Victory in Iraq Day

http://www.zombietime.com/vi_day/

Behinds the scenes for Phoenix

Here are some pictures Dan took here at Goldstone during the Phoenix landing. Enjoy our ugly faces! Uncropped and unairbrushed. :)

Half the folks in the room hid from this photo. This is WAY more folks than are normally in this room at any one time.

And here I am hard at work. Too bad you can't see what my screens are showing with these filters on the screens. Odd...

Congratulations Phoenix! You made it!

Just to reiterate, I do in fact work for NASA. So yes, I was involved with this landing, in fact I was the prime controller on the prime downlink antenna for this landing. So I know everything that happened as it happened. Which was nifty on one hand, on the other hand this wasn't the most exciting landing or event for me since Phoenix doesn't talk directly to earth, but only through a UHF relay to every other Mars bird in orbit.

So right now we're watching and waiting for the solar arrays to deploy. For me the track is a normal boring track waiting for the data relay. Here's hoping it went okay.

All of my experiences in NASA really make me realize how much most folks really don't need to know what goes on behind the curtain. It makes things a bit more boring or lose their glamor if you know how we really do things.

Update: The solar panels are confirmed opened and photos coming down! Well done!

Fun? Who has time for fun?

Wow, Gozer, you really know how to throw a challenge out there. It made me stop and think; what do I even do for fun?

First, a quick run down the list. I'm not an on-line gamer. I have a wife and two kids, so I have a lot of fun that involves them. Going to places, doing some things, but nothing in particular. When you have a family, it's often fun just to go someplace and hang out with them. The last movie we all saw together in a theater was Bridge To Tarabithia, which we liked, but it was a little weird that one of the two main characters died 2/3 of the way through. Good flick, though, and that little girl is going to be a major star.

I guess we watch a lot of television. We're big fans of kid-vid. Both my daughters are hooked on Hannah Montana, which I don't mind. The show's pretty well done, and fairly well written. A lot better, in fact, than a lot of stuff aimed at that same demographic. In fact, we watch several Disney channel shows regularly. That, Suite Life of Zach and Cody, and Kim Possible are all family favorites. Even me. Shoot, Zach and Cody is better than most of the network sitcoms. I can't get through five minutes of a Friends rerun, but Z&C is actually funny. And, it's not swimming in sexual innuendo. We also like iCarly on Nick.

For grown-up fare, I'm hooked on House. Quite simply, it's the best written show on TV. My wife's into a bunch of cop/forensic shows like CSI Miami and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. I like reruns of Crossing Jordan. I'm also an unrepentant Trekkie. Yep, Star Trek in every form, from any era. Kirk to Archer, and all the movies. Gimme Trek.

Yeah, I'm dull, and I'm out of the loop. I know what I like, though.

The Lighter Side!

Nice to see you haven't given up on the blog old man. ;)

While I enjoy the Secular society discussion I felt it the perfect time to take a diversion into the fun side. We did mention we'd have some fun things on here too!

1. Movies

I saw Jackie Chan and Jet Li's latest movie: Forbidden Kingdom and let me say this is a must see of fans of both actors! For one you get to see Jackie revisiting some of his classic "Drunken Master" moves, but this time as a master. For Jet Li fans you get to see the lighter side of this talented actor.

Those who dislike wire fu (I.e. running on branches and jumping in the air) should be warned, but not dissuaded. Unlike Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon the entire movie isn't full of such antics, just parts.

The basic story line is as thin as most Hong Kong action movies, but there's enough there to move the action along. All in all a fun romp, but don't think too hard on it!

2. Video Games

Operation Darkness is coming out for the Xbox 360, and a demo is available for download. If you're a fan of SRPG's (Strategy RPG's) then you should check this one out. Now there ARE issues with this game, as with all games. First off is the camera. It's odd and for me it doesn't let you zoom out far enough. There IS a mini map (press Y) which helps a little but the camera is still touchy and can spin you around if you're not careful. Another thing to watch our for is it's got shades of Xcom in it where you can not take back moves and you can set up overwatch to shoot when the enemy movies. Unfortunetly while cover is important you have no control over your character's stances (I.e. Standing, kneeling, or crawling) . I always knock off points when I see this in a game because Xcom friggin had it over 20 years ago! O.O!

