Gay Marriage

So, the lawful marriage of homosexual couples under the eyes of the government is a subject I'm passionate about. Not because I am gay (do I even need to qualify that?), but because I simply cannot stand aside and watch as ignorance and superstition feed the ravenous hatred and bigotry that is so prevalent right now.

I have come to conclusion that I am not pro gay marriage; I'm anti- straight marriage. I don't believe that gay couples should be able to marry so much as I think that straight couples should only be able to be granted civil unions. Marriage is a religious institution; leave it to the houses of superstition to perform the ceremony.

However, the above statement is really just an argument in semantics. A couple, in either Civil or Matrimonial Union, should have equal rights regardless of the sexes of the individuals involved; otherwise, it's sexism.

Interestingly, I've heard the argument that gays do, in fact, have the same right to marry as straights: they are perfectly free to marry a member of the opposite sex, just like everybody else.

The argument falls back on the definition of marriage; the troglodytes who oppose gay marriage provide the following criteria for marriage; you may marry somebody:

• of marriagable age,


• who consents,


• is unmarried,


• and of the opposite sex

What we need to change is the fourth criterion, the one about the opposite sex.

The argument that I've been hearing lately from the assholes on the other side of Proposition 8 could almost be the definition of slippery slope fallacy.

Basically, they contend, if we can "arbitrarily" change on criterion-- the one about being the opposite sex-- why do we retain the others? Generally, you'll hear something along the lines of: "I want to marry my dog, a tree and a couple 3-year-olds. Surely this is equally as valid as arbitrarily removing the sex requirement of the traditional definition?"

Turns out they're wrong. Myriad arguments can be made as to the necessity of the other three criteria: age and consent assure that nobody is being married against their will, and that children are not being molestet; the "unmarried" criterion simply ensures that monogamy remains the norm. This, too, is a candidate for deletion, but let's just assume the monogamy is necessary for the proper functioning of society with respect to government and taxation.

Before we continue, it will be instructive to define the purpose of marriage.

Is marriage designed for the production of children? Not exclusively so, or else couples would need to pass a fertility test before partaking of nuptials; being childfree would be grounds for forced separation and probably legal action on behalf on the part of the state.

Is marriage designed to raise children? Again, not exclusively so; childrearing is sufficient but not necessary reason to be united in legal matrimony. Even if it was, gay couples have been shown to be equally as effective as parents when it comes to raising children.

Is marriage designed to give people who love each other? No. People have been married not because the participants were willing, but because there were advantages to their respective families for doing so, and punishments for refusing. European nobility comes to mind immediately as an example, but this phenomenon is not exclusive to rich inbred whitefolk.

It is this last point that I would like to emphasize. Gay-marriage opponents point out that marriage is not dependent upon "love"; this is both a sad preview of their view of human relationships, and straw that breaks their argument-camel's back.

Very well. Supposing, for the moment, that this is somehow relevant, the opponents have just flushed the relevance of one of their favorite (fallacious) arguments down the drain; that is, the argument that homosexuality is a choice is now entirely irrelevant to the matter.

Because it is pretty well concurred that sexual orientation is not a choice, gay-marriage proponents win the argument either way: believing that homosexuality is voluntary and denying couples the right to marry based on sex is overt discrimination; stating that love is immaterial to the institution of marriage means that you have no reason for maintaining heterosexual-only marriage.


To summarize, here is a list of everything that will happen if gays are allowed to marry:

• Gay couples will get married.

Notice how "holocaust", "persecution of heterosexuals", and "end of the world" are not included on that list?


The reason that there is no "slippery slope" as a result of allowing gays to marry is because removal of the other critera actually leads to bad things. I have provided a list of the remaining three criteria, and what would happen if they were to be removed:

• Age of Consent: Removing this criteria means that babies and small children are molested. If you can't see why this is bad, kill yourself. Seriously.


• Individual gives Consent: non-cooperative marriage is a unique combination of kidnapping and rape. In this instance, the two-for-one is not a good deal. Again, if you don't understand this, I strongly encourage self-termination.


