Hundie Jo [dot] Com » 2005

Sigh

Honzo September 30th, 2005

I am truely a man without a party. It is tough being a conservative Libertarian.

The Dems and Republicans have failed in the lead up to 9-11 and
Katrina and failed afterwards on both. Bush is has gone limp on Iraq
for a while now, thanks to liberal preasure. Spending is through the
roof, with the Republicans out-spending the Democrats now-a-days (just
becuase they are in power). There is enough pork in the budget to make
every Jew and Muslim flee the country. From what I am hearing, it would
almost be better to give every citizen 100,000 dollars than to spend it
the way some people are proposing.

I feel left alone in Washinton, with none there that are doing the
right thing. Out of the two choices in Washington, I lean quite heavily
towards the Repubs, leading some to refuse me calling myself anything
but Republican. However, though, I have no confidence in either party
to effectively get anything done.

“In the past, the Kings of Pork were mainly Democrats…
Today, the leading pork spenders are Republicans… Republicans promised
to cut wasteful spending when they were elected to the majority in
1994. But today they hardly seem embarrassed by the record levels
of pork.”

—Chris Edwards

“Instead of changing the nature of the federal government,
the Republican majority in Washington seems to be changing
the nature of the Republican Party. The Democrats’ approach to
government has been Sorosized, the GOP’s has been supersized. Some
choice.”

—Mark Steyn

Yea, I don’t have links, this is just a “how I am feeling” post. I might try to srounge some up later

Sayyid Qutb

Honzo September 28th, 2005

Basketball and other things

Honzo September 27th, 2005

I
think tonight was the best night of basketball of the summer. Not that
I played all that great, but we won the serries, 3-2. We played the
purest form of amateur basketball, 3 on 3 half court. I played the best
that I have yet this summer. I hit more jump shots than I usually do,
but not nearly the ones that I was hitting in my prime.
The post game was flowing pretty well, but towards the end my body was
just giving out. The great thing was that we had the hardest
competition yet, which raised the level of play, which is always a good
thing.

I am so scatter-brained right now. I am physically exhausted from
the basketball. It was a physical game. I also was lucky enough to
steal a pass with my jaw. Hurt pretty bad to close my mouth for a while. Then I was lucky enough to get fouled on the jaw on a turn around jumper. It is still a bit sore right now.

Line of the Leno for tonight:

Do you know who needs to be concerned the most about Bush drinking again?

North Korea.

I might write a post in the series of the Backbone of Ethics Series on Consequentialism.

War on Porn? Another waste of money, just like the War on Drugs. Legalize it and tax the hell out of it.

I turned in my community service hours on Monday. While I was there
I received several funny comments. The first was a lady who came up to
me and asked me if I was a lawyer and if so, that she might be needing
my services. I smiled and said, “No, not even close. I work at a bank
and they make me dress this way.” A little while later, a guy came out
and said “Hey, there is another one!” I gave him a confused look and he
continued, “I never see any redheads, we are a dying breed, man!” I
looked at my fellow fire head and said, “Well, our gene is recessive.”
he and I laughed and had a bit more small talk.

Holy Stainer, Steaks Alive; Martha Stewart just blew my mind. She is
on Conan right now and she just showed me how to fold a t-shirt. It was
actually amazing because I have no damn idea how to do it without
wadding it up.

I might be hosting another blog soon. A co-worker of mine is a first
year philosophy student at MU, Travis. He came over Friday night and we
played some AOC and
Counter Strike Source. He is very well read and is quite a conservative
Baptist. We spent two hours last night talking about philosophy and
arguing about an attempt of mine to merge Consequentialism and
Deontology. I think a blog would be a good way to argue with him. I am introducing him to blogs I respect on the topics of Christianity, philosophy and politics, Hippy Dave and Bad Christian, as examples. I think the others would be good sites to turn him onto as well:

Ektopos

Parableman

There are many other fine examples. Heck I can’t keep up with the blogs I like, not even with bloglines.

ipod nano Well,
that is enough blabbering for me… Up, no it is not. I set up another
co-worker’s computer on Sunday after church. Installed a wireless card,
protected the computer from viruses and spyware, and took off all of
the crap that Dell put on there. Also, the co-worker dropped his laptop
and busted the CD drive - clean out. So, he can’t install anything on
it - until this weekend. I shared the CD drive on his desktop and
mapped the drive on his laptop. He was amazed when I installed Office
on his laptop with no cd and no wires.