For me this game is a rent (gamefly has it listed) and I'll give a full review when I get the final product.

3. Board Games

Yep, I'm old school. How old school? Try D&D. No "A" mind you, D and Bloody D baby.

Which I find funny since I HATE the D20 system I still play it. :p

So I bring this up because 4th edition is on the way. (Dun dun dun!) So what's new? How about a major dummying down of the system, which at first blush sounds bad but I've been noticing it isn't always the case. Sometimes added complexity doesn't help matters (BESM 3rd edition).

The major deal with 4th edition is how they're starting to label classes into "roles" like in MMO's. So you've got Tanks, DPS, and healers, though they're calling them things like Controllers, Protectors, and leaders for D&D. I haven't read or seen much on the mechanics involved here but it certainly sounds like they're streamlining things here for ease of use. Which isn't always bad since you old school folks can remember the loss of a state. (Comleyness anyone?)

Add to the rules changes they are actually creating a "Virtual table top" for us to play with online. Unfortunetly I'm seeing lots of words like "subscribers" and the like that I don't want to see. One of the great things about role playing was it allowed you to bring in people who DID NOT buy these games and let them play. I hope there are free clients that folks can use to try it out because having to subscribe to play D&D? Don't think so.

All in all I'm optimistic, but in the end I won't buy anything since I doubt they'll fix my biggest complaints with the system. (Level based class system. :p )

A Godless Society, part deux

Oh, man, am I ever falling behind here or what? Very good stuff, Gozer. Btw, congratulations on your promotion in Frontier Fleet. All right, down to business.

Some time ago Gozer went on about a Godless society. He made several excellent points, but I felt that it needed to be expanded on. And so . . .

sec-u-lar (adj.) 1. of or pertaining to worldly things or to things not regarded as sacred; temporal. 2. not relating to or concerned with religion (opposed to sacred) 3. concerned with nonreligious subjects. [Webster's American Family Dictionary, c. 1998, Random House]

A secular society is one that is not dominated by any system of religious belief. Which means, in real terms, there is no such thing. Society in the United States, for example, is dominated by Judeo-Christian beliefs. In contrast, Turkey is dominated by Islam and Japan, by Shintoism and Buddhism.

But all three are established as secular systems. What this means is that there is no official, state-sponsored religion. Unlike Great Britain, for instance, which has the Church of England. And even Old Blighty functions as a secular state, dealing as it is with a growing Muslim population.

The advantage of a secular system is that, in principle, no religion is banned. All are legal. As opposed to, say, Saudi Arabia where the legal penalty for conversion to Christianity is death. Of course, in this day and age they'd have a hard time enforcing that. They'd probably stop at letting the air out of your camel. But I digress.

Inevitably, people of like mind and background gather together and certain ideas tend to predominate. As in an Italian neighborhood, where most people are Catholic. And yet, legally at least, these people are prohibited from persecuting anyone who prefers to worship at a Mosque or a Synogogue.

A quick disclaimer; I am a Christian. If you're looking for a pigeonhole to stuff me into, try Evangelical Born-Again. Do a google search for the Nicene Creed and you've got my basic theology in a nutshell.

Christians, like other religious people, are often offended by what we see happening in our secular society. It's something that we religious types have to put up with. The up side is that you also have the freedom to be religious. As long as you don't hang out with a bunch of tolerant, open-minded liberals, that is.

Still, it's worth it to live in a secular society. To live in a religious one would quickly turn to oppression. Every non-christian loves to bring up the Spanish Inquisition. (NOOOObody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!) And, I suppose they're right to. It's proof that the most well-intentioned religious law can quickly turn Taliban.

