Archives for November 2003

I’ve always had a fondness for seeing that “first dollar” framed and posted on the wall behind the cash register in some mom & pop establishment. It symbolizes a lot for me, all good. So, let me get right to framing and hanging my “first dollar” right here in my new Blog.

I was quite pleasantly surprised to notice yesterday that Billy Beck became the first in the Blogosphere to link to one of my articles.

I couldn’t be happier that it was him. Billy is known to me from way, way back — perhaps as early as 1994 on Usenet. I still being ideologically wet behind the ears, Billy was a primary influence in reinforcing the queer notion that if a philosophy is to be a rational one, then it must, out of every necessity, be a practical one. In other words, it really can, and is supposed to be a tool for everyday living, amongst ordinary human beings, doing ordinary things. Most particularly, he helped me to recognize that a lot of the people I admire most, like the mom & pop with their first dollar, or the guy bent over the fender of his car tinkering with it (all the while telling you about every mechanical improvement he’s made) often, implicitly, “get it.”

At the same time, the people you really have to watch out for are the ones who claim, in explicit terms, that they hold your same principles.

The setting, naturally, was the Objectivist newsgroups. I was there to do a bit of learning and evangelizing myself, but quickly found myself in the midst of enough dogma to make an Ayatollah blush with envy, enough moralizing to make the Pope run to the nearest confessional, and enough intellectual masturbation to make Immanuel Kant sue for plagiarism. Billy, and a few others, were kind enough to demonstrate that “religionizing” and dogmatizing Rand’s philosophy was really, um, uncool.

Those early moments were quite valuable to me in terms of how I would eventually integrate a rational philosophy into a way of life and how I would use my time.

It’s worked out quite well. Now, if I could just get the rotten sod to reply to my emails!

Ted Jesus Christ GOD has arrived on planet Earth!

After 10 years of tooling around on the web, I’ve seen my share of crazy stuff. But I believe this one is simply unequalled in terms of possessing every possible element qualifying it as the most complete and utterly whacked thing I’ve ever seen. If you have some time to burn, you’ll get no end of entertainment reading some of the stuff here. It will make your mind numb, guaranteed. It’s a psychoanalyst’s dream.

Perhaps most amazing is how complete this guy’s “matrix” is. It might even make Tolkien blush, though it is nearly totally dis-integrated in terms of organization. Equally surprising is that he’s dead-on serious. Still, like with any religion, there are serious logical inconsistencies. Among the most telling are that every proclamation of what is to come is qualified in really funny ways, like, if someone is to be condemned and destroyed, it will happen “sooner or later.” Not only that, but it might not happen at all if the Devil “outbids the Hosts.” So, there’s enough wiggle room to drive MY Hummer through.

According to the website, I am to be blessed if I link to his site and include this message:

Hello:

For approximately 7 years now I have been told loud spiritually that I Am Christ and More! I think that this is TRUE and that I Am Christ and More! I would like you to review my website and read and try to figure this out also.

Please forward this to all persons that can help or that this may interest. Thank you!

My website address is: www.tedjesuschristgod.org

Love,

Ted Jesus Christ GOD

It might take a bit of concentration to get through this, but it’s a short read that’s worth it. The societal implications alone are mind boggling.

At the outset, I told you that this would not be your normal blog. My interests are across the spectrum, and there’s no way that I can confine myself to something as mundane as the daily political scene. To be sure, there are lots of things to highlight in politics, but I want something more on a daily basis, and I hope my readers appreciate that.

Americans Demand Increased Governmental Protection From Selves

Quite a few are being amused by the Affirmative Action Bake Sales springing up on college campuses. Even more amusing are the antics being engaged in to shut them down.

P.S. And now go check out this update, where a Seattle Times journalist tears an affirmative-action affirmer limb-from-limb (rhetorically speaking, of course….)

Here.

This, right here, is a solution that could actually work. We’ll see.

Here’s a description of what “Parital Birth Abortion” is and what it is not. What’s most disturbing to someone like me is not that such a law as was signed by President Bush could become law, but that the public seems to have narry a clue as to what is really involved in the procedure and why it is performed.

These guys got their start a few months back during the anti-war protests in San Francisco. They have since gone national, and their latest muckraking was in at the recent commie lunacy known as "International A.N.S.W.E.R." (yea, right) and their anti-business, anti-civilization, anti-prosperity, anti-reason rally in DC. A spirited and amusing collection of signs, banners, bumper stickers, and t-shirts. The funniest part is that the "protesters" usually take a while to "get it" once they see the signs and banners.

presenceofmind.net

Greg Swann is a guy I’ve been reading off and on for years. Excellent writer. Like me, he’s bearish on the idea of governments and taxes in general, but I have to agree with the expediency argument in this case.