A random way of reframing belief hit me today so I thought I'd share it with you. The execution can naturally be done much more elegantly and be adapted per person, and per context.

"Belief is the absence of knowledge, you simply can't argue with this; its a truism, therefore wanting to believe something is the same as not wanting to know the reality of it.

By valuing 'faith'/'belief' so highly; have you realized that in essence you are valuing the lack of knowledge over knowledge, as faith is at its core a belief in something that is not observable?"

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After a fair bit of reflection I've developed a new argument that forms the basis of my moral 'thinking', a single logically sound (if not, leave a comment so I can improve upon it) argument that is overwhelmingly simple yet carries far reaching conclusions. Think of this as a teaser, a first post to test the logic as I refine the reasoning.

So lets get started, and think about a topic that most people think is inherently evil, a concept that civilized society has long considered morally unjustifiable.

This is slavery, the idea that a human can 'own' another person and use them like property, something that great leaders like Abraham Lincoln amongst many others have fought very hard to abolish here in the west. Slavery being the whole or part ownership of one person by another person, group of persons or legal entity.

So let me ask you this; who owns you? Does anyone own you? Can anyone own you?
Sure, its a pretty stupid question, of course no one owns you! you are yourself, its impossible for anyone to 'own' you in whole or in part.. or is it?

Lets abstract for a moment and think about this; if I own a block of land, you can't tell me what I can or can't do on that block of land unless my actions affect you or your property.. fairly simple isn't it?

If we've both got co-ownership of that land, then we can both exert some control over that land, but how about people?

If you can't 'own' a person in whole or in part, then you have absolutely no control over them; your only right to interfere with them occurs if their actions affect you.

In the sense that you have unlimited freedom to swing your fists around, until the moment that fist makes contact with my face; infringing on my freedom to remain uninjured.

It's so simple, straight forward and crystal clear; unless you 'own' someone OR their action infringes on your freedom you have no right whatsoever to impose limits or rules on their conduct.
Whether you steal a number of natives from Africa and force them to work on your cotton plantation or you exert your ownership over someone by disallowing them to do something that doesn't affect you its still slavery.

Stealing is stealing whether its a watch or a Lamborghini just like slavery is slavery whether you keep people in chains or you stop them from injecting a substance into their body.

So how about drug control? Simple. If I choose to inject a substance into my body you have no inherent rights to stop me from doing that unless I intended to inject those drugs into your body since you do not own me. Well.. that sure cleared up a lot of bullshit debating.

Gay marriage? Same thing; some number of gay men or women have chosen to 'marry', and as you do not own them they can do whatever the hell they want.

Violent movies, video games, pornography and censorship in general.. same principle, unless you are forced to participate in or watch any of the above, you have no ownership over someone that chooses to.

Same with prostitution.. one party wants sex, while the other is willing to provide the service all in discrete privacy at a private establishment for money. Again, if you do not own the location where the act is taking place, or any of the individuals involved any attempt to stop this is akin to slavery.

Sex slavery and 'pimping' is a very real and morally unjustifiable reality in many countries, and the cause of it is equally unethical governments creating black markets by imposing themselves on peoples free right to commerce.
A man and a woman may freely contract over sexual services providing they both agree to the terms, while a man may not contract out a woman to another man against the will of the woman. A free market leads to the former, a black market leads to the later.

My stance here is simple, it doesn't matter whether you agree with something or not, if two parties agree to something that doesn't affect you, you have no rights to interfere.

And at the end of the day, what's morally worse; claiming you 'own' other human beings, or engaging in a mutually beneficial contract with an agreeing party for sex in exchange for money.

Disclaimer: I do not take, intent to take or have ever taken any illicit drugs. I simply believe that liberty includes the freedom to do and say things that you personally don't agree with; and because of this I feel compelled to stand up for the certain moral principles such as the complete abolishment of slavery in every sense.

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Those that know me know this blog has been a bit of an experiment, an often neglected place for me to dump whatever caught my attention at the time.

It's given me a chance to learn drupal, the content management software that runs this blog, and an excellent piece of software for building a complete online businesses. It's been a great way of learning the framework to a standard package my business will be offering in the future; and ensuring that I understand how it works before outsourcing the work.

