, there you go. That's basically the crux of my thoughts, and ultimately who knows really what is going through the minds of the Democrats. It is certainly reasonable to just take the Democrats at their word, at the same time, it is also important to reason that there is probably a lot more going on behind the scenes, in both strategy and tactics, than we are aware of.One of the worst things you can do is underestimate your opponent. Anyway, you are now free to throw me into the nearest nut house. (Although, there really is no need for me to "go" to a nut house, I live in California, the world's largest insane asylum!)

It is generally useless at this point to talk about who's going to be the nominee for the presidency, but I haven't blogged in awhile, and this is an easy enough topic to squeeze up enough juice for a blog entry, so why not get on with it anyway?

In no particular order:

1. Mitt Romney: Despite his charm, he's DOA. He's just too slick to be a successful candidate for the GOP. He is especially vulnerable from a long list of positions that he's switched on over a few short years, that appear to be politically convenient. I just have never been impressed by him, except in the sense that he is one of the few candidates who actually defines the enemy we are fighting, Islamic nuts, not a verb, terrorism. The bottom line is I challenge Romney's conservative credentials.

2. Rudy Gulliani: I question his conservative credentials as well, especially over his maintaining of the sanctuary policy in NYC. However, he did do well as an executive of NY, which is a tall order in itself. He did take a big bite out of crime while he was mayor, and of course, did exceptionally well in the aftermath of 9-11. I like the guy, but I haven't quite made up my mind about him.

3. John McCain. Simply put, he's in no way a conservative. I also think he is mentally unstable. He, like that loser Senator Lindsey Grahamnesty, another RINO, were so utterly convinced down to the depths of their souls that the shamnesty bill was the right thing to do, and only until the threat of McCain's campaign doing down in flames did he decide that he was on the wrong side of the issue and has now "seen the light", so to speak. I just don't think his double-talk as merely the symptom of a typical poltician, but for something more severe. Ultimately, he's a RINO and, like a good liberal, is only as adamant as what's favorable in the polls. He's also too old.

4. Mike Huckabee: I don't know what hopes he really has, as with any of them, for getting anywhere, but I like this guy. He really does seem, just as Mr Bush did during the 2000 election, to be an genuine guy who comes from a blue collar background. (Hell, I read an article by Michael Medved that stated Huckabee was the first person in his family to graduate from high school! Unfortunately, Townhall.com has some problem with the link icon function so I can't link it.) Unfortunately, I don't know much about him other than he was governor of Arkansas.

5. Tom Tancredo: The only reason why I'm mentioning him at all is because I'm glad he's there to keep the issue of illegal immigration out in front, so as to ensure it doesn't get lost behind all of the usual election season issues: abortion, taxes, defense, Iraq, education, etc. I can't believe a major complaint I've read against him is that he isn't a good speaker. I understand, but I kind of like not listening to slick rhetoric, I've had enough of that from 93-00 during Der Schlickmeister's tenure. It's one of the reasons why I don't think Romney's the one. One thing that the, sometimes, difficult speeches by Tancredo tells me is that what he says is genuine and not rehearsed, as with something that is said very smoothly can be (not that it is necessarily).

6. Duncan Hunter: I like the fellow a lot. He is a good conservative, but he isn't getting traction for whatever reason. I guess he's not the one. But that's ok, we need him just as much in the House as we would in the Whitehouse!

7. Ron Paul: Sigh, while as of lately his rhetoric is just plain nonsense, he did have a few good points during the only debate I have been able to watch, which was the first one. I do agree with Paul that the creation of the Department of Homeland Secuirty was a bad idea because it added an extra layer of bureaucracy that, as we saw with the event of 9-11, had failed miserably. Why do we need to expand and add on top of an already terribly structured system? That's like adding a shiny new penthouse to a badly damaged building, it is both irresponsible and incompetent. Pretty much everything else he says, especially about Iraq and Afghanistan is utterly rubbish and he has Sept-10th syndrome.

