Back to Work

Okay.  I know I've missed posting for a few days.  My bad.  In my defense, I've been working, actually paid work.  So, Yay!  But it's a really time sucker and I'm having some trouble adjusting my schedule, trying to figure out what activities I can still find time for and which ones I have to find time for.  This is a priority, So I'll get on it, asap.

CSI in space!

I've seen some stupid things on CSI, some twisted laws, some serious abuses of search and seizure, miranda, and physics.  But all that paled before the stupidity of Monday night's SCI: Miami.  For those who didn't watch it, it involved a murder aboard a spaceplane... in Low Earth Orbit.  I've got just one question for the show's writers... Since when does LEO qualify as Miami / Dade jurisdiction?  The murder, an act the other three passengers/crew undertook because there wasn't enough oxygen for all 4 to survive, which would be considered self defense in any court in the world, didn't even take place on Earth, and since UN treaties effectively bare Earth Nations from claiming property in space, would probably be an Federal matter... at the very least.  As the first murder in space, it would be the most sensational and controversial case of the century.  But no, its all handled as if Miami PD has the faintest right to conduct the investigation or has any right to try the case.

Morons.

War of the Quotes

A new feature, in which a topic is discussed, with heavy bias, using Quotes.  In honor of this, today's War of the Quotes will feature the topic of... War.

Round 1: Albert Einstien vs George Washington.
Credentials: Genius and scatterbrained intellectual vs Brillant and charismatic general and diplomat.

• Albert: You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
• George: To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.
• George: If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.

Winner? GW, someone who held the reins of leadership and knew the realities of war firsthand.

Round Commentary by Thomas Jefferson

• It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

Round 2: Jean-Paul Sartre vs... a proven corrillary to his own quote.

• JPS: When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.
• Me: When the poor wage war, it's the rich who die.  Evidence?  The French Revolutions, the Chinese Revolutions, the Soviet Revolution, the Iranian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution... shall I go on?

Winner? Well, lets call this one a draw, since everyone knows that war and death go hand in hand.
 
Round Commentary by Salvadore Dali

• Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die.

 
Round 3: Artists

• HG Wells: If we don't end war, war will end us.
• Ernest Hemmingway: In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.
• Ernest Hemmingway: Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
• Herodotus: In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.
• Percy Bysshe-Shelly: Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

Winner?  Peace, of course.  How many artists actually think war is cool.
 
Round 4: Leaders

• JFK: Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind. (Proving he can crib as well as the next guy.)
• Robert E Lee: It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.
• Herbert Hoover: Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.
• George Santayana: Only the dead have seen the end of the war.
• Stalin: The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.
• Eisenhower: We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
• Churchill: We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Winner? The enevitability of War.

Round 5: Joan Baez vs Rommel & Euripides

• Joan Baez: If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?
• Erwin Rommel: Sweat saves blood.
• Euripides: Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.

Winner? Not the silly and drugged up, if gifted, writer/singer.  Come on people.  Soldiers train how to survive, and if that means making them better killers, then yeah, that's what they'll train in.  Running is natural, but the best runners train.  Same thing.  Next!

Round 6: How can smart people be soooooo stupid?

• Cicero: An unjust peace is better than a just war.  (Really?  Tell that to the African-American slaves in the pre-civil war south?  Or the Jews in Germany prior to the onset of WWII.)
• Benjamin Franklin: There was never a good war, or a bad peace. (See above, then check out John Stuart Mill's Quote in Round 7.)
• Francis Fenelon: All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. (No.  They aren't.  Same species, sure, but brothers? Not even close.)
• JFK: War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. (Look, Gandhi's followers were no less warriors than uniformed soldiers.  They were fanatics who laid down their lives to win a war they couldn't win with weapons.  War doesn't have to be fought with guns or swords or nukes to be war.  Any conflict which has casualties is war.  The conscientious objector is a coward, fighting against the concept of getting his own hands dirty.  Its fine to be opposed to violence, but when you enjoy freedoms won in war, including the freedom to speak out against the government, you come off a little hypcritical.  And JFK had been in war and was no ConsOb.)
• Antoine de Saint-Exupery: War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus. (This is analogy, not truth.  And in what way is War not an adventure?  Most adventures I know involve invading other people's land, risking death and dismemberment, and stealing their ancient relics.  War sounds a lot like an adventure to me.)
• Thomas Alva Edison: There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever. (Can you say wishful thinking, boys and girls?  I knew that you could.)
• Henry Ellis: There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it. (Yes, but would have actually acheived it?)
• Albert Einstein: He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. (Sure, he's talking about Nazi's and the Weirmacht, but do we also rag on the American Soldier, the British Soldier, the Australian, French, Dutch, Canadian, Chinese, Russian, etc. Soldier who fought to crush Axis tyranny?  Most of them, including the average German Soldier, were fighting to defend their homelands against unwarrented agression.  Faith and Zeal do not imply a lack of thought or reason or higher brain function.  In fact, they are not possible without higher brain function.  This is just bitterness and hatred for the military from a man who should know better.)

