Category: politics

You no take candle!

This so, so so isn’t ready, but I desperately want to post. I’ve been dreaming about it. I kid you not. This blog is wonderful to me. I love it dearly.

We’ll backtrack from here to then.

I’ve spent the past 3 days pretty much just playing World of Warcraft. I caved in and used Paul’s 10-day free trial, after which I will continue playing. At the moment, I’m a level 13 priest, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Very good game. But none of you have waited a month to hear about that.

Work has improved marginally. At this point, I’m basically getting paid to learn/do AutoCAD, which I shouldn’t be complaining about at all. It’s actually been a really good learning experience – I’ve learned how to mail all kinds of packages (I only knew how to mail letters before), stain wood, do stuff at the bank, lots of random things that are kind of useful for every day doings. It has a lot of boring moments though, mostly when I don’t have enough variety in my work. This last project in AutoCAD I’ve been doing has just shot my nerves – every day, something new changes or happens and I have to redo a lot of work. Frustrating, let me tell you. Thankfully, I’m not under any deadline, so nothings going to fail because of me. Actually, the project I’m working on right now is for a building that will be going up where Dominoe’s (that don’t look right O.o) used to be, next to the Gateway Center. It’s a pretty spiffy building. Maybe there’s an NDA on it or something, so I should probably be hush hush….

The only other significant thing in my daily life (e.g. that consumes time) is Jen, whom I still don’t like. She’s mostly house trained, but she’s still a puppy, and thus retains puppy-ness. How quaint.

In important news, Jonothan gets back from Iraq September 15th. He actually arrives back on the 5th (this Saturday), but has to stick around for a many number of days for whatever reason. I’m really looking forward to seeing him. I won’t be able to go down and meet him because it’s 10 days, but, whatev, I’ll see him soon. Before I got WoW, I was playing lots of Zelda (the gamecube version, which I will get to, and OoT), which brought back some great memories from our first Christmas here. We’d get up in the morning over break, grab some hot chocolate and all the blankets we could find, plop down in front of our little monitor and play for many hours. I can’t remember how we worked it out, we probably took turns or something, I dunno.

No word has come in on Christopher’s discharge (still). I’m hoping he’ll be here before Thanksgiving, at this point.

Let’s see….I’ve acquired a job with a cool old Russian dude. He’s a retired professor from Cornell, like 80 years old, so I help him out with gardening and stuff. It lasts basically indefinitely, which is how I’m going to be paying for WoW.

Zach lent me this CD from a band called Bloc Party – it is growing more, and more, and more on me. The lyrics SUCK, basically the same phrase (which was good the first time he said it) over and over (not so good the 8th time). However, the music is excellent, and my constant techno-listening (6 hours a day minimum, thanks to work), I can phase it out and listen to the good stuff.

And now, for the rants that have been brewing for a month.

I.D.

I can’t stand it.

I can tolerate a literal interpretation of Genesis, but the ID mindset has gone too far. For once, Bush has really ticked me off. As most of you know, I was once a big fan of him, but he’s servicing the “religious” right, giving them everything they want while he has time. I can’t stand it. Whether I’m a part of the people he’s blowing kisses towards or not, I don’t want the tax dollars I am now spending (I pay income tax now! Huzzah!) to go towards a movement to stick a “science” like ID in schools. A Slashdotter put it perfectly: Once the ID crowd are willing to say that the Intelligent Designer (God) is falsifiable, then and only then can ID be considered as a possibility. And I know well enough that it’s impossible for that to happen. Faith is the hope in things that cannot be seen, proven, or denied. As with most things that are written in the midst of emotion, I will probably regret a specific phrase or sentence which does not reflect what I mean. But we’ll see. Open fire.

The Gamecube Zelda.

It sucks.

It sucks majorly.

I could live with cell-shading. I could almost live with playing a child, with child-like characters in a child-like work. I could just about live with the sailing. But not. It sucks. I want the next version, which has been delayed until 2006.