8. Barack Obama: He is in no way going to become the Democratic Nominee. Philisophically, I disagree with a lot of his platform, but not everything he says is bad either. Take his stance on Pakistan, I agree that if we found out where some dirtbag terrorists were staying in Pakistan, which everyone should understand is the North-Western regions of Pakistan that is widely understood to be occupied by the likes of the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces because of its mostly tribal, and the Pakistan government was unable to take them out, that we should go in there and do it. It upsets me that such prominent conservatives as Seans Hannity spins what Obama was saying into something that is disingenuous, which was to insinuate that Obama meant just bombing Pakistan. This is sort of distortion is not something conservatives should be doing, and frankly, is a cheap shot. The same thing was done with Howard Dean. Yes, he turned out to be an actual whackjob himself, but that famous "Dean Scream", what many believe to be the catalyst to the meltdown of his campaign was in itself derived from spin. I watched the video of Dean doing the chant he did that climaxed into the scream. Yes, his face did look rather wild and angry when he did the scream, but if you watch the video again just after he screams you will see Dean laughing at himself! It was merely a rallying battle cry at the end of a badly-ending primary, but some conservative took that event and successfully spun it into something that it wasn't. Just because it turns out Dean was a whacko, does not justify the spin.

(Irony Alert: Did you know there is a hurricane coming to Florida named "Dean"?)

9. Hillary Clinton: Probably will be the nominee, but will not reach the Whitehouse. She won't because I don't believe the country will elect a woman, with all due respect, during a time of war. I also don't believe the country would ever elect such an outright socialist. I will now make a very bold statement: If she is elected president, then the country has forgotten the lessons of 9-11. Hillary Clintion is a socialist and will want to expand the government in new, permanent ways. She will try to get all sorts of entitlements passed, especially with an all too willing Democratically controlled Congress. (Irony alert to all of you who wanted to teach Republicans a lesson by getting the Democrats elected as the majority in 2006: Elections matter.) She will certainly not focus her efforts to the global war we are currently engaged in, even though she will, most likely, keep us in Iraq for years just as any Republcan would. Anyway, how would a country who elects a socialist into the presidency be preoccupied with such things as the dangers of Islamic terrorists? Socialism is such an inward directed activity, there is little attention left to notice anything else. Besides, how can her administration be very aggressive towards the likes of Islamic radicals when there is great unity between the radical left and Islam. David Horowitz has a book out outlining just that and it's called "Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American left."

So now backpacks are being made to prevent the penetration of bullets, how amazing. What's most important to remember about this is not that kevlar children's backpacks are being made, but there is a company that thinks there is a market for it -- and there probably is. It just goes without saying what the heck this means culturally when companies like this spring up, but is it any wonder when there are also companies that cater to married individuals, which involves finding other married individuals, so they can have an affair together!

Not that it means much with so much entrenched liberalism in nearly every school system in the country, but some few decades ago, teenagers used to bring their rifles to school and target practice! Yes, that's right, children would bring their rifles to school, like an archer's club, and shoot at targets (which were typically scruffy freshman)! The rifles were typically .22 caliber, but the caliber size is really irrelevant. Way back, even teenagers were given enough responsibility to bring a firearm to school and nobody took notice of it.

Sigh.

I just can't help myself. I'm watching some clips of the Republican presidential debate today and Brownback has mannerisms too much of Al Gore. That's not to say he's bad or anything, I'm sure he's a really nice guy and means well. I'm speaking purely on his speech tone and tempo, and his body movements all are reminiscent of Al Gore. It's just too funny!

Just watch some clips with him in it, think of Al Gore, and tell me that Brownback and Gore are not too similar!

And Ron Paul is the Dennis Kucinich of the Republican Party.