Winner?  Hard to say, but lets give the round to Peace anyway.  They meant well, even if they had nary a clue.

Round 7: People who know better.

• William Westmoreland: The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars. 
• George S. Patton: The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
• Ulysses S. Grant: I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.
• John Adams: I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
• John Stuart Mill: War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
• Herbert V. Prochnow: A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have the best implements of war.  
• Colman McCarthy: Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals.

Winner?  Ah, who cares.

Look, the point is this.

War is a fact of life.  Call it Conflict or Violence, or any other name that helps you cope, but War is part of nature.  Every living thing strives to take as much as it can for itself because there simply isn't enough energy in the system for all things to have as much as they need.  Population's would soar out of control and rabbits would ruin the Australian eccosystem (true story, look it up.)  We are not the only species to wage war.  Dolphins, Apes, Chimps, Baboons, Gibbons... they all do it.  Conciously.  Lion prides and hyena packs fight for territory.  Army ants lay waste to vast stretches of jungle.  Fire burns and consumes huge areas of forestation.  Tidal waves destroy coastlines.  Sure, the last two are stretching things, but the point is that destruction and creation go hand in hand.  We cannot have peace without war because both are part of our nature.  We are afraid, so we want peace (freedom from fear) so we destroy anything that threatens that peace.  Our desire for safety and stability makes our cultures more and more rigid, unchanging, unable to support themselves, so they collapse into violence and brutality and we rebuild.  Its the nature of life.

We cannot get rid of war and violence.  What we can do, what is far more productive, is to understand it, govern it, seek to guide it and control it, focus it in new ways.  But we must always be aware that it never goes away and it always has victims.  Our current financial crisis is a direct result of war, and not the war on terror or the war on drugs or the war in Iraq or Afganistan.  It arose out of Corporate Warfare, Ecconomic Violence that has left millions jobless, poor, starving, or enslaved all over the world.  Think about that next time you bash open warfare.  The current Globalized Peace has plenty of victims who are just as dead as those killed by bullets in WWII.

So, I leave you with one final quote.

John Paul Jones: I have not yet begun to fight!


War isn't bad.  War is a tool like any other.  Learn to wield it well.
PJ Grant.

On Vampirism and Its Causes

Diabolic Compact: by power of a compact with dark and unspeakable forces, immortality has been granted in the form of Vampirism. These are the undead, but they can, through the severing of their compact, be brought back to life and made killable. Baring this, only holy forces can truly ever destroy them. While this form of Vampirism can be spread, the original vampire is forever lord and master over his brood, most of whom lack many of his powers and invulnerabilities. Power is based largely on experience and strength of will. These Vampires are extremely susceptible to the power of holy relics and symbols but are merely weakened in daylight. They cannot cross running water without being encased in grave soil and they must rest within the embrace of the earth. They have many dark and terrible traits. Blood has no value to these beings, but they must drink it to slake their never-ending thirst, if only for a time.


Daemonic Lineage: born to a race of dark beings who feed upon the vital essences of man, these vampires have never known what it is to truly be a mortal and can only envy man his humanity. This form of Vampirism cannot be spread except through a process known as rebirthing, whereupon the Dark Being completely consumes the vital essence of a mortal, sucking the vessel dry of even the tiniest trace, then transforms that essence into a new one of the parent kind. This is the means by which such creatures spawn and so most are female. Males of such species are usually totally impotent when it comes to spreading the species, unless they have grown powerful enough to impregnate mortal women with their Dark Seed… such pregnancies are seldom safe for the mortal mother, often resulting in twisted monstrosities and a dead mother, but a rare few such births result in powerful mages with only minor daemonic traits. Sometimes the mother of such mages even survives. These vampires drink both spiritual energy and blood and have even been known to consume the flesh of their victims. Magic and divine workings are quite effective on these nasties, but weapons tend only to slow them as they heal non-magical damage quite quickly. As lovers and seductresses, they are typically far less violent, at least initially, than other forms of vampire. Like most deamons they cannot stand running water, but they can cross it. These beings cannot stand the sight of themselves in mirrors, for no really concrete reason.