Nintendo, if it isn’t good, I sincerely hope you go down in flames.

I wish you all well on this night. I will slowly improve the blog as I desire, but it’s readable, and that’s what matters at this point.

Honorable War (O.o)

The main event for today: A Soldier’s Story. In light of reading All Quiet on the Western Front, and our recent studying of WWI and WWII, the school invites veterans from just about every war of the previous century to come and talk, as a yearly event. The veterans can give a wide range of responses and stories – generally, the ones from Ithaca are Vietnam veterans, as they only went due to the draft. The rest are pretty much up in the air.

Veteran Number One, Sergeant Major Looplund:
This guy was probably 80-something years old, and an E-9 in the Marines and Active-duty reserves. He’d been in WWII, Korea, and I think Vietnam, I’m not sure on that one. He was drafted in the beginning, but chose to stay with the Marines to this day. As with all Marines, he was deployed to the Pacific in WWII, and in specific, Iwo Jima. In his fully reinforced company of 255 men (there were others, obviously, just not with him), only 35 survived the assault on the island. Nobody asked if he’d ever killed anyone – there were 21,000 Japanese on the island, and only 1000 survived. You do the math.

His company was intended to join the other divisions for a direct assault on Japan – but his company had suffered too many casualties, and was pulled back to Hawaii, re-equip, and the join the other divisions, but before the assault was approved, the atomic bombs were dropped. Something that really struck me about that, is this: “If the atomic bomb had not been dropped, I would not be here today. The Japanese were fanatics; when we landed, every man, woman, and child would be waiting to resist us.”. After WWII, he stayed as an Active Duty reserve, and was activated during both Korea and Vietnam, but I’m not sure if he fought or not.

This guy basically represents, to me, the wisdom you gain with age. He knew what he was talking about. He never swore, not even once. He was detailed, succinct, polite, and basically, just a strong soldier. He had perspective. Someone asked if he wanted to join the war, and he didn’t rant and rave about how war is pointless, how America is stuck on hating the world. I, for one, appreciate that. But he didn’t lie, he gave an honest answer. He sounded proud of his achievements and his past, but acknowledged the reality of what happened. He had also moved on from whatever might have happened – he wasn’t plagued by memories and nightmares. That, right there, is a man I can respect. Part of the reason I respect him highly is I didn’t realize exactly how bitter one can be until the second veteran.

And that, I kid you not, is not because he is (or claimed to be) a Christian.

Veteran Number 2:
This was some girl’s dad (Juliet’s – the one who screamed at me for being a Republican early in the year), I can’t remember his last name. He never gave many details on his rank and position. He was about 50 years old, and fought in the Vietnam War. He was born in Ithaca, and thus obviously only went because he was drafted. He was a semi-pacifist at the time. He was rarely in direct combat while in the army. To be honest, I don’t know what he did. He was really definitely affected by Agent Orange, as he couldn’t keep on a single track for too long, often went on tangents, stopped to cry 3 times (this was his 3rd time speaking today alone). He said that of the 25 places sprayed most with Agent Orange, he stayed at 18 of them.

After spending some time in Vietnam, he was recruited for a series of special bombing runs against North Vietnamese encampments. His job was to go with 4 other soldiers, sneak to other bases, record the coordinates, and take them back to the artillery. I don’t trust the accuracy of his guesses, but he said the missions saved thousands of Americans and killed thousands more Vietnamese, and still regretted doing them. After that he went into a long thing on how Bush was a liar, coke addict, alcoholic tyrant who wants to be a hero. I almost forgot to mention – he swore a LOT.

I had to come back to English later in the day to make up an essay, and he was talking about the same thing to another class. I asked him why he thought that, and man, do I regret asking that. I got about 5 or 10 minutes of curse-filled earfuls on how Bush is the worst thing since poop on a stick. Honestly, I only said three things to him. The first statement, then “I dunno…I just disagree.” and finally “It’s not that I think you’re crazy, I just disagree, that’s all.”. Lesson learned. Needless to say, I don’t have much respect for this guy. Yeah, ‘Nam was bad, so was WWI, so were the Crusades, say what you will, there’s nothing new under the sun.