I don't know what the hell is wrong with people when they intend to take something that is very traditionally sound, cool, and admired and turn it into a complete farce by injecting the modern day warped version of what constitutes as masculine into something that used to be cool. They, the pansies of late, did this with Star Trek in the , now, canceled "Star Trek: Enterprise". It was decided the theme song for the show would not be of the standard classical music theme that has carried with every other Star Trek show since the beginning, instead, they decided to throw themselves onto a bunch of well placed spears and come up with a theme song that makes David Hasselhof's theme to "Baywatch" seem like heavy metal with some mixed in grunge rock. The producers of Enterprise wanted to reach out to a younger audience so they had a fresh generation of rock-solid fans to carry the franchise into the next couple decades. To do this, they thought they had to drum up a theme song that would reach these youths, unfortunately, what they thought constitutes as modern day "masculinity" (if that's what they were really aiming at, considering the ST franchise is almost exclusively populated by male followers) was disturbing. There is more masculinity in a troop of Girl Scouts than there was in that theme song. Absolutely ridiculous.

And now the same schlubs have done the same for Transformers. Just go to the iTunes Store and head to the Transformers soundtrack page. Scroll down the list of songs to the "Transformers Theme" by "Mute Math". Make sure to not have anything valuable, such as your computer, within arms reach before you select to listen to the song. They ruined the Transformers theme just like they ruined Star Trek's. ARRGHHH!

Look, I don't blame the band they put on the soundtrack for such a wussy song. The producers of Transformers went to them and asked them to make a theme song. I'm confident the same producers went to several other bands and asked them to do the same thing. The producers liked the one from the Mute Math people and put it into the soundtrack.

These producers, or who ever the hell put that utter bleepity bleep bleep of a song into the soundtrack should have the masculinity beaten into them, and then they should be punished for allowing such garbage to ruin a wonderful franchise.

Where's Howard Dean's scream when you need it? "YEEAAARRGGHHH!"

Fred Thompson supporters may not appreciate me lumping them together as a bunch of philiacs, but it's difficult not to think so after reading over the many waves and waves of anticipation over a, seemingly, inevitable presidential candidacy. My complaint does not lie with either their motivations or their intentions for supporting the guy, I'm quite happy the supporters of Thompson are motivated by someone. Unfortunately, (yes, here's the "but" part), I seem to run into too much of the same sets of phrases whenever I read about Mr Thompson in the blogosphere and that has me worried. It almost seems robotic or automatic in certain ways when you run into comments about someone or something that is way too repetitive to be regarded as original thought. Too many things said in support of Fred Thompson seem to me to be far too sound bit-ish and reminiscent of group think mentality. Are we, as conservatives, so desperate for a good candidate, that we hold someone (who can potentially be an honest-to-goodness conservative) with so much regard that we are blinded to any serious flaws that lay just below everyone's tunnel-visioned attention?

I really haven't witnessed a good debate about his credentials or his qualifications. The only thing I have really seen is a mild once over, then an agreement for support only because there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for the other candidates. Maybe I haven't read enough through the blogs and are just naive myself and have the wrong impression. Maybe there is a large debate going around and I just happen to be going to the wrong places. I doubt the latter, but time will indeed tell when he decides to actually run and I can see just what conservative principles he really stands on.

Personally, I think he is unelectable solely for the reason he is attached to the "Silent" generation. You can receive that as being rather shallow, but it is far from it. There is actually a lot of background behind my reasoning, and if you wish to know, you should read up on "The Fourth Turning" by Strauss and Howe. I think it can provide some historical perspective as to why I chose my decision about Fred. (On a minor note, he was a US Senator after all and they have been, as of the last several decades, unable to get elected to the presidency. AlGore and Kerry are more widely known examples.)

Finally, Harry Potter has vanquished Voldemort and can now go on a long (and permanent) holiday. Sounds good to me. I don't know why, call it masochism, but I have never really enjoyed the Harry Potter books. This view certainly makes me a minority (and a crazy one at that) and that's certainly fine with me. I have grown, over the period of the seven books, to grow tired of Harry Potter's character altogether. My biggest problem was that he never matured past eleven years old, when he first was able to join Hogwarts and get the whole story going. Throughout the entire series, the Wuss-Who-Lived was a boy obsessed with his feelings and never seemed to have gained the ability to communicate or articulate beyond the level of junior high. He always just threw himself into every situation, no matter how many times doing so ended up being a trap or an easily avoidable situation had he just taken a moment to think --something that everyone learns with experience. It's called common sense and Harry was terribly deficient in it.