On the other hand, to say that law should never reflect morality is ridiculous. Law, by its very nature, reflects morality. Even laws against things like murder and stealing reflect morality. In a secular democratic republic, the majority get to decide the moral leanings of its laws. Even so, there are people for whom killing and stealing are good things to do. Let's just hope they stay too busy killing and stealing to vote.

The thing we Christians, and other religious folk, have to remember is that freedom is risky. People who don't agree with us still get to use their freedom. For instance, the issue of gay marriage. I'm against it. I believe the bible is against it. Ya want chapter and verse? I'm dead sure that God himself is against it. And yet, I fear that it is inevitable unless we amend the constitution. Nothing in there currently, specifically, prohibits it. Back in the 1780's nobody at the Continental Congress apparently thought it was a big enough issue. At that time it was obviously immoral, like killing and stealing.

The goal is NOT a Godless society, but a secular one. One that does not discriminate. One that says, if it's all right to put the zodiac on the high school wall, it's also all right to put the ten commandments. I'm sorry, but I don't trust people who want to completely remove God from society. They would probably deny it, but the inevitable end is for them to set themselves up as god. Denying me my morality forces me to follow theirs.

Expelled, the movie!

http://www.expelledthemovie.com/

So, Ben Stein is doing a documentary about how Intelligent Design proponents or even mentioners are being hounded out of the scientific and educational communities. It sounds like it'd be an interesting movie to see and I hope to catch it eventually (being in the middle of nowhere will make that less likely until it comes out on DVD or something) but let me say this:

The premise of speaking out against the "established ideas" in science sounds a lot like how those who don't buy into Man-Made global warming are being treated.

The red headed step-children of science as it were. Pay no attention to the science or theories they're putting forward just call them names and shout them down. Kick them out of "proper" science or teaching because you don't want their kind there.

Sounds a lot like what happens to Conservatives in general in the education system as I pointed out before in the Indoctinate U post.

Do I believe in ID? Do I believe in evolution? I think there's plenty of evidence for both. I've joked around before that God created the world in 7 days through evolution by putting the world in Fast Forward. Who's to say that's not right either?

Basically for me the idea issue is still open, why shut the door on oposing ideas? Hell if you think we have such highly encoded data in our DNA that we STILL can't figure out after all these years working on it with modern computers was done COMPLETELY at random. Cool. If someone else thinks aliens came down and tinkered with some stuff to get the ball rolling here that's fine as well. To me there's evidence of both and holes in all theories big enough to drive a star through.

A Quick Question

Okay, all this talk in the nation of "racial" issues brings up one of my biggest pet peve question:

If folks whose parent's, or grandparent's, or farther back were considered property or second class citizens are "owed" stuff now because of that. What are folks who were treated as LESS than property owed?

I am talking about the Chinese and other Asian immigrants of course.

I'm not excusing anything that happened in the past. I just want to know at what point in history did the two sides move apart in attitude and prominance. When did blacks start believing that instead of them creating their own opportunities and earning places on their own that they had to have the government make things "fair" for them? When did Asians become considered "people" and take off and do their own thing?

Is the differences because of culture? Upbringing? Genetics? Politcs? Religion? What causes these two minority groups to think of themselves in two different ways? Most of the blacks I've known do see themselves as minorities, verses the Asians I know scoff at the notion! (Hell some laugh even more and point out that several billion of the people on earth are "Asians.") What is it that causes this difference? When did it happen? I really want to know.

Orson Scott Card is one of my favorite writers of all time. Even though he's a Dem he's got quite a good sense of humor when it comes to Mrs. Clinton's latest exploits. I just had to share!

Hillary Under Fire

Ode on Hillary in Bosnia

by Orson Scott Card

"We landed under sniper fire!
We ran for cover, terrified!
The bullets flew around my head!
I thought for sure that I was dead!"

She told the tale in hopes it meant
We'd vote for her for president.
Instead we looked for evidence
Of Hillary's experience,
And found that not a bullet flew.
Her thrilling story wasn't true.