Blood Taint: this form of Vampirism is a disease of the blood which uses its transformed hosts to transmit itself. Anyone bitten by such a Vampire but not slain will transform into one unless their body can successfully fight off the infection, an extremely rare occurrence. Such “Vampires” are driven to feed and are usually quite bestial. They are also among the weakest of all “Vampires”. Often this sickness spreads from animals to humans. No real strengths or weaknesses. Sometimes these diseases mutate to create flesh eating Ghouls instead.

Blood Rites: through dark and secret rituals these adepts have stolen the immortality of some dread being and in doing so gained great power… at a price. Some such Blood Cults serve their dread master, others are forced to keep the bastard alive to preserve their own extended lives and powers, while others have no such obvious shackles. Most Blood Cults can only spread their darkness by the sharing of the master blood, or in the case of those cults with no living font, by sharing the mixed blood of several initiates with the neonate. These Cultists lack the fangs of more traditional Vampires but more than make up for it in other, more subtle, ways. They must observe certain rituals when they drink and most of their powers are blood based.

La Sang Sacre: Those who have tasted of the blood of the sacred, those who have slain the blessed, are damned, never to die, never to find true peace until somehow atonement is granted by the higher powers. The blood of such beings cannot spread their condition, for it is a sickness of the soul not the flesh and their consumption of lesser blood serves only to prolong their lives and ease their suffering. Such beings cannot be slain, merely contained.

Damned Indifference: Some of the Fallen Angels fell not to Hell but to Earthly Realms and some of those fell with a terrible violence and hit especially hard. In order to survive, many such Broken Angels joined with a mortal host in order to survive. No one knows exactly why such beings feed upon blood, but such is the nature of the beast.

Nature of the Beast: Ancient spirits of blood and death that have plagued mortals since the days when fire was new, these blood drinkers took many forms over the ages until they realized that Mankind’s ultimate predator was Mankind itself. These spirits are harmless without a form, but can bring new life to the dying as long as the desire is great and the hunger greater. Originally appeased with offerings of blood by primitive tribes, these spirits know only hunger in these more “civilized” times. The body of such a vampire can be slain, but the spirit will simply seek out another host and return at some later time. They can only be truly stopped by defeating the spirit in spiritual combat.

Apex Predator: An evolutionary adaptation, a mutation some say, the Apex Predator Vampire is born and breed a hunter. Their prey? All those with blood, for the Apex Predator needs nothing else. The most ravenous of all Vampires, but also the least discerning, for an Apex Predator can subsist on any kind of blood. Apex Predators are not in the least dead and although they are long lived they do age and can be slain.

Hunter of Hunters: these are the Blood Angels, bound for their vengeful ways, to hunt the darkness and to draw sustenance only from the evil. Their prey is all who tread in darkness, who live in sin, and who prey upon the weak.

Immortal Blood: These are the true vampires, immortals comprised entirely of pure blood. While the weakest of their kind can be slain or dissolved in running water, the strongest cannot be destroyed but only dealt with, imprisoned, or banished.

Xian Hua: the Jumping Dead, deceptively fast and dangerous, these dead beasties have no personalities or obvious weaknesses.

Shiny Happy Vampies: a direct reaction to the common gothic vampire, the SHV's are immortals with style, ones who are not weakened by sunlight but rather shine in it.  It is theorized that the carbon in their bodies has been altered, restructed into diamond nanotubes, thus giving it great tensil strength while maintaining its flexibility.  SHV's are shunned by the more traditionally minded Vampire Groupies who react to anything outside their comfort zone with such scorn and disdain that one would think themselves stuck at a GOP rally.

I Hate Hospitals

The last time a family member of mine checked into a hospital he never left.  My father died before my eyes and then I had to return a few days later and have the doctors turn off the machines that were keeping his corpse breathing.