You could count on Harry for getting into a bitchy mood every time he ran into Snape or Malfoy. You would think that after running into those irritating characters on a daily basis over a period of several years would flatten a few buttons. How many times does someone who irritates you, pushing the same button, send you into a rage before it's just time to get over it? Call me even crazier, but wouldn't experiencing multiple near-death situations, which progressively increased as each book was released, have a sobering and maturing effect on someone, even if just a little? Not for Harry Potter, nothing seemed to phase him for remaining the same immature eleven year old who could never learn except to become even more unreasonable and occupied with how his friends are going to be affected by some given situation rather than focus on the evil who will do far worse if it wins.

For that matter, just about everybody in the series was incapable of expressing something without it turning into a shouting match heavy with teeny-bopper drama should there be a disagreement from someone. What the hell is that all about? In the first couple of books, fine, but the third, the fourth, and so on? Is that how Rowling views how everybody talks to each other? Then there's another thing, it took far too many pages to get the point of a discussion. The inability of most characters to get to the point within the confines of less than 10 pages or less is both unnecessary and time wasting after you've gone through several hundred pages of it throughout the books. I wasn't expecting the Trio (Harry, Ron, and Hermione) to be equivalent to the Hardy Boys, but a little like them would have been nice!

I guess my complaint really goes beyond Harry Potter and extends towards the author herself. With all due respect, this is somewhat of a problem for female writers: They want to interject too much female qualities into male characters. Harry was a good example of this. Case in point: Harry's preoccupation with his feelings, he never reasoned through any situation, except after there had been some sort of eureka moment for the umpteenth time because the author simply wants to move the story forward after going on and on for 40 pages or so. (If you've read the books, you know this is not an exaggeration!) ...

... Oi! I did not intend to turn this into a rant fest over the HP books, so let's just end it by concluding I started enjoying myself over the last book only after I got to the "Battle at Hogwarts" chapter. I was not impressed with the Epilogue and thought it was cheesy, fluffy, and too brief. I got the impression Rowling had become exhausted with writing up to that point and just wanted to throw in a nice ending with just enough characters that it wouldn't cause too much upset but not enough where she would have to continue writing for several more pages.

I have wondered why some male heroes have to go on consciously struggle with their feelings. Two of the most popular and successful franchises who use male heroes have the need to control their emotions an important aspect of proper development throughout the stories. The two franchises I am talking about are Star Wars, and Harry Potter. As far as I know, and you can call this projection, but I don't go about worrying about how my feelings are going to get in the way of decisions. I have had my feelings apart of me for my whole life and I seem to get along fine without having to re-evaluate how my feelings are going to make my life miserable if, seemingly, left unchecked.

Both Luke and Anakin, in their respective movie sets, were taught early on that feelings were something to be suppressed at great expense, otherwise bad things will happen. (Bad things such as having to speak in poorly written, redundant dialog about how you've wiped out an entire village after your mother died in your arms from wounds inflicted by prolonged torture.) From Yoda, Qui Gon Gin (spelled wrong), Obi Wan, and even Darth Vader (for Luke), the use and control of emotions has been an integrated issue.

As for Harry, he has always had an issue with his anger. While my objections to the Harry Potter series extends to his lack of maturity despite his progression in age, one continued theme Rowling has purposely put in the storyline is his anger issue.

(Egads, where was I going with this? I seem to have picked up a bug over the weekend and it has wiped me out.) Anyway, it just seems strange to me how there is even an issue of emotional control with the characters mentioned above. To me, it is not a masculine viewpoint to reflect on a continual basis ones own emotions as they are in the  above stories. I don't quite remember reading this kind of issue with the likes of Heinlein, Ayn Rand, Asimov, Wells, et al. Maybe it is a contemporary thing.