Because we know she never lies,
I ask, how did this tale arise?
Was it a dream, and when she woke
She thought that it was real?
Or was the story just a joke,
And no big deal?

Did drinking too much mocha make her
Fantasize this tale?
Or was it from a line of coke,
A furtive toke of the kind of smoke
That Bill did not inhale?

Oh hush, right-wing conspirators!
Your reasons suck! Now here is hers:
She just misspoke.
She meant to say
She landed on a sunny day
And a little girl read a poem aloud
And Hillary waved to the friendly crowd.

But campaign days are oh so long,
And being a woman, she isn't strong,
So the story simply came out wrong.

How could you think that Hillary lied,
When it was such a small mistake,
The kind that anyone could make?
No joke, no toke of smoke, no coke,
No dream from which she never woke --
She just misspoke.

You've heard that what goes up comes down
And where there's smoke there's fire.
Well, when you visit Hillary Town
The word "misspoke" means "liar."

(Copyright © 2008 by Orson Scott Card. Please duplicate this poem as much as you like, as long as you don't charge for it; but include this copyright notice with it.)

Indoctrinate U!

Wow we don't post often enough. Well let me help fix that by pointing you toward this very interesting independent film called Indoctrinate U.  

Indoctrinate U has a very simple premise:  are college campuses really bastions of intellectual diversity or merely Liberal thought boxes?  While for those of us who are conservatives who went to universities call that a no brainer question, everyone else will probably be surprised by this film.  

I've known about this film for quite some time thanks to Sean Hannity, but I haven't mentioned it for one simple reason: I hadn't seen it.  Thanks to the internet that has now changed because Indoctrinate U now has a download section where for the price of a movie ticket (well for you city folks. :) )  you can download the entire film and show it to all of your friends.  Heck for a bit more you can even download a DVD image and burn your own copies for your friends and family.  (I'm considering doing this myself, it's that good.)  

While I'll be the first to admit that EVERYONE has a bias, and that all forms of media are easily manipulated (especial "documentaries" *cough* Michael Moore *cough*)  I think Evan Maloney did a wonderful job of having visible cuts and edits while at the same time letting the tape run when appropriate.  The film was obviously filmed with a personal camcorder of some kind (probably a Cannon or Sony like I used to have) so the film work can be a bit shaky at times but in the end I have to say the cameraman did extremely well.  

There were also several clips of classic film, news reels, and the like that broke up the interviews and walking segments well.  So cinematically and critically I have to say the film holds up well, but how about the content?  Does it stand up to the smell test?   Are you being force fed the creator's opinion?  

Well there are several clips (for the cheap folks out there) as well as extended/unused segments that you can see for yourself the style Evan uses throughout the film.  I think I respond well to his style because it is very much like my own, where a simple question is put out there and you watch the subjects squirm.  :) 

I do believe he doesn't try and force you to believe that he's right and that colleges are merely "one opinion."  He shows several various opinions and reports of what has happened and is continuing to happen on campuses today.  While you might not believe what he's saying you have to admit that you'll be more prone to look for it next time you're on a college campus.  (Or if you are totally closed off from opposite opinions you won't.)  

In the end I highly recommend at LEAST looking at the trailer and some of the clips on the site.

Heck if you're too cheap to buy it yourself I'm sure the internet will have it floating around for free soon enough.  The sad fact of the matter is that we ALL have opinions and views that we consciously or unconsciously force on others.  In normal day to day life that's fine but when your JOB is to, as Rush says, "mold young skulls full of mush" shouldn't we demand either true neutrality (impossible) or at least more diverse opinions and ideas and not only one view? 

Requiem for a Heavyweight

Gozer, I really liked your piece on secular society, and I have some thoughts to share about it. But for now, I'm going with something I've been thinking about the last couple of weeks. It's a harsh lesson in history, that one would think had been sufficiently learned by now.