Yet its also a balance, while I've noticed a lot of people coming to this blog from google searching for pictures of Charles Lindbergh (famous aviator dude) after I wrote a post about him, in many ways I haven't written much about my personal life or my business.

The problem is that whatever I write here can be found by ANYONE, someone searching for would find my blog on google if I wasn't careful, and that's not good for business.

So its a fine line between writing what matters, and not putting off potential customers when a photo of me passed out, in the gutter dressed like.. well, some of you know which incident I'm referring to, and for those that don't; just comfortably move along now, and think of it only as a joke

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but the whole purpose of my business is to control the information the potential customers to my clients are exposed to, engineering a companies image and enabling their customers to be 'taught to buy', so to offer consulting I need to do a good job of controlling the information I expose to the public myself.

And if you were wondering, when I write on this blog, its actually an image and completely invisible to google, so go ahead, search for ; you won't find this blog in the results.

The irony here is its much easier to control the flow of information here, in the open, than it is on facebook; which is the major reason I'm not yet the proud owner of a profile. Though I'm slowly warming up to the idea, I'll write up the specific reasoning why I'm so reluctant to get a face book profile soon. And I assure you its more than just lethargy.

As time allows will divide posts into different categories, adding a nice menu at the top that quickly enables you to only view what you want to see, so if economics isn't your thing, you won't see posts related to it and vice versa.

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I came across a post about Moral Hazard by Jörg Guido Hülsmann from the Ludwig von Mises Institute and I highly recommend reading it whether your interested in economics or not.

It reminds me of hearing a mate say he was parking his car unlocked in a dodgy neighbourhood because the car was insured and he wanted to get a new car... I bet you've had similar experiences through your friends. Its just interesting how deep 'moral hazard' runs, and what outcomes it leads to; so if you haven't already, spend 2 minutes of your time and read the article..

The article got me thinking about the inherent incentives that exist in any system, whether its between a citizen and a citizen, a citizen and a government or a corporation and a corporation or a combination thereof.

And while you could rightfully argue that a cold economic analysis can be quite heartless; and that a society that doesn't provide a minimum level of support to those that need it the most is not 'a good society', the fact is that when incentives exist, they create a 'moral hazard' that can't just be swept under the table. And that in it of itself causes problems, and in some instances, problems that lead to systemic failures over time.

It almost seems any society is inherently designed to fail, whether it happens quickly or it takes 100's of years; its as though human nature at its irrational core can't remain stable, and empires must colapse and rebuild from time to time.

And still on the topic of moral hazard, you can see countries like the USA where generation after generation of inept irresponsible bureaucracy has lead to the country being over $48,000,000,000,000.00 in debt, yes, that's 48 trillion in debt.

About $160,000 for every man, woman and child, and since their GDP was $13.86 trillion (2007 est.) it almost seems like we're in the middle of watching a perfect text book example of a society more hell bent on maintaining the status quo than its own survival, with untold human suffering the only foreseeable conclusion.

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Anyone with an elementary knowledge of basic economics understands that there's a substitution effect when one good rises in price comparatively to a similar good, hell, its common sense really.

So this begs the question.. what happens when you increase the price of premixed drinks? Obviously people will move on to other comparatively cheaper beverages.. such as straight spirits.. Uh huh.. giving people a disincentive to consume drinks that are sealed against being spiked and come with a predictable level of alcohol can hardly be called intelligent when you do it in the name of reducing binge drinking.

Yeah, your really likely to get less drunk off free pouring vodka into a glass and adding some orange juice.. yeah.. good thinking there! Now add into the equation the cumulative effects of increased intoxication on your 'pouring skills'.. yep, there's a recipe for success, if by success, you mean half naked, commadose and lying in the gutter.

Before we know it, they'll be preaching for abstinence only sex education to reduce std's.. because that really works.. (In case anyone can't tell, I'm being sarcastic.. I hate moral puritans more than the sick feeling you get the day after playing goon of fortune at a party)

BUT WAIT, what if the government does what it does best and taxed ALL alcohol more, wouldn't that sure strike fear into those evil would be binge drinkers?! Well.. Not really.. or only in the way it wasn't intended. Think about it for a moment; go to any poor neighbourhood, hell, go to any bottle shop in Croydon on a Saturday night and you tell me how 'substitutable' the consumers in that market segment consider their alcohol consumption.