"Conservatives think liberals are wrong. Liberals think conservatives are evil."

Yesterday had began a process of thinking that I haven't done in awhile (yes, thinking, what a concept). That process has to do with the arena of ideas in the war of politics, specifically, how liberals and conservatives view the world.

Without diving too much in to a complicated subject at which I will attempt to make my point from, I will do my best to compress this subject without drowning you readers with details and background. In any event, if you care to, you could always ask for clarification at the end as I do let anyone post comments.

In debating between the groups of conservatives and liberals you will notice, for the most part, that their styles of arguing are generally a dichotomy. Conservatives, for the most part, argue on the basis of reason, providing facts to back up their assertions. Liberals on the other hand, prefer to argue on the basis of emotion, providing an emphasis on idealism rather than reality.

The biggest draw back to conservatives using their main method of debate is that their facts could be wrong, or they have made some inconsistent reasoning based on faulty thinking. Simply debating the issue, with good Q&A, will resolve the issue one way or the other. The point is that the topic eventually gets resolved because a consensus is achieved.

The biggest draw back to liberals using their method of debate is that it isn't debate. Emotion tends to remove the person behind the emotion from the conversation, and instead erects a barrier that even an atomic bomb-powered sledgehammer couldn't budge. You cannot debate, let alone have a meaningful conversation, with someone who won't even listen, thus comprehending, your point of view.

There are two ways to resolve any conflict associated with liberals. The first is to agree with them, the second is to make a side comment about things such as the weather while slowly inching towards to door. Unfortunately, many of you (ha ha, as if there are enough people reading this to constitute "many", I got myself good on that one) have friends and family who are liberals, so the second option of "making a run for it" just won't work. Therefore, just simply changing the topic to more benign issues is certainly a better remedy, unless of course, you are ready to put up with the Liberal-Defense-Mechanism(tm).

I have found, by arguing with many over the years, unfortunately many of which was done on the internet, that liberals generally are very good at not responding or answering directly the issue being discussed. Generally speaking, when you really start to get at it with a liberal, when you actually get engaged in a discussion, the liberal(s) tend(s) to start up their Liberal-Defense-Mechanism or LDM for short.

What is the LDM? The LDM consists of several automated defense mechanisms that a liberal possesses in their brain that permits the illusion that a conversation or argument is actually taking place. When in fact the liberal is just playing games with you because they are unable to properly debate you on the issue, and are too arrogant or dumb to admit to such deficiency (which is especially true in the case where there is an audience, or others are in attendance in the discussion). In rare cases the liberal actually believes the totally ridiculous things that they say as truth, moreover that oddball non-responsive answers provided are not only sensible but that they are clever and witty.

To be more specific on what the automated defense mechanisms are, I shall give them each a name, then with a description of the mechanism's function. Some of these functions are well-established fallacies. These functions are not in any particular order.

1. Shotgun or Scatter: When in response to a point or question by the conservative opponent, the liberal will ask or say a whole bunch of things that are only partially related to the subject at hand. The velocity and amount of various topics that are spat out in rapid succession are designed to put the opponent (conservative) immediately on the deffensive, because as soon as the opponent chooses any one of the many topics that the liberal has rapidily fired out, as if being shot out by a shotgun, they have just accomplished a subject diversion that the liberal is free to waste time actually pretending to defend or rebutt. The scatter process can be done ad infinitum. This LDM is an advanced form of bait and switch, but the difference here is there are several avenues of bait instead of one.
   
2. Diversion: Simply put, the response is an attempt to deflect the issue to another issue to keep the opponent offguard. As soon as the new topic is accepted, the opponent has to start all over again, and if the liberal can't rebutt on that topic either, they'll simply switch to something else. It keeps the opponent guessing and on unstable ground.
3. Overgeneralization: The opponent or conservative states a position, a statement, or point, then the liberal takes the statement or point and restates it as an extreme overgeneralization. This particular mechanism is quite irritating to the opponent of the liberal, because it implies that the opponent is actually stupid enough to fall for this obvious trap. Either this mechanism is intentional or the liberals' brain really does add in additional words not originally spoken by the opponent, the latter indicates severe brain damage.
   
