The earth is flat? Truth is tricky.

On a non-political subject, I just read an amazing article from BBC news. It is about people who still think that the earth is flat. Of course, the article is fun to read just for face value, but it quickly lead me to think about a conversation we had on Traci's blog.

The general agreement in the discussion was that talking to people about controversial subjects is tricky because people confuse opinions and truth. More specifically, people sometimes mistake their opinion for the truth. That can be aggravating alone, but I also find the opposite true. Sometimes people claim that a truth (which they might not like) is just somebody else's opinion. I wanted to express that point in the discussion, but I couldn't think of a good example that wouldn't (possibly) stir up controversy. I would personally argue that this is the root of the evolution controversy, and very likely, some other modern issues.

Hopefully, nobody I know would argue that the earth is not spherical, but if you met somebody who did, how would you discuss 'truth' with them?

Paris Hilton for President

Thanks to my wonderful wife, always on the lookout for celebrity related info, for showing me this video from Paris:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

It's in response to this ad from the McCain camp:



What's weird is that the Paris video is so much better than the McCain one. She does a great job of making fun of McCain being old and how he's dumb enough to try to compare her and Barack. Why is it that her spoof video contains more policy information than ads from either campaign? Both groups would be smart to talk to the people that helped her plan that response.

What country do I live in?

This weekend government agents walked into a library, demanded to take some computers and didn't have any court documents allowing the seizure. Where do I live? I'll give you some hints. I don't live in a dictatorship (officially). The 4th amendment of my constitution says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Figured it out yet? A couple more clues.... the people who have the power to fix this blatant misuse of power (my country supposedly has a legislative branch to check powers) don't do anything but go along for the ride.

In case you are thinking, "a library is a public place, maybe it's ok to take property from a public place without a warrant." Our government (it's one founded on freedom by the way) doesn't bother trying to be so subtle. The "war on terror" also involves taking the personal property of Americans because they choose to travel. How far can they go before people start to notice?

Obama campaign helps Clinton with logic

NPR just posted a really funny response from the Barack camp to a Clinton e-mail.

This could be my least aggravated post yet. It's refreshing to see that the people involved with Barack think like I do. I feel like I could have written that response to the e-mail myself. It's given me hope for politics.

The senate sucks enough to get me back to blogging

It's been a long time since I took the effort to post something. It's tempting to think that things have just been better; maybe less things have pissed me off. But more likely, I was wasn't paying attention.

Today I stopped to read Slashdot and found something to make me mad after only two articles. The Washington Post reports that the Senate has voted to give immunity to the telecommunication companies for violating our privacy (at the request of the government). Now, rather than be held accountable for blindly following the requests of the government they will likely be forgiven and will not have learned any lesson from the mistake.

I'm confused that a company would let the government's overzealous desire to monitor it's own citizens fool them into disregarding their customer's privacy. Didn't they notice that the war could have been avoided with some careful consideration rather than drastic action? Or the PATRIOT Act? We also had to let them listen to our phone conversations and read our e-mail? And it's not that I'm against them reading email of terrorist suspects, just get a warrant and read all the e-mail you want.

The worst part of all of this isn't that there are enough stupid senators that would vote for something like this, but that the 3 most likely presidential candidates all supported it. (Technically Hillary didn't vote at all, but that is even worse in my opinion). Apparently even a president who is a step in the right direction still isn't going to be perfect, what a surprise. It feels good to vent again.

Thank you, Olbermann

Keith Olbermann gave a perfect response to Newt Gingrich's recent comments on restricting free speech last night. My biggest hope is not that Gingrich hears the response and repents, but that as many Americans as possible hear Olbermann's remarks.

How can we take seriously a run for the president from a man who wishes to restrict our free speech? It's a scary time if his advisers thought that restricting our freedoms would appeal to a large base in America. Let's hope that other possible candidates speak loudly against Gingrich's remarks so that we have a solid person to stand behind.

What is going on in Iraq?

Does anybody (other than Israel) want us in the middle east? ABC News is reporting that Iran is giving weapons to some Iraqi militia. This news comes on the heels of the Iraqi president suggesting that Iran should help stabilize Iraq. As if those two countries aren't enough of a mess, Hezbollah in Lebanon is reportedly training Iraqi militia as well.

Taking that information into consideration, we see that two different countries are fueling the fire, and the people we put into power in Iraq are asking for help from one of the fire starters. How are we supposed to succeed in a situation like that?