• Individual Is Not Married: This is in place to prevent polygamy and/or polyamory. While pluralistic marriage arrangements are not necessarily bad, they do tend to lead to unfavorable power distributions and the easier exploitation/abuse of the weaker individuals within the marriage group. At this time, I have no comment on whether or not this should be made illegal. I'm leaning towards "not".

In addition to these three, some states have restrictions on the consanguinity of the potential couple; ostensibly, this is to prevent incestuous relationships from ever producing children. While this is a noble goal, the same reproductive restrictions are not placed on other factors, such as drug and alcohol usage or financial stability. These factors are far more likely to negatively impact a child's health, so I have not included incest laws in my criteria.

Me? Poetry? Never...

So, I wrote this somewhat-poem for my facebook profile "about me" section. I plan on changing that part of my profile sometime soon, and I don't want to lose this. It's not very well written, and I am not big on poems, but I think it captures the essence of me.

Here it is:

I am...

perpetually curious.

Always the scientist, usually the philosopher, sometimes the artisan and on rare occasion the artist.

Jack-of-all-trades, master of most.

The eternal student, the jubilant teacher; The magician who will reveal his secrets if asked nicely enough.

The harbinger of enlightenment, the waster of ignorance; child of logic and husband of reality.

Passionate in my rationalism; and thus by neither lovers nor warriors claimed.

The enforcer of the Golden Rule, the arbiter of justice; balancer of your karmic burden.

The last light before you enter the darkness; only grown-ups come this way.

The grateful son, the encouraging brother; probably the only really honest friend you have.

Rarely one to deny enthusiasms; restraint is the product of hopes and desires.

Strong enough to stand alone; nonetheless thankful for friends.

WRONG

I seem to be hearing the following quite often: According to our understanding of the laws of physics, helicopters should not fly.

Helicopters do not defy the laws of physics. The only difference between a helicopter and an airplane is that in a helicopter, the wings move relative to the fuselage.

The Turning of the Tide

So, we have a new president-elect.

He is a man of color, and he has some questionable ties to Islamic organizations. He has made statements in favor of the implementation of some kind of state-funded healthcare program, and he apparently hates guns.

This is not nearly reason enough to hate him.


I did not vote for Mr. Obama. I voted for Ron Paul of the Constitutional Party. However, I told myself before I cast my vote (after standing in line for 3.5 hours in order to re-register, because my original registration application was never processed...) that I would be happy so long as McCain/Palin did not make it to office.

This brings me to my point: I am tired of everybody who voted for McCain bitching and moaning, talking about how Obama is "not their president" or how they're going to move to Mexico. Seriously? STFU. Now you know how the other half of the country felt after the 2004 elections.

Your party fucked up. You may take this criticism seriously, because as libertarian-leaning individual, I normally expect to be attracted to the Republican party more often then not.

(For those of you who are not from the United States, the Republican and Democratic parties basically have a duopoly on our political system. Third parties rarely make it to any meaningful position.)

It is significant, then, that I feel entirely disenchanted withe the GOP. I can attribute this to four primary failings of the Republican party:

They pander to the religious right. Religious people by definition are at least a little out of touch with reality, and deciding policy because of this is not a good idea. Two specific areas come to mind:

• Gay Marriage: If people pay taxes, they have the right to get married. The only possible objection to allowing homosexuals to marry comes from a religious standpoint.


• Abortion: abortion is basically a property-rights issue once you remove religious influence. A property rights issue, that is, with a very clear-cut moral and ethical understanding.

They hate freedom. The Republican party is all about freedom, unless it's freedom of speech, freedom from unlawful search, and freedom from unlawful seizure. Terrorists are the new Communists.

They hate intellectuals. The nomination of Sarah Palin as the GOP's choice for Vice Presidential candidate was basically a slap in the face to anybody who has thoughts. If there are processes of higher cognition going on within your brainpan, Mrs. Palin does not represent you. She is a superstitious talking head, with no interest in discussing issues or resolving problems. She is, in short, the embodiment of everything thas is wrong with America today.

