Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Lori vrs me.

So I'm sitting on the bus, and Lori, my friend, brings up a point, actually, several points.

One of which includes, "You're applying for MIT right?"
Quite frankly, no I wasn't. I'm pretty sure that I'm no where smart enough to attent MIT or Cal Tech. Or at least I hope I don't else my brother will become the janitor and school my ass to make me study. But the point she was trying to make is, "You can do it as long as you set your mind for it." I don't really believe in that. Reason being, I know this girl. She is in my math class, we will name her...Bobalina. Bobalina studies for more time than I play games during the summer, cries when she gets a bad grade, etc. Bobalina works her ass off and gets straight As. I do not work my ass off, and I'm getting half decent grades. Right now I have mostly Bs and As. And a C in math...but that's my own stupidity. Regardless, it shows how little work I do, and I get half decent grades, vs. how much Bobalina's work, and the grades she gets.

I think I am smarter than Bobalina, but she is only there to prove my point. People who go to MIT are much smarter than me. I mean, you have kids there who are like, "Uh yeah. I'm playing blackjack instead of studying," and gets Bs. Yes, there are people who work hard, but the intelligence level between me, and someone who may be able to get into MIT are grand. But that's only my thought. I do not believe that you achieve all your goals through just hard work.

The people in MIT are phenomenal in intelligence. Some of the people there do no work, and pull out a C average, where I would have to work my ass off to pull a D. Actually; I'll probably fail after the first week. I have no mentality for that type of work. The point being, not only will MIT most likely reject me, but the intelligence difference is just too steep. They are looking for people who get the same grades as Bobalina, but works just as hard as.....me (not very hard).

Another point she brought up. My philosophy/doctrine/whatever states, "It's better to be phenomenal in one area, than good in the rest." Lori states, "It's better to be phenomenal in all areas." Again, I disagree. I don't think it is possible to be phenomenal in all areas, for the fact that humans have a limited life span. Most of your learning effort goes into your first 30 years of your life (grad school, etc). Then the rest are devoted to working. So in 30 years, you cannot be phenomenal in 8 different subjects, unless you learn how to stay awake 24/6 and sleep on only holidays and Sundays. My take is, it's better to have 1 or two majors, rather than five minors.

Carmack, would not have been such a great programmer...okay bad example. He's like uber programmer and he's got a high school education.

Hmmmm.

Okay. Einstein devoted most of his life for physics. I'm pretty sure that none of his books were ever very popular for the general population. Whereas Clinton, who's a liberal arts major, writes a book that is instantly popular. The difference is that Clinton will always be able to write better than Einstein, and Einstein will always be better in physics. There is no one human being who can be equally phenomenal in two subjects, and better than a person who is phenomenal in one subject.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

School Rules. Fair at all?

  1. Click the title if you have yet to figure that out.

  2. Shocking News.

    Old news, but still good news. When I read this particular article, I was especially shocked.

    So the story goes, this kid gets a call from his mom in Iraq, who he probably hasn't seen for at least 4 months. This happened during lunch time, and he goes outside to gain a better reception. A teacher catches him, and attempts to take away the phone. He accidentally turns off the phone, and the kid is sent to the vice principle's office.

    Forgive my profanity.
    wtf?

    The kid receives suspension till the end of the year. I believe this includes him losing credit.

    Forgive my profanity again.
    WHAT THE FUCK?

    Even if this happened during class, and the kid realized it was his mom, the teacher should not have confiscated the cell phone. The kid is under a lot of stress due to the fact that tomorrow his mom might be dead. If I were that kid, I would have punched the teacher. Yes, I do believe in education, but family matters come first.

    Eventually that kid was re-allowed into school on account of a many hate letters, and a bad reputation. But the fact that the school had to wait for the kid to release his story to the press is just...disgusting.

    That is all I have to say. The rest of you can make your own opinions.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Seperation of Church and state.

"I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."

Said by Thomas Jefferson.