Oh yes, his wife also bought an ipod nano. I did not get to mess
with it much, but it made me want to drop 200 bucks for the sheer
ability to swallow a thousand songs without choking.

Oh yea, I have gone to using the acronym tag instead of parenthesis. I think this is my most randomly worded post yet.

My little own Anti-War-Anti-Protest

Honzo September 26th, 2005

I moved this from an earlier post, because I really want that one to
be serious and respectful and this post is a bit of spite that I am
having a hard time repressing.

Just because I can’t stand signs that oversimplify the
anti-war argument and are full of huge logical falicies, I thought, I
would do the same thing here for my own little anti-war-anti-protest. I
am a blanking hypocrite, after all. Then again, who is not a hypocrite
in one form or another?

Pork is for eating, not subsidizing.

Honzo September 26th, 2005

Bastards.

I want a line item veto on spending bills.

How to Finish the War that Is.

Honzo September 26th, 2005

For several overlapping reasons, I support that Iraqi War. New information changes the way one looks at a conflict¹, but I believe the reasons hold, never-the-less. Dave notes the anti-war protests² at the capital this weekend and holds them in high regard³. Others do support the war effort⁴. Smiles was frustrated by the anti-protestors and what they had to say in addition to being against the war⁵.

I want to take a second and look at the anti-war position. I will liken the situation to a surgery:

Say
you don’t think a person should have surgery. It will kill a lot of
harmless and innocent cells, all of them of equal worth and are
intrinsically very valuable. You don’t even think the patient will be
better off after the surgery. Now, the surgeon goes ahead and does the
surgery, much to your chagrin.

Now, would you want the surgeon to stop in the middle of the surgery
and walk away, because you think the surgery is a bad idea? Or, would
you rather the person finish the job and sow the patient back up, apply
antibiotics, ect…?

I think that if the Anti-War crowd really sticks to the reasons it
is anti-war, they would support finishing the conflict, rather than
abandoning the situation. Abandoning the conflict would allow the
country to spiral into a very bloody civil war, the outcome of which
would very likely result in a government similar in nature to Saddam’s.

Would finishing the conflict not lead to fewer lives lost,
especially for the hopeful Iraqis? It is the Iraqi populace that would
suffer the most from a complete withdraw. When considering this
problem, we need to factor their lives into account. We must have
compassion for them. They are worth fighting for. Imagine if we
finished and left Iraq with a strong, stable democracy and defeated the
Islamic Terrorists there? That would be the best outcome. Shouldn’t we
“root” for the best outcome? After all, this is no longer of question
of “no war”. The war is. There is no escaping it. What we must do is
decide where to go from here.

The question is not “War or No War?”, but “How to finish the War that is?”.

Before anyone accuses me of committing a false dilemma⁶, one needs to state the other options besides ¹⁾ finishing the fight, or ²⁾
abandoning Iraq. The only other option that I know of is a better, more
aggressive war, or to use my analogy, hurrying up the surgery. Send
more troops in, crack, crack, crack down, and do the job right. That is
what I would like to see done. However, I will admit that there might
be another possibility besides the three, (really two, as fighting and
better fighting and really just varying degrees of the same thing.)

Just a few thoughts. Anyone want to add some more?

Update: I moved the anti-war-anti-protest pic to another post because I want this to be as respectful as possible. I really want to be serious and discuss this.

Update 2 Dave responds to this post at the Mindful Mission: Withdrawal vs. Staying the course. I have since fixed the spelling and grammar errors.

Once you have Mac, do you go back?

Honzo September 26th, 2005

This article that I found on Digg was rather interesting to me. I am
a Windows guy, because I do what I know, and I know Windows. This guy,
however, works for Yahoo!. He made the switch and is now thinking of
switching back.

Read it: Why I Might Switch Back… (Digg it.)I am thinking of you Lindsay and Danny, although I bet your experiance is a bit different than Russell’s.

Anyone who says that Macs are more stable than Windows
are smoking dope. I have two brand new Macs and they regularly go wacky
and need reboots.

Politicalism

Honzo September 25th, 2005

Supposedly, I am a Social Moderate (56% permissive)and an Economic
Conservative (71% permissive)and are best described as a Capitalist.
Whilest I exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and
believe in economic fairness. For a Graphical representation of this….