4. String-Powered: Remember those dolls that had a chord in their back, that when you pulled on the string, a device within the doll would play a pre-recorded message? This mechanism is no different from that of those dolls. The liberal doesn't really engage in the conversation, until their opponent says a certain "trigger word" that causes a pre-recorded response to begin playing out of the mouth of the liberal, as if someone reached back and pulled on a chord on the back of the liberal. The pre-recorded response is expressed to the point where the liberal is even unaware of what they are saying, because if you were to ask them to repeat what they just said, they tend to look at you blankly as if they actually said something a moment or so ago. Additionally, the fact that liberals tend to flail and commit many facial expressions at the direction towards the opponent during a "string pull", does not mean at all that they are even aware of what they are saying. This particular mechanism is by far my favorite, because I coined the term. (I think)
   
5. Non-Responsiveness: Is similar to the Diversion mechanism, but the liberal doesn't even go that far in effort. The response is usually something completely irrelevant to the conversation. Non-sequitor comes to mind when describing Non-Responsiveness.
6. Ad Hominem: "To the Man" is what the term translates as from Latin. Why even bother with a rebutal or capitulation to the point, when there is much more to gain from personally attacking your opponent! This mechanism is the worst because it not only confirms that the liberal can't win the argument, but that the insult reflects more on the liberal as a person than the person they are attacking. For a potential reasoning behind resorting to Ad Hominem, please refer to LDM #13: Rectal-Cranial Inversion.
   
7. Invention: The liberal seemingly pulls statements made by the opponent out of thin air, as if from a magic hat or their own arse, when the opponent never made such statements or implied any such rhetoric invented by the liberal. Invention is done in order to throw off the opponent, immediately putting them on the defensive by having to refute or defend a statement that was never said. For the motive behind the use of this mechanism, please refer to the tail end of mechanism #3: Overgeneralization.
8. Denying the Charge: When liberals defend against accusations that were never made in the first place. It is a pre-emptive action that causes many conservatives to scratch their heads in wonder, skeptically pondering why the liberal would deny something that wasn't even accused, unless there is something to the seemingly unnecessary denial.
   
9. Exclusive Dictionaries: When liberals like to use their own special definitions of words to prove their point. This sort of mechanism usually surfaces when liberals have only been around other like-minded liberals for too long.
10. Entrapment: The liberal will argue a point or position based on an unusual or specific, but non-common, definition of a word. This LDM is intended to frame an argument in such a way as to entrap their opponents, because the opponent would most likely try to argue from the actual definition intended in a normal discussion, thereby keeping the opponent from addressing the real argument, which the liberal would surely lose, and they know it, hence this LDM.
    
11. Clintonian speak: It depends on what the meaning of is, is.
12. Kerry speak (or Wafflism): When you vote for something before you voted against it. In other words, when you pander to both sides of the coin, but assert that you have always maintained one position.
13. Rectal-Cranial Inversion: The LDM is one of the most obvious to notice, because the liberal believes that it is so self-righteous, and the opponent is just plain stupid, that such pompous arrogance is self-evident in the discussion. For if the opponent truely understood the argument, as the liberal does, then the opponent would agree with the liberal. The fact that the conservative is merely arguing against the liberal indicates to the liberal that the conservative has mental problems.
    
14. Labeling: The liberal has to break someone down into a group, or identity. The individual cannot simply be as is. Every person on the planet has to be included into an identity, such as race, sex, religion, political leaning, income, nationality, etc. so as to allow a positive or negative judgment to be made of that individual by the liberal depending on the sequence of the grouping. Because this mechanism is so natural and instantaneous for the liberal, it is difficult to conclude the origination of this mechanism as being apart of the LDM or simply a (defective) wiring of the neurons. Without such certainty to point to the mechanism's end point, the function will be assumed as an LDM.
    