They don't care about the environment. I do not consider myself an environmentalist by the most popular definition of the word. I do, however, consider myself a "practical environmentalist"- I live by a simple credo, one that was passed down to me through my forebears and which has as much relevance now as it ever has, or ever will: Do Not Shit Where You Eat. Republicans would rather continue burning fossil fuels- purchased from the very people who hate us- than invest in new forms of energy and transport. This probably has something to do with their rabid anti-intellectualism (which in turn is almost definitely a product of their superstitious pandering), because only Evil Atheistic Scientists™ would accept the idea of global climate change or an impending energy crisis. Because these people have educations and are capable of logical thought, they are clearly not to be trusted.

The Republicans did this to themselves. If they hadn't fucked up so much, they might could have had the vote of the people they were counting on. It is unfortunate that there are people who believe that Mr. Obama is unfit for the presidency simply because of his skin color, religious affiliation (or lack thereof), or political ideals. These people remind me of cavemen.

Obama is not going to ruin the country- he can't fuck up more than President Bush already has. He already has his work cut out for him thanks to the economy and the war; he does not need the incessant, empty criticism of people who are bitter because their head-in-the-sand mentality was not catered to with another idiot of a president.

So very busy

Ugh, this semester is turning out to be tough. I picked up a second job as a programming contractor, because my "real" job pays well but doesn't get me the hours I need. Unfortunately, food and shelter are some of those essential needs that also cost money to acquire and maintain.

School could be easier. I'm finally grokking my mechanics class (physics 301). Not that it is conceptually or mathematically hard; it's just that modelling problems in order to solve them has proven itself an elusive skill. Fortunately, my other physics class (computational physics, 331) is a conceptual walk in the park; the only difficulty stems from the ambiguity in our professor's assignments. If she would just come out and tell us what she wants instead of trying to get us to infer it, things would be significantly easier.

Why did I start writing this? Oh yeah, so that the month of October wouldn't go by without at least one post from me, meaningless as it is.

You are dismissed.

Stop Breeding!

Lately, for whatever reason, I've been noticing lots of people talking about having loads of kids. They like babies, apparently. The unfortunate thing is, all of these people are either very stupid or very religious. Usually both.

It's a well-established fact that stupid people outnumber smart people; the reasons for this are debated. Some, like myself, believe it's at least partially due to a system that rewards excessive reproduction; others think it's due to the removal of restrictions placed on women- back in the day, smart women became teachers because that's all they were allowed to do; today, smart women can do anything a smart man can, and if you set up a nice practice as a lawyer or doctor, would you want to take time off to give birth to a kid? I doubt it.

I also believe that many people do no fully comprehend the implications of childrearing. I know a couple of girls I graduated high school with now have kids, the sad thing being that they were looking forward to being mothers.

See, I place babies in the same category as puppies, kittens, and guinea piglets: sure, they may be cute now, but when you have to clean crap/barf/urine off the carpet, you're going to be thinking differently, at least until said animal learns better. The difference between these girls and me is, they don't see the downside- all they think is OMG babiez SOOOO CUTE, and that's it. No plan for the child's future; no plan to make their future kid more successful than they are (this wouldn't be difficult for the girls I've cited; it would involve going to college and not having kids right after you graduate). But no, instead they choose to have children not for their childrens' sake, but for theirs. It's some kind of bizarre maternal badge of honour, apparently, to have kids even when you're not ready for them.

As if teenage ignorance wasn't enough, we also have a movement within most fundamentalist communities (christian and muslim alike) that aims to produce as many children as possible per sanctified union; women are treated as nothing more than baby factories, and girls are taught never to aspire to anything other than reproductive excess. I wouldn't be so opposed to this "quiverfull" movement if 1) it was not inspired by superstition and 2) the kinds of people having boatloads of kids were scientists, engineers, and doctors- you know, people who actually contribute tangible benefits to society.