Ever wonder why people choose to get really drunk after losing a job, when logical analysis would imply its the time they can least afford it? Ever wondered why you commonly see men from poor neighbourhoods drinking themselves into a stupor, when a rational logical analysis would suggest they would be better of investing their funds in education?

It's because alcoholics don't consider alcohol a substitutable good, they will forgo luxuries, more nutritional food and even basic necessities before they will give up that hard earned slab of johnny walker and coke.

Naturally things aren't so black and white, the substitution effect does come into play in a number of ways as;

1. As the price of alcohol increases, other substitutes such as illicit drugs, misuse of legal drugs (flu medicine + a shot of vodka for the determined type) become increasingly attractive, not to mention the all time recession favourite beverage of pure ethanol with a dash of lemon. The net impact will end up being harmful consumption of intoxicating beverages remains the same, while safer beverages are consumed less and more harmful illegal intoxicants are consumed more.
2. Those people who this law isn't targeted, the responsible type, the type who only casually consume drinks will feel unfairly punished and will consume less alcohol.

I'm sure the government will feel proud when they have successfully converted the average teen binge drinking session from cheap case wine to a bottle of vodka and a packet of flu medicine, even at $60 for a bottle of cheap vodka and $12 for a packet of flue medicine that's about $5 a person to get completely wasted, or for the really cheap and more traditionally inclined a $3 bottle of methylated spirits and a lemon.

All in all this new paternalistic state is an assault on civil liberties, its against the principle of freedom to make personal choices and its economically wholly ineffective at achieving its stated outcome.

If Kevin Rudd seeks to increase teenage use of intoxicating stimulants while appeasing the Christian right I salute his cunningness, if not, then I hope he stops trying to be Australia's dad, and refreshes his understanding of economics 101. He's a smart guy, and a step forward from the howard years, so lets hope he snaps out of it *crosses fingers*.

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Theres something striking about a good comedian, the way they can 'joke' with concepts too politically incorrect for the media to touch, the way they can make you laugh and the way they can make you think.

Its a sad state of affair in deed when while the mainstream media is distracted by britany spears mental instability we get the best political comentry from those who's job it is to make us laugh. But then again, hasn't politics just become a bit of a joke anyway, if it wasn't for the constant risk of nuclear war we'd all be laughing at that funny monkey roaming the white house.

 So for an appetizer of the poltically incorrect poignant commentry that awaits you if you delve into the rest of his material, take a look at the following vide on youtube:

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Just thought I'd have a bit of a rant post after coming across some of the brain dead right wing drivel on an age poll about allowing R18+ video games, the post is here:
http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenplay/archives//009002.html

Really, is there anything more annoying than some misguided joe average wanting to stop you from doing something that doesn't affect him or her?

Think about it, politicians mostly get elected by promising their voters they will stop someone else doing something their voters disaprove off, and usually something that has no personal impact on those voters.

You could start a war with a "save the children" rallying call, never mind the fact that the cost of a single 'small ish' war could buy the food needed to keep all the worlds malnourished children alive for at least a year or more. No, these things are never based in logic, there will always be enough parents desperate to stop their children thinking independently, or god forbid, do something different.

Makes you wonder, what do these 'champions of the family' think or say to themselves right before giving a fire and brimstone pitch? Do they take a shot of vodka, sigh and go "damnit, i'm getting too old for this shit"... or do they.. actually believe it?

Anyway, this is the post I put in the comments, thought it got the point across:

"People have the fundamental inalienable right to freedom of speech and freedom to view information (we're not China or Afghanistan.. remember?). A game is a form of expression and is protected like every other art form, whether you approve of their content or not.

Its time to rise up against culture destroying hypocrites; its easy to stand up and say how much you respect the heroes of old that have thought and died for freedom, now prove it's not all hollow words and take some action by standing up for the freedom of people that you disagree with to watch things you don't have to."

 

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We always hear about the problems with our aging population, and the solution proposed always seems to be to let me young people migrate into the country, or encourage the birth rate to increase through various 'incentives'...