(click on each for a larger image and hover the mouse over the picture for a description.)

Update: I forgot to put a link to the quiz. Here it is: http://www.okcupid.com/politics

Hand’s on TV?

Honzo September 25th, 2005

According to Nano Girl, as she writes in Dermal Display,
the possibility of having a display of very high resolution implanted
in you hand is very possible in the future. Her source is the book by
Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities in chapter 7:

A more efficient nanorobot-aggregate user interface is the programmable dermal display. Pigment tattoos,⁹⁶
port-wine stains, strawberry marks (common hemangiomas), and other
birthmarks constitute an existence proof that small biocompatible
particles can be permanently implanted in the dermis and do not migrate
on timescales of decades or longer. This suggests that dermal displays
can be positionally stable over very lengthy periods of time.

Will humans look like a futuristic Tokyo from Akira?

Ah, Akira, I remember watching Akira with Eric and Jeremy. That was a good time. Man, I miss those guys.

The Heat puts on the Glove.

Honzo September 23rd, 2005

Heat sign G. Payton

The Heat signed Gary Payton to a one-year contract. On paper it adds
one of the best point guards of the last fifteen years to the best
on-paper team in the leauge. However, in reality, it adds an
over-the-hill point guard with a big ego to a group of unproven big-ego
players that have joined the Heat in the off season. [Read: Jason
Williams and A. Walker] The rest of the team are win-first players [now
that Damon Jones is gone] that sacrifice their game and their pay for
the team. [Read: Shaq, Wade, Haslem, Zo, ect...]

Like the rest of the Heat’s off season’s acquisitions, Payton is a
big question mark. Can his body keep up? Can Walker fit in with team
play? Can Williams stay in control? If the answer to each is “yes,”
then perhaps the Heat can best the Pacers with crazy man, the Pistons
without “the coach”, and the best team in the NBA, the Spurs.

Some times the OATS bus can be dangerous

Honzo September 23rd, 2005

Bus full of the Elderly Explodes leaving Houston

This story is so bizzare that it is almost comical, had not a bunch
of people died. Apparently, the bus caught fire due to a mechanical
failure in the brakes or something. But, the fire spread to the main
sections of the buss, exploding the elderly’s O2 tanks. The entire bus
was burned to a crisp. 24 People died out of 44.

The bus appears to have caught fire because of
mechanical problems and the situation might have been made worse when
patients’ oxygen tanks started exploding, Don Peritz, a spokesman for
the Dallas County sheriff told The Associated Press. The driver appears
to have survived.

That is just crazy.

Tricked out? Andy Dicked out!

Honzo September 22nd, 2005

Chevy HHR For some reason Chevy decided to buy up all the commercial time on Leno tonight to promote their new HHR.
The spokesman is the second most annoying man on the planet, Andy Dick.
It is a very interesting advertising concept. I wonder if more
companies will be doing things like this. I know the Bill’s Khaki’s
does something like it on the Glenn Beck show, only they sponsor a hour
of the show with limited interruption.

The comic was funny, but rude. The funniest line that was not rude was:

Swimming is very good for you. Especially when you are drowning.

The advertising was terrible due to the unimajinable annoying ability of Andy Dick.

Laptop Fixed

Honzo September 22nd, 2005

After months of on and off frustration, I finally got my old hp
laptop to work. Just in time to let my mother borrow it for some
computer classes she is going to take. Now, if I can find where I put
the wireless adapter for it…

Lately

Honzo September 20th, 2005

The internet has been out at my place the last few nights. We had an absolutely crazy few ~~thunder~~ lightening storms Monday night. It actually hit while I was doing some community service at KOPN, the local liberal public radio station. I know this may come as a surprise to my reader (myself), but I really enjoyed it. The station went off air for an hour because of the storm. I got to hang out with the guys who do Tech Radio. Tonight I got to shred paper, label cd’s, and alphabetize a whole hell of a lot of cd’s. I am heading over there tomorrow night and part of the day Thursday to help them with twilight festival. While I do not support all of the politics of the station and their programming, I loved helping out the community. There is a slight chance that I might help out there and perhaps even audition either for Tech Radio or for a 2 AM spot. The lady who I was reporting to said to see her if I was ever interested - and I am. I more than likely will never grow the eggs to do it though.