This is a very long musing on war. Shoot me down if you so please. A lot of my musings are probably not befitting of a kid, but hey, I feel like writing, so I am.

[musing]

This kind of brings me to my whole view on war. The curriculum at our school is really geared towards getting to go see how horrific war is, on realizing it’s a bad thing, all that jazz. I don’t really buy it. That’s a gross oversimplification of my views, but that’s basically the sum of it.

    • All wars are not fought the same way.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a graphic and sometimes nasty portrayal of what happened during WWI – the most pointless, and yet possibly the nastiest war of the previous century. WWI is an exception, like Vietnam, to what war is like. WWI happened in the middle of a technological revolution, and left armies with tools fit only for trench warfare, and by the end, were crushed by sheer numbers and starvation. WWI was before the first Geneva Convention – weapons outlawed long ago in today’s age were weapons of fear and mass destruction. Flamethrowers, gas, shotguns, anything went. Because these were new and better weapons, they were used without warrant. It was war – nobody stopped to ask questions. Vietnam is, in some ways, same thing. Agent Orange, Napalm, it was superior tactics on page, but when implemented were really terrible things, and nobody realized until later. WWII, Korea, Iraq, these do not suffer from the same things.

    • All wars do not have the same purpose.

The best example here is WWI versus WWII. WWI was a war that started almost entirely out of pride in your respective country – it was just an excuse to exert your country’s ability. It was not out of hatred for other countries, but from love of your own. WWII, was far different. WWII was one gigantic resistance to stop three countries from taking over the world. Contrary to popular opinion, it was not to stop the genocide of Jews (which is similar to the myth that the Civil War started because of disagreements on slavery), although that did encourage Allied involvement. Treating war as a whole is a gigantic oversimplification of what it really is.

    • All wars are not won the same way.

Wars are not won if you are fighting for the correct reason. Wars are not lost if you are fighting for the wrong reason. Wars are not won by superior numbers. Wars are entirely dependent on how involved the country is in that war. Sergeant Major Looplund said something very striking: Soldiers hear about the reactions back at home from the newspapers and radio – if they’re only hearing protests and complaints, and no support, what’s gonna happen? This is true, regardless of time. Motivation, morale, that’s what the soldier needs. If a country wants to win a war, they’ll put a complete effort behind it – towards technological advances, gathering of resources, production of materials, behind supporting the soldiers. A divided country is a weak country. That, my friends, is why we spent app. 18 years in Vietnam, and why we are still in Iraq. Both of those have been spearheaded by ineffective military strategies, but, that is beside the current point. Do not think I am comparing Iraq to Vietnam, though. Iraq isn’t even close.

War is often portrayed as the worst of things that can happen between humans. To me, it’s definitely bad, I do not doubt that, but war is just another implementation of sin, human nature. War is not innately more horrific than what happens elsewhere in our lives. We’re just more accustomed to the other things.

[/musing]

In other news, I have another color template I’d like you guys to comment on. Tell me if you like it. It’s not gonna get implemented any time soon, but, it will eventually get around here.

Check it, yo.

O.o

Oy, I haven’t posted for a week. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to post about, I just didn’t feel up to it, I guess. Overall the week has been okay. Lots of Halo 2 playing has occured (I’ve played well over 300 games now). My Clan and I actually played against Bungie (and won!). Proof that Bungie owns, right there. 😀

I stayed home from school because I’m a lazy, lazy bum. I woke up this morning thinking a lot of things. “My homework is done.”, “I have no tests today.”, “I’m tired.”, “I’m going to be late for school.”, and “Thankgiving Break is too short. Let’s make it longer by one day!”. So I stayed home. I slept until 12:30 (making for a total of 12 hours of sleep!), and just lazed around for most of the day.