Which when you think about it, is just a little bit stupid.. really, it costs about $500,000+ (amount does not include loss of productivity or time investment changing diapers etc) to bring up the average kid from 0-21, and the government pays people $5,000 as a 'bonus' for having a kid. If the pure idiocracy of this idea doesn't shine through straight away, all you have to do is to take a bus or a train ride through a dodgy neighbourhood enough times and you'll eventually see some meth addicted failure talking to another unwashed drug addicted social outcast about how they or one of their acquaintance's is having a kid merely to take advantage of the governments 'baby bonus'.

 Eugenics has gotten a bit of a bad name for good reasons, yet this is exactly what this government is doing, its providing an environment that favours 'one' kind of person, because weather you create a system that weeds out the intelligent or the not so intelligent, your still ultimately engaging 'nudging' the selection criteria.

 Now think about this for a moment,  the only people that this 'financial' incentive will work on are people that would consider getting a $5,000 lump sum for taking on $500,000 in 'debt'.. and the governments system will selectively add MORE of these people into our gene pool, as anyone else would choose to have a kid on other reasons than a small one time bonus.

So what if you instead considered aging a disease? just because everyones born 'sick', an uncurable sickness with a 100% mortality rate makes it no less of a disease. It's caused by both evolution selecting for most offspring rather than longevity, along with many many minor failures in each successive duplication of cells, an interesting situation when you consider every cell in your body is guaranteed to be new every 7 years.

 Scientists are constantly looking at new ways of extending life, and many believe that its fairly reasonable to expect that if your reading this about now (your 20-25 years old) you'll end up not aging as medical science continues to improve at a faster rate than your body breaks down..

Theres already a pill coming to market in the next couple of years that will simulate calorie deprivation, which counter intuitively puts cells to work at higher efficiency, and has so far lead to dramatic life extensions and quality of life, in particular middle life improvements in mammals it was tested on.

 Its interesting, science says that this pill could extend the average life span by 9 years in humans if everyone took it, and to put this into perspective curing cancer completely with no side effects would only increase the average life span by 2 years..

So how about it?  It would make sense both in a quality of life and economically if we tackled the aging population problem not with more kids, but with putting more and more work into removing age as a problem in the first place. Simply put, fighting a problem is very stupid if its feasible to remove the problem in the first place.

 It would be easy to make a pill like this available for free through a government program, and extend the retirement age to 70. You could keep doing this while technology improves, and at the very least cushion the impact of our aging population.

Just think about it, a couple billion worth of funds that are already invested in the trillions of dollars in super anuation could do some pretty amazing stuff in this area.

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Sometimes you come across something that just strikes you, it makes you think, a short statement, maybe even a picture or a sound and in that flash something else becomes clear, for an instant you feel awake, like you have just woken up.

I had one of those moments reading this quote, its from a condemed man that was executed in 1985 and in a nutshell it says whats fucked about america.

I want to thank Father Walsh for his spiritual help. I want to thank Bob Ray (Sanders) and Steve Blow for their friendship. What I want people to know is that they call me a cold-blooded killer when I shot a man that shot me first. The only thing that convicted me was that I am a Mexican and that he was a police officer. People hollered for my life, and they are to have my life tonight. The people never hollered for the life of the policeman that killed a thirteen-year-old boy who was handcuffed in the back seat of a police car. The people never hollered for the life of a Houston police officer who beat up and drowned Jose Campo Torres and threw his body in the river. You call that equal justice. This is your equal justice. This is America’s equal justice. A Mexican’s life is worth nothing. When a policeman kills someone he gets a suspended sentence or probation. When a Mexican kills a police officer this is what you get. From there you call me a cold-blooded murderer. I didn’t tie anyone to a stretcher. I didn’t pump any poison into anybody’s veins from behind a locked door. You call this justice. I call this and your society a bunch of cold-blooded murderers. I don’t say this with any bitterness or anger. I just say this with truthfulness. I hope God forgives me for all my sins. I hope that God will be as merciful to society as he has been to me. I’m ready, Warden.

Source: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/porterhenrylast.htm

Makes you wonder if we're that much better at giving equal justice for all here in Australia, even if we (thankfully) don't have the death sentence, injustice will always be injustice no matter how its perpetuated.

 

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Hey there!