While we were out of internet capabilities, I took the chance to do some reading and take some notes on Philippa Foot’s Euthanasia. Tonight, Meredith and I watched some DS9 and even through in some Star Trek, the Next Generation. We selected one of my favorite shows, The Measure of a Man. It is classic Star Trek at it’s best.

Government and the Hurricane

Honzo September 19th, 2005

Einstein’s God, and some cool stuff.

Honzo September 18th, 2005

I found a good article on Einstein and God at Physics Web and wrote a post on the topic at the philosophy blog.

Negating Hume’s Negation - Einstein and a Personal God.

As a side note, I got my second mention by a professor for a class.
For some reason, John Gordon of Stevenson College Edinburgh has linked
to my philosophy papers blog on his faculity site, saying that it is among the links that he will be using in his classes. The other one was on a online syllabus for PHIL 2101.003, Introduction to Philosophy at the University of Charlotte that linked to my paper, A review of Miracles.
The syllabus has since been taken down, as the class is over. So, that
is pretty cool. I also noticed that one of the authors of Certain Doubts visited the main hundiejo.com
page. The authors are philosphy professors at MU, a school that I hope
attend for grad school next fall, so that was kind of embarassing. I
don’t think they saw my Philosophy Site, which is what I would prefer them to read.

The Revolution Controller = Good FPS?

Honzo September 17th, 2005

Can the Revolution controller capture hardcore FPS shooter fans? I think it might be able to. Check his out from IGN: Understanding the Revolution Controller:

Q: What exactly is so special about the Revolution controller?

The Revolution controller may look like a stylish television remote,
but there’s a lot more to the device than its glossy exterior suggests.
The remote-like peripheral, which has been called the “free-hand style
controller” and “pointer” by Nintendo, interacts with a sensor bar
placed above, below, or near televisions. The bar contains two sensors
that communicate with the controller using Bluetooth technology. The
marriage transforms the pointer into a virtual wand of sorts, enabling
users to move objects and characters in games simply by moving the
peripheral. The sensors read the pointer’s every move in real-time
space. They can detect up, down, left and right motion, and also
translate forward and backward depth. The controller’s sensors also
recognize twisting, rotating and tilting movements. In short, any motion made by arms and wrists can be translated to Revolution games.

Take a look:

nintendo revolution controller all sides

One of the reasons I never play console games is that because of my
FPS time on the computer, I simply cannot aim with the controllers that
Xbox, Game Cube, and Playstation put out there. My little cousins, Q,
Travis, and Justin, all eat me alive in Halo and Republic Commando.
However, with this, perhaps the “odds will be even“.

For extra bonus points, does anyone know from what movie and character this quote comes from: “The odds will be even.”?

=> Read more!

Stories of this Saturday Morning

Honzo September 17th, 2005

Trig is Dead.
According to the story, “Dr Norman Wildberger, has rewritten the arcane
rules of trigonometry and eliminated sines, cosines and tangents from
the trigonometric toolkit”. Someone get this man beer on me! Seriously,
check this out:

These new concepts mean that trigonometric problems can
be done with algebra,” says Wildberger, an associate professor of
mathematics at UNSW.

I love algebra. I actually think it is fun to work. Trig on the other
hand is the love-child of Satan (he is the worst, next to Zombies) and π.

Bush Says Spending Cuts Will Be Needed.
Tax Increase Not Part Of His Gulf Relief Plan - I did not know Bush
knew what a spending cut was. I hope he is not just talking about
printing on the front and the back of the budget report. Perhaps he can
use this as a guide. I am not Moslem or Jewish, but I am still not a big fan of pork.

A Brief History of the Takfiri ideology">A Brief History of the Takfiri ideology

Honzo September 17th, 2005

A good bit about the history of Al Qaeda’s ideology from an Iraqi Muslim.

Some History of the Takfiri ideology.

Thus those who believe that the present day Takfiri
movement is just the outcome of contemporary factors, such as poverty,
the political struggle against western policies, nationalism etc. etc.,
will never arrive at a proper understanding if they do not appreciate
the profound complexities of the historical background. Thus I would
call these movements and groups the Neo-Khawarij. The renaissance of
this Neo-Khawarij in the modern era can certainly be traced to the rise
of Wahabism in the 18th century in the Arabian Peninsula, i.e. the
present day Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.