Because liberals utilize emotion in their "reasoning", they tend to view those who don't think (feel) as they think (feel), who just happen to be conservatives, as evil. To simply say that conservatives are wrong would be unnatural for a liberal.

Since conservatives tend to use reason, they tend to view those pesky liberals as wrong-minded. You will also notice that conservatives tend to focus on the rights and wrongs of the ideas, topics, issues being discussed while liberals tend to label both the person and their views as deficient, or worse.

You will also notice that most people who say things like "I think..." a lot in conversation are conservatives, while most people who say things like "I feel..." a lot tend to be liberals.

More to come.

Mad Cow in Pasadena (aka Weebork)

p.s. No typos were harmed in the making of this posting.

I had a small argument with a lady at my church over the popular vote vs the electoral college. I had injected myself into the conversation she was having with our pastor, and it remained civil, for the most part, except the entire conversation was one sided as this woman didn't even listen to what I was saying.

Her point was that the Electoral College (EC) is now irrelevant, and the US is the only country left in the world that doesn't elect through the popular vote (this was her strongest supporting point). I disagreed with the irrelevancy of the EC by saying that if the electoral college were to be supplanted by the popular vote to elect the president, it would result in over 90% of the country being ignored. She didn't get my point, even after I repeated it several times in different ways. I ended up asking her if she even understood what I was saying, in which she promptly replied "no". Either I have a serious problem communicating, or she was too dense, or unwilling, to atleast entertain my point. (Note: It is irritating to have to make this point obvious: It is ok to disagree with me, but there is a difference between disagreement and outright denying the consideration of an argument. If you want to disagree with me, fine, but at least understand what I'm saying!)

Why the popular vote electing the president would damage our country and ignore almost the entire county is because if the popular vote elected presidents, the politicians running for the position would only go to the most heavily populated areas of the country to campaign. Politicans would only need to campaign in about 7 or 8 of the most heavily populated parts of the country, specifically metropolitian areas such as LA, New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, etc. to become elected. The politicians would pander to those dense areas, promising all sorts of entitlements, while bypassing the other millions of people that live throughout the rest of the country. How in the world can you expect proper representation of the country to the degree that 90% of the country is ignored in its right to selecting a presidential candidate?

The Electoral College is an intergal part of our representative democracy. The Founders, having a clear understanding of the increased influence a highly populated state would have over a smaller populated state, decided to create a system to balance out the two types of states. This system was so important and necessary, that it was imbedded in the original language of the Constitution. The populous state would easily outvote a smaller populated state in a presidential election if the method of selecting the president were by direct democracy, ie. popular vote. Because there are more of the smaller populated states than highly populated states, the EC was created to allow the smaller states greater influence in a presidential election, providing a greater plurality of the country, to potentially outvote the fewer, though, highly populated states.

Let's remember that the EC is made up of electors voted by every state's legislature. It isn't just some phantom, mysterious body that magically appears every four years to wreck havoc on our country, electing an individual to the presidency by fiat, and then quickly dissipating back into the ether. The EC is made up of real people, that are selected by our state's representatives, that we, the people, in turn, voted into office.

The reasoning behind the popular vote way of electing our president is based on the idea that if more people want a particular candidate as president, then naturally they should get that person into the presidency through the popular vote. The problem with this, as stated from the beginning, is that since most of the population of the country is located in such small areas within a few states, the vast majority of the country would not have a say in the selection of a presidential candidate. There is no plurality in a popular vote. Plurarity, E Plurbius Unum, "out of many, one", is a foundational concept within the American psyche.

Amending the Constitution to annul the EC would not only be impossible, as the smaller populated states would never provide the necessary two-thirds approval Congress needs to pass a constitutional amendment doing so, but that the resulting change would cause a breakup of the Union as those same numerous, smaller populated states would understand that their say in a presidential election would become as annuled as the EC. If you thought the last civil war was bad enough, imagine a civil war in the US involving fifty states and 300 million people. You may think that this is an overreaction to the pro-erradication of the EC, but that is what I forsee in the future. The steps to chaos are quite logical in sequence if you take the consequences into consideration.