I mentioned that I was working on an astronomy theme for a client sometime back; unfortunately my computer practically died and set me back a week, while I got caught up in other things and never got a chance to show it off.. Now it changed a bit from the original design at the clients request so I can't stand behind the colour scheme 100% but I thought it turned out alright anyway. You can see it below:

Basically I've taken on a few relatively low paid jobs to get a few testimonials / references and just enough cash to launch a large advertising campaign; my previous strategies weren't working well enough so I've been working tirelessly day and night to relaunch my online business with a serious 'umph' of advertising behind it.

A lot of the work has been spent developing a standard 'product', something that can help any small to medium size business skyrocket their marketing success, something that's not just a 'pretty web page' but an integrated strategy because lets think about it at the moment, I might enjoy digital art (was actually close to choosing 3d design as a uni course) but its not what I want to be doing for 'business', and its certainly not something that's going to get me any closer to buying a brand spanking new Lamborghini with cash.

Actually this is probably the most frustrating and most exciting part of my work at once, I've learnt a lot, I know what doesn't work, I've come up with a standard solution that a huge portion of businesses could use, its all so much clearer than when I started.. but, it *always* takes longer to perfect, there's still plenty of knuckling down working before I can show it off here, and before I can *really* market it.

If you know me through AIESEC, this is something you may have heard me allude to or talk about previously, and its a solution that's absolutely 100% relevant to AIESEC, in fact, discussions and announcements are in the boiler right now.. so I'll keep you updated

What I can tell you is that its a 'complete online solution', at the core is a website that is designed to handle customers, enabling them to manage their 'contact' details online, and giving them incentives to sign up (free ebook / free report / 10% off for life, depends on the business).

This integrates with an email solution that enables you to send personalized emails ('Hi John!' etc) to individual 'interest' groups based on your customers preferences... imagine sending an email to everyone that's interested in 'product a + product b', or creating a series of 'insider tips' for your industry, automatically emailed, with automatic personalisation to those people that put that down as a preference each 2 weeks, or whatever's appropriate.

As well as providing this, users are able to 'invite' their friends.. now this is always the hardest bit because most people in their right mind don't just give their friends email addresses out for free so depending on the market the challenge for each client is to figure out a 'bonus' to people who invite others (ebook? joint discount?.. can work in a number of situations..), and possibly the most powerful feature is the ability to invite people on your msn, gmail or yahoo address book... now THAT'S a viral marketing 'weapon of mass destruction'..

Again, this is the kind of backbone you need to stay in your customers minds, and when its able to work well with online advertising campaigns, showing you exactly how much you spend on each customer for each keyword group compared to how much they bought; it's shaping up to be an indispensable business tool.

In other news it appears the formatting of this blog seems a little screwed up on some browsers so I apologize, when I get some spare time I'll give the theme another upgrade, and provide a nicer way of separating philosophical articles and personal blog posts

Looking forward to having a beer, coffee or cocktail with you all again soon, just been so busy with the above.. this 'workaholism' really doesn't beat a good pint of Heineken and the company of friends.

P.S.
Here's a 'preview', or more like it, something I've been toying with.. consider it extremely rough (just design concept, no 'content') and also ignore the lines / boxes that don't look like they should be there.. because.. they 'shouldn't'..its a quick photoshop mockup. Note the headings will slide in and out when clicked on, revealing more sub content. Also note that the block around the 'logo' should not be there, that the logo is subject to change, and if your curious, does draw inspiration from this.

 

 

Warmly,
Pete.

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Well, it sounds like its from some cliché movie or crappy self help book; but seriously, have you ever stopped and asked yourself who you would be if you stripped off all that social conditioning, all those things your parents have told you to be, and people have said you are.. Hell, while you’re at it, who would you be if you looked different, or you lived in a different time?

Stop and think about it for a moment, where did your last thought come from? And the one before that? Was it original, or did you think it before.. Maybe when you think deeper still, who came up with that thought before you? How was the seed sowed?

Have you noticed how you tend to think certain thoughts when your in different places, maybe you go to a certain room in the house and bam, you realise your thinking the same thing you were last time you were in that same room.

If you had grown up 200 years ago, would you have owned a slave? Would you fight to free that slave or would you fight to keep 'it'? And if you had lived in Nazi Germany during the war, would you have thought Hitler, fled the country or stood patriotically behind your countries ruler and all mighty protector?