The lesson belongs to the man who was, as recently as Christmastime, the Republican frontrunner and inside favorite to be the next President of the United States. America's Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani. He had a bold strategy; he would skip the early contests, featuring small states, and bet everything on Florida. The Sunshine State's one of the famous Big 8, those eight states that hold over half the Electoral College, and their primary was a week before Soopa-Doopa Tuesday. The bump from that win would give him an edge when 24 states went to the polls, and that would carry him over the top.

He has to know this strategy's been tried before, and with the same effect. In 1988 the future Vice President, Tennessee Senator Al Gore, used the same strategy, forgoing Iowa, New Hampshire and all the early states while concentrating on the large group in the middle of the primary season. Unfortunately for him, Mike Dukakis already had the momentum on his side. In spite of doing as well as Dukakis, the Massachussetts Governor managed to win in all four corners of the country. Plus, Jesse Jackson did nearly as well as either of them, making a roughly even three-way split. With everything already leaning his way, Dukakis rode the wave all the way to the Democratic nomination while Gore faded in his rear view mirror.


Some may wonder when all this emphasis on the small early states began. It was always there, really. There's been a first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary since 1952, and until Bill Clinton in '92 nobody went to the White House without first winning the Granite State. Arguably, the first candate to make NH the cornerstone of his strategy was a former peanut farmer and one-term Georgia Governor named Jimmy Carter.

1976 was one hell of a year in American politics. It was the first election after Watergate and Nixon's resignation, and any Democrat should have been able to win the Presidency in a walk. The Republican incumbent was Jerry Ford, who had been appointed VP about a year before inheriting the big chair, and had never run a national campaign.

The big handicap for the Democrats was that their leading lights were out. Edmund Muskie, long-time Senator from Maine, had shot himself in the foot during the '72 campaign when he was the heir apparent. And, for some reason, the other biggest name, Hubert Humphry, stubbornly refused to run. No one knew at the time, but Humphrey was suffering from terminal cancer and was secretly taking experimental medications.

The biggest Democratic name after that was the sitting Governor of California, Jerry Brown. He was the son of Pat Brown, the man who kept Richard Nixon out of the California Governor's mansion in 1962. Good-looking, visionary, and dating Linda Ronstadt, the nomination was his for the asking. So he waited until he was asked.

Unfortunately for him, a large field of Dems didn't feel like waiting. The cleverest of them all, as it turned out, was Carter. He parked himself in New Hampshire a full year before the Primary. He talked to everybody who would listen to him. He covered the state like a blanket. By the time the election rolled around he had an enviable level of name recognition, coupled with a beaming smile and the plea to "trust me." Trust him, they did.

Brown stayed above the fray until a group of six states that all held their primaries on the same day; the prototype of the Super Tuesday we know today. But the Democrats didn't need Brown any more. Carter had a tsunami of momentum coming out of NH, and everybody was chasing him. On the big day, Carter took three of the six states. Brown got one, Arizona Senator Morris Udall took one, and I think Frank Church, Senator from North Dakota, got the last. Carter went to the '76 convention with more than enough delegates to clinch.

So now Rudy knows what Al and Jerry already figured out; you skip the early contests at your own peril. Who cares if they have .02 delegates each, and half of them won't be seated? They're in the news, and that's what builds momentum. On the other hand, last fall John McCain was dead in the water. His funding had dried up, he was cutting his campaign staff to the bone, and all the pundits were sticking forks in him. He was done, and everybody knew it.

Everybody but him. He hung in there, and spent a large portion of the little he had in ol' New Hampshire. He got traction where Rudy saw only ice and snow, and now their positions are reversed. Let the lesson be learned.

A godless society?

Now I for one will be the first to admit I'm not very religious. I believe in things but I don't wear it on my sleeve or throw it in people's faces. In fact, it's that very thing that I hate the most; and that goes for both believers and non-believers.

As this blog's name points out there are an infinite number of ideas and beliefs in this universe. Until something can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt how can we deny one belief over another? Even the belief of disbelief? I bring this all up because of this constant harping on the idea of a "Secular Society."