Daniel stopped by for a few minutes a little bit ago. He came and picked up some of the money I owe him (27/66 bucks). *shuffles slowly towards his Xbox*

EDIT: I was a little bored, so I decided to revise a report I did on Global Warming for my Global History I final report. The beginning and end are a little cheesy, as I had to cater to my teacher’s political leanings at one point or another, but the point comes across. I presented a rather weak argument in favor of the common theory of Global Warming, but to be honest, there isn’t much of one.

http://oftimarchive.blogspot.com/2004/11/report-global-warming.html

Have fun picking it apart. Since it’s been a year, I forgot the sources for that solar info (about the earth’s axis and rotation), but you’ll live.

[2012 edit: looks like these gems are lost forever]

…

I’ve had so many conversations it’s ridiculous. So many arguments. This is getting out of hand. But I’m gonna let it go on, because it’s interesting. If you feel the need to discuss or debate with me on anything, go RIGHT ahead. Don’t let anything stop you. But don’t be stupid. I don’t wanna see a lot of misinformed Bush-bashing.

That being said, I have a few recent conversations to show you.

Gay Marriage #1

Gay Marriage #2

Abortion #1

My disclaimer for talking over IM – the conversation, unless overtly personal, will get posted on here.

 

[2012 edit: looks like these gems are lost forever]

…

GIVE ME A FRICKING BREAK. I swear, if I see another rant on how Bush shouldn’t have gotten elected, someone’s throat is getting slit and it’s not going to be mine. I’m glad we all have opinions, but don’t treat them as FACT. It is your OPINION that Bush is bad, not a FACT. Anyone who treats it as a FACT is simply IGNORANT. I’m not saying this because I like Bush – I’m saying this as a general rule of life.

That being said, I’m glad he won. I went a little overboard and “in yo face!!” at school, but not too badly, I hope. A couple girls in my Global and English class decided that Republicans don’t deserve to have a fair argument, so 1 minute into a discussion on embryonic stem cell research, one of them starts screaming “NO! NO! NO! YOU’RE WRONG! I AM RIGHT! I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! NO! NO! NO! YOU ARE WRONG!” “Well, you’re just ignorant!” and it went downhill from there. Stuff like this pushes my buttons like nothing else.

I don’t wanna see a political discussion in my comments – if I do, I WILL BAN YOU FROM COMMENTING FOR A WEEK. Yes, I can do that. Now that I have that out of my system, I can continue. I was up till 4 AM watching the results and stuff. I sort of slept my way through chemistry, testing out various ways of looking alert but be asleep. Chemistry is interesting only because we have so many slackers in our class. So if they aren’t up to par, it’s a snore fest.

I’m getting really, really psyched for Halo 2, it’s only 5 days away. Can’t wait…*repeats mantra*

O.o

I think I may have set a record for how long I’ve ever slept. 15 hours, 11:00 PM to 2 PM today. I woke up feeling a littel better than yesterday, and right now I’m feeling not too shabby. I’ll probably go to school tomorrow. I’m kinda tired of staying home, watching the news until someone logs online to talk to. Watching the news gets pretty boring, too. The same stuff kinda gets mulled over and over until you’re brainwashed. Today’s wasn’t so bad, watching the 9/11 comittee review people. It’s also kind of frustrating, listening to how the FBI and CIA get stuck in the beurocracy of politics when they shouldn’t be. It reminds me of how I used to bother arguing with some of my friends about Bush as a president. It really bugs me looking at these people who claim to be so open-minded, yet tell me “you’re stupid. you like President Bush” or “all republicans are stupid” As if Gore, or, *snort* Nader would have done a better job. I won’t rant about my political views here, not worth your time, or mine.

In other news…*ahem* I still have to write this research report…it’s not hard, jsut time consuming. I have 75% of it done, but the stupid works cited and in-text citations take FOREVER. You forgot what page the info was on? You have to go look it up. I’ll have it done soon, I just have to get down to work some time soon. As in, tonight. I’ve also got that German thing to do, but that I’ll reserve for doing as school. Peace.