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Sometimes I wonder whether we're simply some semi intelligent post ape species, marching inexhaustibly towards our own destruction, too fuelled by the evolutionary forces that brought us there, too stupid to see it coming and all together too clever to survive our own tools of destruction.

It’s like humanity is half way between two points, like holding a giant target in the no mans land between two warring armies; we either need to be a lot smarter or a lot more stupid, because as we are now, we’re smart enough to be able to kill everything and stupid enough to be willing to do it.

"I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with -- stone clubs."-- Albert Einstein

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.~ George Bernard Shaw

You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do.~ [Usenet]

All great truths begin as blasphemies.~ George Bernard Shaw

So the question remains, who are you really? Are you in charge of your own mind or are you simply a product of your past, just the result of millions of iterations of an evolution guided gene mixing process; enabling you to recognise patterns and repeat them more efficiently than earlier models till that day where you too, like those that shaped the environment you lived in; expire, reduced to nothing more than the fading memory of those still alive.

Could you be something more than the flesh others see; a soul that has never lived before, has never died before but will be judged by your actions; a judgement that will propel it to the heights of eternal bliss, of infinite rewards and the best of everything.. or.. doom you to the fiery pits of a place so terrible its worth staying celibate just to avoid.

A binary choice between the blackest of black and the lightest of light, an infinite reward or punishment, forever repeated as a consequence of a finite set of actions in a varying world.

A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.~ Albert Einstein

Or maybe this life is simply one in a series of many, the only purpose to continue to improve upon the previous life; doomed to repeat your mistakes until you learn to change them and graced to have the opportunity to do so.

Do you believe any of these doctrines? Is it even possible ‘believe’ anything while remaining ‘yourself’? And can you accept that ultimately nothing can ever be true, including this statement; just like you can never stand in the same spot in a river twice..

It’s pretty obvious things change, fashions come and go, empires rise and fall, economies boom and bust, conquerors conquer and in turn are conquered; yet is it obvious that like everything before now, that which exists now will be looked back on like we now look back on slavery, black and white TV’s and disco.

We all look back at Hitler disgusted, like we think of those Germans that were too blind with patriotism and fear to oppose him with an air of superiority; knowing that we would never do that ourselves, just like we shake our head at how bad the ‘great recession’ was.. but do you look at these things and ask yourself how will history look at what you did? And how long before it repeats itself, as it always tends to do.

God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. […] -- George W Bush

I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work. ~ Adolf Hitler

Oh gee, now I’m taking quotes from Bush and Hitler to make Bush look like Hitler… But, I’m sorry to disappoint, as I won’t be putting on the tinfoil hat and screaming conspiracy, besides, there are enough differences between the two to make such comparisons absurd. Think about it, Hitler killed millions of Jews, and was a relatively intelligent asshole.

No, I’m asking you if you’ve thought how you will look back at yourself in 20 years time, the way you thought and acted now, and whether you believe your immune to the current layer of propaganda… Remember, Iraq Iran really has weapons of mass destruction and it’s crazy and capable enough to use them on the whole world, guaranteeing its total eradication from the map in a suicidal act of jealous rage if America doesn’t step in and save us all from this terrible, albeit avoidable calamity. Honest to God, a friend of a friend of mine said he saw it on fox news.

No, the whole purpose of this lengthy post is to rattle a few feathers, to make you stop and ask yourself whether you’re wearing a mental veil, to question who you are and why, if for any reason you’re here.

Just as a picture is drawn by an artist, surroundings are created by the activities of the mind. ~ Buddha

Do you believe in good and bad? Who is good, who is bad in your eyes? Well, heres a little more food for thought, its interesting when you hear what people have really said, isn’t it?

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ... we need believing people. ~ Adolf Hitler

I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God. ~ President George Bush, August 27, 1988

If I could find a way to get [Saddam Hussein] out of there, even putting a contract out on him, … ahh … if the CIA still did that sort of thing, . . . ahh . . . assuming it ever did . . . . . . . I would be for it. ~ Richard Nixon

I would have made a good pope. ~ Richard Nixon

Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity? ~ Arthur C. Clarke

I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. ~ Mohandas Gandhi

The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine. ~ George Washington Administration Treaty

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? It is because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. ~ J. Krishnamurthi

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?’ ~ Quentin Crisp

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~ Stephen Roberts

I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes that seemed too good to leave out..