I fully agree with what he said about the separation of church and state. It's a bad thing. For example, the bible will start dictating what should be done with America. I do not want the bible stating we should not be able to do this and that. For example, the bible should have no say what so ever when it comes to gay marriages.

Yes, it is true that in the bible, god did not create Adam and Steve.
Note: I am agnostic/atheist.

But it is also true that the people who are fighting for gay marriages are fighting for their civil rights, as stated in a previous post.
http://rainyraver.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_rainyraver_archive.html
It's somewhere on that page. I did not argue gay marriage on the religious terms. I argued on the basis of civil rights. Yes, I would be fine if there was, "gay mariage," in which they can attain their civil rights.

Prayer should not be taught in school. Note: I am not against someone praying during school. I am perfectly fine with that. However, there is no reason to make the entire class pray. They're kids, and they will believe anything they are told. I know this, because throughout my life, I have recited the Pledge of Allegiance. I say it's brain washing, through I'm not against it. I have full loyalty for my country. The effect of mandatory prayer in school would be a massive conversion of children into religion A.

Furthur more, yes; it is true that the exact words, “Separation of Church and State,” do not appear in the Constitution. HOWEVER, the first amendment forbids several things.

  • Establish a state religion or prefer certain religion
  • Prohibit the free exercise of religion
  • Infringe the freedom of speech
  • Infringe the freedom of the press
  • Limit the right to assemble peaceably
  • Limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances

The first two apply to this post. It does not specifically say, "Separation of Church and State," however it does draw the same point. The government will not can not and must not establish a state religion or prefer certain religion. This is important. Yes, it does state that in the first amendment.

WHICH MEANS THERE MUST BE A SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

Sunday, September 18, 2005

For the Last Time, Free Speech is a Right Given at Birth

Nobody has the right to take away from whatever I want to say. That is the essence of free speech and the very first constitutional amendment to the United States. This right is not earned, it is natural right that is given to you at birth. You don't have to do anything to earn it, and nobody can ever take it away from you even if they want to. If they do, they're violating your rights. They leave their own rights to as many violations as you can think of.

Free speech is a difficult right to protect, however. The only way to do so is to exercise your own views. To protect free speech you must use free speech. Only once you use it is it impossible to take it away.

Trying to draw a "borderline" on free speech can never succeed in an American society. We are not Europe. We are not most of Asia. There is no worry about Nazis, ethnic tensions, or a dictator. This is part of the reason I believe the Patriot ACT to be unconstitutional. Allowing the FBI to monitor our activities is just plain wrong. There is no "if you've got nothing to hide, why are you scared?" logic. If the FBI or CIA so much as senses a whif of the mere chance that you're a terrorist, they can put you away forever, period.

So what am I saying? First, lobby your local congressman and senator to pass legislation stopping PATRIOT ACT abuse. Secondly, I'm saying no successful limit on free speech will ever happen.

The fact is, in this day and age, information doesn't stay still. Unless the information is a top secret classified government project involving military technology or Canada, it will find its way to somebody who shouldn't know. Even more so, most groups are harmless.

Take a look at NAMBLA. The North American Man Boy Love Association. Some people would assume that such a sick organization should be shut down. However, those people are idiots because they don't know what NAMBLA does.

Ok, to clear things up, NAMBLA members don't actually practice homo-pedophilia. They are still law abiding citizens, for the most part. They don't print "homosexual propoganda" (an idiotic phrase since homosexuality is not a life choice but literally a physical and mental trait), they do not go and sodomize young children. Their goal is to pass legislation making pedophilia legal. While this might sound bad, in practice they have no power anyway. Outlawing them would set a bad precendent to allow the government to outlaw groups "in the name of public decency." Give them their free speech. It doesn't hurt you, unless you're a homophobe, in which case screw you (not literally).

Then look at the KKK. This group is just pointless. In these days of terrorists and skinheads, the KKK is obsolete. If it so much as moves a finger every member is arrested. Let them have their free speech, they're just dogs barking.

What I'm trying to say is that you really can't limit free speech effectively. The "fire in a theater" example is about as close as anyone will ever get. Less is just anarchy, which doesn't protect free speech at all, and more would lead to a slippery slope.