But no, you instead have Billy-Bob and Sue-Anne marrying right out of high school and never aspiring to make anything of themselves; they are taught that sex is evil and that higher education is the work of the devil, so Billy-Bob is resigned to working the rest of his life at the steel foundry or whatever, and Sue-Anne is relegated to an existence made up exclusively of cooking, cleaning, fucking, and breeding, in varying order.

Does anybody else see the problem with this? THIS IS WRONG! People should not make more people simply for the sake of having more people; they should make more people because they believe they can make better people than themselves: individuals who, once their education is complete, can turn around and give something back to society.

Actually... No.

Do you ever notice how Christians are almost expected to traipse about and exclaim their faith, while the mere mention of disbelief on the part of a rational individual is enough to have him labeled an "aggressive atheist"?

Why do you think that is? It's probably due to the fact that atheism, by the nature of its most popular definition, is openly antagonistic towards fairy tales. This offends people, and they believe they can use the "freedom of opinion" to quash it.

It is an unfortunate truth that people seem to believe they have to respect others' opinions. This is actually not the case; one is merely obliged to respect anothers right to their opinion.

This is where I'm having an issue. I think it highly frustrating when I meet fellow atheists who "respect other peoples' opinions". I mean, really, why would you? If it's stupid, it does not deserve respect. If I say sin and vice are the devices of the Cosmic Leprechaun and his gang of evil fairies, do you respect that? Or do you tell me that you think I'm a fucking idiot, in lieu of any actual evidence in support of my claim? I desperately hope it's the latter.

You do not need to respect other peoples opinions. You are free to call their opinions stupid. You can choose to not be an intellectual pussy, and do the right thing instead of the easy thing. Yes, I know that it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside to think that you can avoid conflict with your unenlightened friends, but really you're just seeking desperately for the justification for your cognitive cowardice. Don't be an asshole; educate!

Now, I know that this may sound a little extreme, and I'm not suggesting anybody try to collect and burn theists at the stake (not that I believe you could or are ignorant enough to try, but disclaimers never hurt). The point I'm trying to get across is this: the Christians of this country are not willing to show you respect for your logic, and so you really don't owe them anything. Oh, sure, you'll meet the ones who say that they respect your opinion, and then about five seconds later they'll tell you they just think it's so sad that you're so blind to the obviousness of the existence of their skydaddy. That, or they'll be kind enough to tell you that they don't hate you, per se, because their book-of-tales tells them to hate the sin, not the sinner. And that really grinds my gears.

When I was young and a naive, I wondered how the bible could call free thought a sin; and then I thought about the genesis story, and realized that the whole concept of not only Christianity, but all Abrahamic religions (I would say all religions, period, but I need to save such a claim until I am better educated about them) are predicated upon the machinistic, uninspired behaviours of their subscribers. In short, you have to be sheep to follow one of those religions (Surprise! I'm sure you've heard the sheep/shepherd metaphor before).

While I hate to belabor the point, I feel compelled to offer a summary: there really is no point to holding opinions on anything, if you are not willing to place them above the opinions of others. Not only are you allowed to do so, you are allowed to vocalize your ideas and challenge others. Your freedom to do so is limited only by your opponents right to live a peaceful life; you can't threaten to blow up their cars because they believe some hippy got nailed to a beam. Not only would be lowering yourself to their level, but you'd damage the reputation of freethinkers as kind, thoughtful, intellectually superior individuals, and we'd be happy to disown you.

The Loneliness of Truth

So, I recently made a comment over on Pmomma's blog, and I made reference for something I've been meaning to write about for some time.

Atheism is a lonely proposition. Really. Through repeated observation and conversation, I've come to believe that theists believe in a God for the same reasons little children have imaginary friends: it gives them a sense of comfort, someone they can connect with.

I mean, how often have you heard some bornagain evnagelical asshole talking about how they were an alcoholic/drug-addict before they "came to Christ"? Or somebody talking about how they thought their life was pointless and were seriously considering committing suicide, but changed their minds when one of their friends/relatives/coworkers mentioned a book to them with some hippy as the protagonist, who ultimately wound up nailed to a wooden cross?