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism. ~ Carl Sagan

I ain't got no quarrel with the Vietcong ... No Vietcong ever called me nigger. ~ Muhammad Ali, stripped of boxing title, convicted of a felony for refusing to serve during the Vietnam War

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. ~ Noam Chomsky

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. ~ John Maynard Keynes

We need a common enemy to unite us. ~ Condoleezza Rice, March 2000

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer. ~ Henry Kissinger (Former US Secretary of State)

If there has to be a blood bath, let's get it over with. ~Ronald Reagan, Vietnam

I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be good and it would spread a lively terror. ~ Winston Churchill commenting on the British use of poison gas against the Iraqis after World War I

Shit, I almost posted a blog post without including a YouTube video.. Well, these are good food for thought.. the first contends that we're all monkeys, good for a laugh and makes you think a little, as long as you don't find its contention interlectually insulting.

This one is the intro from idiocracy, and I highly recommend watching it, and the whole movie as well (for its underlying political message), this clip just makes fun of american hilbillies, and does so very elegantly, scary thing is, if you add another 50 years of fox news it just might end up becoming true sooner than we think.

These last two are just thrown in for good measure, the first being a cartoon of humans acting like a virus, and the second being agent smiths synopsis of humans from the matrix; can you see humanity behaving in this way? can you see yourself behaving in this way?

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Well.. not only has my new blog shown up on google already, and is ranking #1 for the keyword Petes Pad which is a little freak since the domain name has only been registered for a month and NOTHING LINKS TO IT... looks Googles started a new psychic search service, damn; I can't even begin to imagine the marketing potential that would offer, or what kind of scary pornographic 'niche' markets would suddenly get a lot more traffic.

What's also weird here is my previous 'personal' blog didn't even rank in the top 10 for the keyword 'Petes Pad' even though its been up for over 6 months and its written in its fricken title!.. guess it just goes to show just how much google cares about the text in a domain name for ranking a site.

Anyway, I got to the whole point because I tried searching for the keyword for the hell of it, and low and behold, there was a youtube video that some chick made called 'Petes Pad' which was basically her giving a tour of her boyfriend's apartment. Coincidentally, I'd probably have a similar arrangement, artwork and all when I get around to moving out.

So if you feel like wasting 50 seconds of your life, go ahead and watch this:

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Have you ever just been browsing the internet, reading a book, a magazine or simply watching TV and some character has just grabbed your attention, theres something fascinating about them and you just feel compelled to read more about them, their life and their beliefs?

Well on the 33rd anniversary of his death I thought it might be a good occasion to break a blogging dry spell and talk a bit about one such person who's fascinated me; and this person is Charles Lindbergh.

The first person to fly solo from New York to Paris in a single engine plane custom built back in 1927.

Not least did he succeed in flying solo in a single engine plane that cost ~$11,000 to build when competitors using multi-engined planes costing upwards of $100,000 had failed; he saw through the prevailing opinion that twin engine planes were safer because in the event of engine failure you still had a backup because he reasoned that in the event of engine failure above the atlantic you were as good as dead anyway, and with 2 engines your chances of engine failure were effectively twice as high. 

An interesting character, he was the first person to make mass celebrity status, much to his unwillingness he was revered, followed and stalked by countless followers in a gloomy period of american history, particularly around the depression he was the hero the people badly needed.

What makes Lindbergh so fascinating is his clear thinking and innovativeness despite popular sentiments, he opposed American involvement in 2nd world war because it wasn't americans business and it wasn't a threat to them, because america could quite easily defend itself with its geographic position, almost makes you think of Iraq / Iran now doesn't it? Whether history agrees with this or not, he reasoned that Russia was the bigger threat than germany, something that he later in life commented later on in his life had proven to be true.

He helped secure funding and supported the early development of rockets despite no one in establishment understanding their importance, he was involved in significant developments of the first artificial heart, campaigned for protecting the environment in a period where this was unheard of and above all else, was a pioneer of aviation. 

Despite his flaws he was himself, he thought and reasoned for himself and that's something that I admire and value in a person, I wish we had more Charles Lindbergh's and less 'fake' people trying to be or pretend to be something they're not.

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