If you advocate more restrictions on free speech, you are advocating a system that, slowly but surely, will lead to the US government being able to quash dissent. When that day arrives, not even the 2nd amendment will save you.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Free Market. Capitalist.

Karl Marx is a commie. Sad to say, I agree with his one point that capitalism will eventually destroy itself. His idea is basically, "The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer." Right now in America, this is true.

The free market idea is basically where the government does not touch the market at all. The market runs however it wishes. However, this may cause many problems. For example, in the US, if you have a monopoly, you play by different buisiness rules rather than the standard. If there are two companies, equal in size, one company may undervalue their product in order to gain more customers. However, a monopoly cannot do this. This is due to the fact that the monopoly has just so much money to spare. Thus, the monopoly cannot undervalue their product in order to give smaller companies a foothold.

Well, right now our all mighty, great ruler president (*sarcasm*) believes in this system. He also thinks that the richer the rich get, the more jobs they will create. Big problem. The rich are already filty rich, and you're giving money to the filty rich. This doesn't work. Explination: Filty rich. They already have alot of money. The only thing is that you don't know that due to swiss bank accounts. However, that is beside the point.

Part of the reason our economy is failing is because the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. This is the problem with capitalism. However, the government should switch to a utilitarianism type of view, where the government only interfears to benefit the most amount of people (key word, most. Not aristocracy).

--

Oh yeah, does anybody think our economy is just mysteriously messed up? They predicted that the US economy was supposed to coolapse during the 1950s, though right now it's 2004 and has started to dwindle. Well, there's some really weird stuff when it comes to our economy. First thing, everybody pegs to our dollar. China does it. Japan does it. Many countries do it. Why? To keep their stuff artifically cheap? Another oddity. Alot of countries invest in our US bonds. But it's more like, "I lend you money to buy our stuff."

Does anyone think that's weird at all? More or less, it's a bowling ball balanced on a needle. Nobody is quite sure how it works, but everybody sees it. So what the hell?

I mean, I'm not saying everybody, unpeg your dollars. Japan did something like this and it all bubbled up. Japan's economy became a basket case (I predict this will happen with China if they ever decide to fully unpeg it's dollar in the near future). Japan's currency is still pegged, but not as much.

Okay. Conspiracy theory.
I think this is all a big plot to screw over the US. When our economy goes into the shit hole, we'll start owing alot of money because all the countries invested in our bonds.

Okay, so maybe they aren't plotting to do this against us. But this will probably happen unless someone does something about the dollar pegs, us bonds, and our freaking trade deficiet.

[sarcasm] And all mighty Bush will magically solve this problem. [/sarcasm]

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Protests, Riots, Massacres, and rocks.

I'm sure you've heard of this. A bunch of people are protesting, and then the military opens up. Well, you people who say that should think about what the soldiers think. Do you really think they want to shoot civilians? Last time I checked the Geneva Convention was against killing civilians. Well, time after time, you always hear about some protest, and then the military firing on them.

Well, first thing is first. Their intent was to keep the protest under control, not to slaughter dozens of people. Let’s have a hypothetical situation. I am a soldier. There are 29 men around me, whom I've gone through training school with. Anyways, we're assigned to keep a protest from getting out of hand. However, the protest turns into a riot, and rocks are thrown. My buddy gets struck in the head and he's passed out. Meanwhile the riot is getting more and more violent. I'm going to fire back.

Think about it. The average soldier is not trained for crowd control. More or less, it is a poor judgment on the soldier's part. But really, the person is just scared. Now stop saying they were out for blood. Stop saying all they wanted to kill people. This discredits the military. What you have to remember is that all it takes is one rock to snap an uneasy soldier. Unless the soldier is trained in crowd control, he will be especially jumpy during a protest.

So really, stop blaming the soldiers for opening up. It's what we call poor judgment. It's not like their minds are crystal clear during the protest. Oh, and please leave the rocks on the ground.