The truth is, the people who act like this are, in addition to suffering from psychological and neurological issues, probably very lonely. Really, what's the point of living when life is just the mundane existence it is, occasionally and punctuated by brief moments of elation, enlightenment, inspiration, and contentment tempered by grief, pain, hunger, hatred, anger, and lust?

When you make that final step, the one where you place logic, rationality and empiricism above human emotion and animal desires as a method for dictating your actions, you come to the stark realization that there really is no default reason to live. Granted, passing your genes on is always a good starting point, but then you're no better than your dog. Who, I might mention, doesn't even have the luxury of a functioning reproductive system if you are a responsible owner.

It is an interesting paradox: you want to find the will to live. Why is that? At first, it seems like seeking an explanation for this leads to infinite recursion: you want to find a reason to live because you want to find a reason to live because you want to find a reason to live because...

However in my case, I realized that self-termination would have negative impacts other than the permanent cessation of my conscience: my family would be devastated, my friends would have a reduced opinion of me, and the world would miss out on the innovations I have to give it (you guys have absolutely no idea what a treat you're in for!).

I have my reasons for continuing my existence: I want to be better than those who I respect intellectually, and I want them to know it; I want to fall in love completely, with someone in whose company I can truly allow myself to be weak; I want to have children, passing on both my genes and my intellect, both of which stand apart from others' contributions in their respective categories; I want to make the world a radically better place, and in so doing achieve immortality; I want to make things, because when it comes down to it engineering, artifice, and insight are my truest passion.

In the end, it comes down once again to the distinction between Humans and animals: as a man I am compelled, via rational analysis of my current situation and application of known trends, to contemplate the future and project onto it my desires; this is where hopes and dreams come from. Contrast this with an animal, who has no long-term wants-- and thus, neither hopes nor dreams nor machinations of the creative mind; only desires, applicable exclusively to the now.

Politics

So, every day the retard race for President of the United States of America is pushing its way into my life. From my atheist friends who are, as a rule, mostly liberal, to my well-intentioned conservative Catholic mother, I can't seem to get away from this shit. The fact that people don't understand why I don't worship (Obama|McCain) as the be-all and end-all of potential candidates only exacerbates my frustration.

I have decided to compile a list for you, my faithful non-extant readers, of my political positions. Because nobody seems like they hold all of these beliefs (the Libertarian party comes closest, but is still a bit off), I have decided to start the Lumberjack/Ninja party. With a majority vote of 1, I hereby nominate myself as the 2008 presidential candidate for the L/NP.

My platform is as follows:

Abortion: The right to decide who makes use of your bodily resources is inalienable. Since developing embryos are making use of your nutrients and immune system at your consent, you have the right to revoke that consent. Thus, abortions are to remain legal, safe, and available without the threat of violence and/or death looming over the heads of those poor women who seek them. However, I would be open to an amendment to pro-choice law that outlaws abortions after a certain point; waiting until a fetus is fairly well developed to abort it is, in my mind, akin to inviting your asshole brother-in-law into your house, and not having wit to kick him out before he pisses you off forces you to shoot him. Term limits on abortion are the only tricky part of the whole issue; early-stage abortions should, in my and the entire Lumberjack/Ninja community's mind, remain legal.

Gay Marriage: Why is this still an issue? A pair of consenting adults is a pair of consenting adults. I'd much prefer to see a child raised in a loving household with two parents, whether they be a homosexual couple or not, than by a single mom parent.

Gun Rights: It's right there in the Constitution, folks. You have the right to keep and bear arms. That means guns. All guns. I'd be open to the idea of an Assault (read: Automatic) weapons registry, but not an outright ban. While certain cities may have issues with gun-related violence, I posit that this a result of inner-city culture and not that of a piece of machinery designed to accelerate a chunk of metal at high velocities. If individual cities wish to ban the sale of certain classes of firearms, that is their prerogative... for now. However, it is useful to keep in mind that when you don't know who's packing, you are generally more reluctant to try and shoot somebody.