Personally the idea that anything created by man can be removed from man's ideas is silly at best and naive and foolhardy at worst. Just as there's no such thing as "Unbiased reporting" there's no such thing as a "Secular Society." Why? Because even if we're not beating the drum of our individual religions, we're all affected and influenced by them. This goes for all of our decisions, plans, laws, and ideals. This goes doubly for those who don't believe.

On the most part we can ignore and even pretend our religious leanings and tendencies don't play a role in our decision making. It's those who don't hide their religious views or actively try to change other's views that are the trouble makers.

If you wear your religion on your sleeve you're telling everyone how great you think you are and your religion is. You constantly bring up your beliefs, tell how they affect your daily life, and try to prove how great this all makes you and your religion. We all know this type, the bible thumpers, the preachers, the missionaries, the Jehovah Witnesses and the like. Are these people bad? Normally no, but when you combine them with politics LOOK OUT!

Just go one step further and you get the zealots. The crusaders. Those who want to change everyone else to their religion no matter what. In politics these folks are even worse than that nagging cousin of yours who's always asking you to go to church. These folks try to force their views on the rest of us, be it good or bad.

Luckily, these folks are the minorities. They're attempts to force things on others usually fail when we see a religion's name tagged to them. That is until recently...

Two religions have really started to try and force their way on everyone else. Islam and Atheism have really started pushing everyone else around to try and get their way heard, and may heaven help us all if they get their way!

For the moment, let's just discuss the idea of a "Secular Society." I'll post more on Atheism and Islam in my next post.

The Same Yet Different

Oh yeah, I should talk a bit about myself, thanks for starting things off their Popeye.

Well since Popeye is the old coot here, I'm the young wipper snapper. In fact I'm barely older than his oldest child. (I'm 29) Born in 1978 I can only read and imagine some of the things old Popeye has lived through like the Gas Crisis, the Cold War, and the invention of fire. (Just teasing)

I too am married, though Sharyn and I have only been married for just over a month now. (YAY!) No children yet, but we hope to have some eventually. I live on the opposite side of the country from Popeye here in Sunny Southern California. Heck, it's so sunny where I live it's the desert! We only have two seasons here, hot and not hot, so don't expect much sympathy from me when folks are complaining about the heat wherever they are.

In another interesting turn of events I to work for the government, though in a much more roundabout way than Popeye. I work for NASA by tracking satelites at the Deep Space Tracking Facility at Goldstone. Which is a fancy way of saying I'm the mail man of the space industry, sending and recieving data from every single spacecraft (but one) outside of Earth orbit. It's an interesting job in it's own way but it sure has given me new perspective on government spending, contracts, bidding, and Dilbert comics. (I get all the ISO 9000 jokes now!)

As for my political beliefs I fall somewhere along the Libertarian/Conservative line depending on who you talk to. Since I was only 10 when Popeye's Newsweek article came out I can't go by their settings. I listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin on a regular basis and agree with many of their stances, though not all of them. When it comes to the government I'm very laissez-faire on the buisness side of things, trusting more to the market and private industry to sort things out than big government. In fact I feel there are very few things the government should be involved in, most notably being transportation (roads, highways and the like), defending the nation, and protecting our personal freedoms. That's about it.

Here's a quick rundown on some of my stances:

Gun Control: So wait, you're telling me you want to prevent those who break the law from getting guns by making more laws? How dumb is that? I can go on at great length as to why most Gun Control laws are moronic and are only stepping stones to outright gun bans.

Public Education: I would really like our system to be much more like the Japanese School system, but the teacher's unions and our culture couldn't stand making our kids learn. As it stands we're teaching to the lowest common denominator which is a terrible thing. Hell I bet you take me at 18 and Popeye at 18 and he'd know a lot more history, math, and the basics while I'd know more about technology and computers.

Emergency Services: About one of the only areas in government I'd like to see increased spending in. More Police, Fire, and Ambulances. More new technology. More research in these areas are all good things in my book.