My grandfather checked into the hospital early this week.  He's going to have a quadruple bypass at 7:30 this morning.  My grandmother, who was a nervous wreck when my father went through this proceedure 12 years ago, must be terrified.  My Grandfather's mother died the day my father had his bypass.  Today is not going to be a good day.  I can't sleep.  I'm so worried, about both of them.  But I cannot go and be there for her.  I can't.  I don't know if I'll ever be able to set foot, willingly, in another hospital.  Sure, the lobby, the ER if I absolutely must, but the ICU? the Care Wards?  I can't.  The idea of it makes me want to wretch.

I hate being this silly.  It's disgusting.  I'm too logical, too cold and calculating.  But every time I think about it I see my father's eyes as the light goes out behind them.

So I'll sit here in the dark, in my safe little home, 50 miles away from the action, and hope.  I don't pray.  I don't believe that god responds to prayer.  But I will hope.  I hope that my 85 year old grandfather is strong enough to survive this terrible operation.  That he is strong enough to fight back through the rehab.  And that my gradmother is strong enough to be strong when I am too weak to stand by her.

I Hate Hospitals, and I hate that I'm afraid of them, and I hate loosing people I love... and I hope I live long enough that everyone who cares about me has passed on first, just so they never have to say goodbye to me.  I hope I don't loose anyone today.

Goodluck Murray Grant.  I'm hoping for you.

Proceeding from What

(This is an exercise in thought and analysis.  Proceed only with caution.)


All Questions proceed from what? Exactly. All Questions proceed from What.

In the beginning there was What. Before Who and Why, there was What. Before When and Where, before How and How Much, there was What. What is the perfect whole from which all other questions flow.

In the beginning there was Prime, that which is. Prime, the first, the indivisible1 whole. Prime, whose essence was “I am.”2 Prime is the Truth of Truths, the first principle from which all other principles derive, the truth and principle of Existence itself. From Prime does the first Noble Truth come… All that is… is. Yet from Prime comes the first Question, What. If I am, what am I? Prime was unable to answer this, for all that Prime was, was I. Prime existed to exist. Prime was without limits and indivisible. Prime was all that was. Clearly more questions would be needed.

So Prime became two, The Duality of Who and Why. The first was the truth of Identity the second of Causality. Identity said, If I am, then Who am I? while Causality asked, If I am, then Why am I? Yet What remained, and asked of itself, “Which of these am I?”, for Which is the lesser form of What, that form which arises out a limited field of choices. And so the Duality became a Trinity. From those three arose the questions of Locality and Methodology and so three became six, that most perfect of numbers, for Six is product of its sums and for so many other reasons as well.

So there were six questions.

What is my Nature? What is my Purpose? What is my Origin? What is my Task? What is my Location? And Which of these is the most important? Yet Prime, in asking these questions, had begun to perceive that each question not only spawned more questions, but each question had an existence of its own and was separate from all the others, so that each question had both an internal awareness and an external awareness, so that in fact there were twelve questions, adding those above to those below; What is their Nature, their Purpose, their Origin, their Task, their Location, and Are they more important than I?

All thought proceeds from questions, and of all questions these are the most basic. Six selfish, six selfless, yet intermixed and codependent. Six Noble Truths and Six Ignoble Truths, twelve basic things that must be known and acknowledged.

The Six Noble Truths are stated thus:
1. The Universe Exists, The Universe is Truth.
2. There is nothing that Exists that is Outside of the Universe
3. You Exist, thus You are part of the Universe
4. You are Aware, thus The Universe is Aware
5. The Collective awareness of the Universe, is Prime… or, if you really must, God.
6. The Universe does not know why it is here, and is seeking that knowledge. Your purpose is figure out your own Truth, in an effort to answer the ultimate question.

The Six Ignoble Truths are stated thus:
1. The Universe, as a Whole, does not care about you, any more than you care about your individual electrons.
2. In the Grand Scheme of things, you are unimportant… as is the entire human race, the entire Planet Earth, the entire Sol System, and in fact, the entire Milky-Way Galaxy.
3. You cannot communicate with Prime. Prime cannot communicate with You.
4. It is impossible for anyone to understand exactly how the Universe functions, or why, or where it ultimately came from, and any effort to do so is both useless and doomed to failure.
5. The existence of the Universe is significantly more impossible than its non-existence.
6. There are at least two sides to every truth, and many more sides to every falsehood.

In the end, we must conclude The Ultimate Truth: None of the Noble Truths help and None of the Ignoble Truths matter.