Men's Rights: You heard me. Men tend to get dicked in a lot of things, and only certain of those areas are amenable to legislative correction. As president, I would end Judicial and legislative discrimination against men, in areas such (but not limited to) the following: Child support/custody, incarceration rates, the draft, and Social Security. I'd also try to adjust the media bias of the "lovable but clueless" dad that permeates pretty much every family sitcom you could imagine. Additionally, I'd address men's health issues, because there is a prominent disparity in the amount of attention, money, and time spent addressing men as opposed to women in healthcare.

Health Care: I'd support legislation to provide for a state-controlled health insurance plan. Everybody would be automatically approved, and your rate would depend on your ability to pay and your expected burden to the insurance fund, with more weight given to the latter criterion. State-provided health care would come with the stipulation that you do what your doctor says you should do, or you don't get treatment. We're here to get you fixed, not to pray for some witchdoctor to cure your gout.

Energy: This is a big one. I'd support research into and implementation of alternative energy sources. These include, but are not limited to: (Thermo)Nuclear reactors, wind, solar, and geothermal. This is America goddamit, we have everything we need right under our feet (or over our heads, as the case may be). My plan would involve two major phases: Shifting our dependence off of foreign oil, and then shifting our dependence off of oil altogether.

The Environment: My energy policy would help to reduce our carbon output, potentially achieving a carbon-neutral society by the time all is said and done. In addition to that, and in accordance with my capitalistic philosophy, I would add a tax on "Environmental Services"- basically, you must pay to have all that shit you dump into the air/water/ground recycled by the environment, which has a finite capacity for chemical recycling. The environment is a resource; resources cost money. Thus, using the environment should cost money. This would provide incentive to streamline processes, making them both more energy efficient and more environmentally friendly.

Education: Back in the day, the United States was the world leader in science and engineering; we kicked ass. Unfortunately, due to the current sociopolitical climate and the pervasive idea that "Math is Harddd!!", we are viewed as a big dumb puppy by the rest of the world, with naught but our inertia maintaining us as the current world leader. We need to re-focus on what's really important: Science. Arts and Social studies obviously need to be taught, along with history. But here's the deal: the Humanities does not change nearly as quickly, nor require nearly the input for a desirable output, as do the real Sciences (in order of Awesomness, that is: Physics, Chemistry and Biololgy). History simply doesn't change. You are not reading this on a computer because some Liberal Arts major studied underwater basket-weaving; it's because people wanted to know how the universe works, and once they had that knowledge they took and used it to bend the universe to their will and make it do what they wanted. I would encourage the Arts, but not as part of a core primary-education curriculum. Any teacher that even mentions teaching Creationism Intelligent Design would be fired on sight.

Civil Liberties:: Unfortunately, we as a people have recently given up a significant number of our rights in order to feel safe from tewwowism. I do not feel comfortable with the fact that my laptop may be seized indefinitely at the border, my email read, or my telephone tapped without a warrant; neither should you. I will fix these things if it's the last thing I do.

Foreign Policy: We need to quit being the world's police department; while it is neither practical nor desirable to sever ties completely with the outside world, I believe that we as a country need to remove ourselves from the unpleasant situations we manage to find ourselves in and attempt to maintain a cordial relationship with everybody else. If we do feel compelled to write some remote wrong, then we move in like Ninjas (I have lots of experience in this area), kicking ass and taking names. We will replace governments if we see fit, but we will set them up to be truly independent. Free people make friendly countries. If countries like Iran still want to be douchebags and decide to push the envelope too far, we will turn them into a glass parking lot, simple as that.

The Joke War on Drugs: It's not working. At all. Here's an idea: consumption of any drug becomes a non-punishable offense; distribution of non habit-forming substances becomes a controlled industry, just like tobacco and alcohol. Distribution of "hard" drugs remains an offense. This way, your friendly neighborhood pot-smoking hippy doesn't get in trouble for doing something that's arguably less harmful than consuming alcohol, and he can make a little money on the side. Conversely, the asshole who tries to sell your children Methamphetamine will be tossed in jail for the rest of his life. Everybody is happy, and if they aren't, it's because they want the government to make their decisions for them, so they need a dose of unhappiness to make them understand the real world anyways.