Aside from the fact that the smaller populated states would never allow a change such as the elimination of the EC, but the concept of initiating such a change is based entirely during certain periods in American society. Our most recent period, which began about 40 years ago, emphasized the individual, rather than the group. I would say that around the year of 2000 began the trend of society to once again focus on groups, and away from individualism. Certainly 9-11, and more recently the 2004 presidential election, has indicated that society is indeed, moving towards group orientation. The popular vote is a reflection on the emphasis on individual rights, and the electoral college is a reflection on groups, in terms of states. With this idea in mind, there will be no serious discussion among the American public to change the way we elect presidents. Perhaps in another 40 years, when the pendelum swings back towards individualism, can we expect the argument for eliminating the EC in favor of the popular vote to rise again.

To go back to the above ladie's point about how the US is the only country in the world that still uses an EC, such a reasoning requires am erroneous inferrence: That every other country is better than that US because they don't use an EC. Ok, so the US is the only country to have an EC, so what? The US is also the most powerful country in the world, being the only superpower, with the largest economy, the best military, the freest and richest, and possessing the most superior culture. Could part of the reason why we are all of those things be because of our reliance on the Electoral College? The reason for having an EC is actually strengthened because we are the only country in the world that uses it.

While hanging out with some friends at a Claim Jumper over a few drinks, our get together quickly turned into a roundtable discussion over foreign policy. There was some concern over Mr. Bush's diplomacy with countries that aren't helpful to the US. Countries such as France, Russia, and China were selling weapons, military equipment, and commercial items, such as fiber optic wire, for military purposes, to Iraq in the years and months leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom (Gulf War II). Under the guise of diplomacy with those countries, the Bush Administration has done a good job avoiding public discussion of these dubious acts to the public. It is this friendly diplomacy that was the complaint.

I didn't really comment on the matter because I didn't really have anything to add. My friends were right in the sense that the Bush administration wasn't making public statements regarding the above activities to the public, but as to the reasons why the administration is purposely omitting such statements out to the public doesn't necessarily equate to a wrong action. I believe there to be much more going on behind the scenes than is realized. After all, there are two sides to a countries diplomacy: the public side and the private side.

The public side is the version of diplomacy that is released from the administration to the media, which is then disseminated. The private diplomacy is the diplomacy that is actually taking place. It can be that both types of diplomacy are the same, but I highly doubt it. Because there are much more things going on behind the scenes, it is quite impossible to tell what the actual diplomacy is. It is until private diplomacy is negotiated and implemented by all parties, when the private diplomacy becomes public domain. Something to keep in mind however is that not all diplomatic agreements are made public.

I think the skepticism over the apparent diplomatic handling by the Bush Administration is somewhat justified, however I think an important point must be remembered when keeping such skepticism in mind: The administration is working for what's best for the country. Even if we don't exactly know what the real diplomatic course is until it is finished, we can still be confident that the direction the diplomacy is going is good for the country.

In other words, I think the administration is letting these other countries know about their dubious actions, but it is brought up in the private diplomacy phase. Both parties want to gain from their diplomatic endeavors. The Bush Administration will no doubt use all the things the other countries have done against them to gain leverage. This leverage will be used to compromise certain things that those other countries want (gain), and the US can gain additional diplomatic conditions of its own. If those bad things are brought up privately, the administration would have much more leverage to work with against Russia, China, and France, than if the information was often reminded to the public. For the latter, it would be more difficult to negotiate because the governments of those countries would be in defense mode.

It can be frustrating to see a lack of public statements condemning actions by France, Russia, and China, but keep in mind the big picture when dealing with matters of diplomacy. I would like to see a more direct punishment by the administration to those countries, but perhaps there is a legitimate reason for the silence. I just don't know.