Abortion: When you're dead there are no options left. I don't care how you dress it up, if left alone those "cluster of cells" will become a human being. On the other hand if you prevent those cells from forming (the day after pill) or sticking to the uterous wall I have no problem with that. So I'm somewhere between the Pro-Life and Pro-Abortion stances.

Violence in Videogames: Come on! EVERYTHING that's been said about video games was said about COMIC BOOKS back before even Popeye was born it seems. Every time there's another popular trend in children's entertainment folks in Washington want to scream that it's ruining our children. You want to know what's really ruining our children? Our culture and our lack of parenting. It's not a village that raises a bloody child it's the frikin parents!

Terrorism: I'll be nice, the threat of Muslim extremists is quite real. Any religion and practicioners there of that are qutie fine with STONING someone for having too short a dress is worth keeping eye on. If one doesn't go looking for all of the stories of Muslim insanity throughout the world you could very well just gloss it over and say, 'It's no big deal' or 'It's only over there not here.' Yet if you were to actually start looking at all the little stories, and examples of the extremism in that religion one can only acknowledge the very real threat there. The same goes for when we see cults spring up in Christinainty or any other religion (though I don't hear about Buddhist extremists. Just Buddhists being killed by Muslims. Odd...) . Ignoring it in the name of "diversity" or "tolerance" is just naive and short sighted.

WalMart: It's a great company that provides needed jobs and services. I prefer Target but hey that's me. It's changed the retail industry forever and everyone will have to adjust.

Net Neutrality: It's important that the internet not being censored like is happening in China and Germany. We shouldn't have to worry about the telecomunication companies screening our activities.

Taxes: Lower is better. You can't tax your way to growth.

Government Spending in general: Lower is Better. MUCH lower. No more of this "Automatic Increases" BS! Oh, and decreasing the increase is not a CUT in spending! If your program got $30 Million last year, and got $31 Million this year instead of the "automatic increase" to $35 Million that is NOT a $4 Million cut!

Okay enough random ranting for me, it's Popeye's turn.

Popeye, checking in

Whoa! Gozer's gotten on here twice? Gotta make my mark, I guess.

I was just going to start out with a little about myself. I'm the old gaffer on the staff here, clocking in at the ripe old age of 52. I was born the same year Bill Haley and the Comets released Rock Around The Clock. I am married, with four kids ranging in age from 27 to 11. My family and I live in the Northern, rural regions of the great state of New Hampshire.

For work, let's just say I work for the Government. In my case, it's the United States Postal Service. Been there 20 years. May make a career of it. For amusement, I like to write and play music. I'm a guitarist, folk and rock mostly. I play cover tunes in fine establishments all over the North country, and even write my own stuff from time to time. I have a CD, but you have to contact me to get a copy. Good luck with that. ;>

As Gozer and I plan to touch on politics from time to time, I guess I should tell you where I am on the spectrum. Back in '88 or so, during the primary season, Newsweek magazine did a very good, concise breakdown of the parties within the parties. Of the more than a dozen they listed, the one I felt closest to was the "God and Country Democrats." In a nutshell, it means I have a social conscience, but it leads me to vote Republican. One time somebody asked me for more detail, I told them I was a Jackson Democrat.

"You mean you like Jesse Jackson?" they replied, horrified.

"No," I said. "Andrew."

I guess there's more, but I'll leave it there for now. Stay tuned.

This is just the coolest thing ever! Can you imagine all the stuff you can do with this kind of setup? Now if we could only combine this with a head tracking camera instead of an IR tracking system. Since most folks won't want to wear even the "Spiffy" saftey goggles on their heads.

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

These words sum up nicely all the different ideas and opinions in this world.  We've decided to create this blog just to showcase all of these differences.  For even when we agree we'll have different ideas of the details. 

We plan to blog on all sorts of topics, from the political to the social and even the silly.  Everything from Violence in Video games and Gun Control, to the new Star Trek Movie and Cloverfield.  So we hope you enjoy the conversations enough to jump in and add your own voice to the mix!  Stay tuned!