PHP

So, for the past few days at work I've been self-tasked (anything to avoid doing more QA work) with researching and testing possible upgrade avenues for our internal bulletin board- a simple phpbb instance.

While the version we have installed is very stable, it lacks one critical feature that myself and the important folks inside the Sys Admin group consider very helpful: LDAP-based authentication.

Fortunately, the newest version of phpbb includes LDAP authentication built-in, so once one has an instance running, one merely has to literally click a button and type in the distinguished name and LDAP server information, and one is ready to go.

I duplicated the message board database to my computer with little trouble; mysqldump is one of those simple, disproportionately useful utilities that you would have written yourself had you not known it already exists. Anyways, step one went very well.

Step two: PHP configure/build/install. Wow. Does it need to be that hard? I mean really, I shouldn't have to rebuild PHP every time I want to add new functionality. Running this:

./configure --with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs --enable-xml \
--with-mysql=/usr/local/lib/mysql
make
sudo make install


and adding a new --enable-foo or --with-bar=baz every time I want to add a new module is simply ridiculous. Does this have something to do with PHP's lack of any concept of namespaces? I mean, really, do we need to throw all 3000+ possible functions in the global namespace? This isn't C, guys. Things would be somewhat alleviated if there were any sort of uniform naming convention that the PHP standard library followed. Unfortunately, no such convention exists and if it does, it is religiously not implemented. WTF?

Anyways, I finally got phpbb3 up and running. It is a testament to the phpbb team that they are capable of writing what I have, in my very limited experience, deemed to be a very well designed piece of software in such a bizarre language.

I guess I should mention that I'm a python guy. Before that, I was a C guy. I've looked into Ruby, which seems like a cool language but provides no functionality I feel I need that python doesn't provide (and it's syntax is very foreign, but I guess that's not really a criticism. If I had my druthers...). I learned Perl before Python, and never really appreciated it. I find that the general rule with Perl is that it's great for one-off one-liners; anything including more than one carriage-return would probably better be served by a more readable language, like assembly.

It seems to me that PHPs most praised feature is also its greatest weakness: anybody can write a web application in PHP. Perhaps I'm an elitist (difficult to prove, I have very little formal CS/SE education), but I've found that people should cut their teeth on well-structured language-- a category in which I include python, C and (grudgingly) Java-- so that they learn good form before being thrown into a syntactic free-for-all with languages like PHP or Perl.

I do have some good things to say about PHP: it's very readable, when not written by a 14-year-old geek setting up his first message board; the community is abundant (though that can also be a problem), and it runs on anything, which for a dynamic-content language is huge; Python has its own web frameworks (I'm finding appreciation for Django), but it is simply not as widely utilized as PHP. That whole language-itself-as-a-templating-system is pretty cool.

Anyways, I guess it just comes down to personal preference. I just can't seem to get into PHP, no matter how hard I try; it stirs up something inside me, something that can only be calmed by using a language that was actually designed. Wow, that sounds really flamebait-y. Sorry. If I wanted to cause trouble, I'd tell you why Emacs sucks and Vim über-alles ist!

Good Luck, man

So, I went to a party tonight. Turns out it was actually a going away party for a friend of the host's; a young Iraqi man who received a full ride scholarship to study engineering here and just graduated, so he has to go back.

I really was just amazed at this guy. Besides having amazing english, he was just a Nice Dude (tm). While he regrets having to leave (he that out of the few places in the states he's visited, Montana is the best), he wants to join the US Army Corps of Engineers as a civillian because he really believes in what they are doing over there. Apparently, it's not all IEDs and cowardly suicide bombers; some real progress is being made, and people's lives are being improved.

He's not the only person I've heard that from; however, he is the only Iraqi from who I've heard such sentiments. Then again, he's the only Iraqi I believe I've ever spoken to.

Anyways, I'd like to compliment him on his vision, drive, and devotion to a cause he believes in. It's also impossible to state what a nice guy he was, and the impression I got of him as a man in the few hours I met him is indescribable. I really hope he does well, and failing that, I hope he doesn't get blown up.

Dana, you are one hell of a dude, and I strongly respect what you are doing, and what you stand for as a man. May fortune favor you, and may the fruits of your labors not go unrewarded.

Well, that was weird...

So a good friend of mine came down to Bozeman for a day to visit her boyfriend and move some stuff into her new house, in preparation for the beginning of fall term.

She wanted to get together, so we decided to go to a coffee shop (Wild Joe's, if anybody's interested. Very good!) that we had made somewhat of a ritual out of visiting these past couple semesters.

After we get our drinks, we sat down at our usual spot (the only table I can fit my legs under without knocking over, as it turns out). There was a scruffy-looking dude sitting at the table next to us, and at some point he joins our conversation.

It starts out normally enough; he says he has a doctorate in biochem, doing some research on hydrogenase (do I need an article in front of that? Are there different kinds of hydrogenase(es)?), which could potentially lead to more efficient and highly automatic production of hydrogen by algae. Interesting stuff, especially for someone like me who is very much into the alternative energy scene.

The Dude then starts talking about how he used to be profiled a lot because of the long hair he used to have (I have long hair, so that's how that thread started); he then continues to talk about how he used to be randomly beat up and incarcerated by the police in California because we has a peace activist and "on the list."

Continuing with the conversation, it turns out that he's the failed product of a govrenment conspiracy to create supersoldiers; he knows this because when he was a little kid, he had to have a tooth replaced and his old man volunteered him for the project (the same father who, coincidentally, took him and his little brother UFO hunting when they were little kids. And they saw UFOs, apparently). When they drilled to put the new tooth in, they went in further than they needed to so that they could use the false tooth as an antenna to beam ELF (extremely low-frequency) radio waves into his brain to control him, because his family has a genetic predisposition towards higher iron retention than the rest of humanity; interestingly enough, this blood-borne magnetic anomaly also makes him a beacon for UFOs and ghosts, so needless to say he's been on the government list for a long time.

I think he was just fucking with us; my caption above doesn't do full justice to the depth, breadth and bizarre nature of his monologue. He managed a very high level of detail, and the more bizarre thing about the whole deal was that he seemed fairly knowledgeable about his supposed area of expertise; as far as I could tell, knowing what little b-chem and o-chem that I do, he wasn't making shit up.

How do you extract yourself from a conversation like that? My friend and I were basically stuck there listening to him for at least an hour; how do you politely remove yourself from discourse with a crazy person without being bitten or shanked or yelled at? I guess my social skills in that area are sorely lacking.

Introduction

Hello! I am the lumberjackninja, the rural atheist. I've been lurking around blogspot for a while (mostly reading and enjoying Possummomma's blog).

A few quick things about me: I live in Montana, the Best Damned State in the Union (tm), and currently attend Montana State University for physics. I pay rent as a mercenary programmer, weaving together expressions to do beautiful and amazing things.

My interests include all the real natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, geology...). I guess the soft science are interesting too, even though I take strong issue with how they go about applying the scientific process; I guess I can cut some slack because psychology and sociology et al. are still relatively young sciences.

I enjoy thinking about survivalism, and I like to build things. Electronic things mostly, but mechanics are beginning to interest me as well. I've also been occasionally known to have Fun with Chemistry.


I started this blog because I noticed a dark spot on the spectrum that ranges from rabid fundamentalist to ridiculously liberal atheist/agnostic; that spot sits on the part that would represents an independent, masculine, libertarian atheist such as myself. Oh, and don't forget devilishly handsome.

I hope to address this unfortunate situation by blogging about my experiences in what one could call a unique spiritual, cultural, and epistemological position.

That's enough for now... more later!