Historical Trends/Talking out of my ass

Today I'm going to examine three different epochs with my general knowledge (far from complete) and try and highlight some of the major differences between them.


Roughly six thousand years ago, "western civilization" (roughly from the Euphretes to the Atlantic coast, and a totally symbolic and meaningless definition, but we'll use it for convenience) was in the midst of the bronze age. Now, although the elements they possessed showed great variety with the geography of that particular culture, bronze age cities all seemed to possess similiar elements; They all seem to have a "God House" as a central hub of activity for that particular city, usually having a great symbol or statue of that particular God or Goddess. Almost everyone carried an idol, usually with a large open mouth. They were huge fans of hyperbole (The cities of Sumer have at least five self titled "Kings of the Universe" and the trend lasted for millenia, and the historic accounts from the period describe people living for tens of thousands of years, and single kings killing armies of thousands with their bare hands, etc.) Mentally, the mind is arranged in such a way that is called by some the Bicameral Mind which more or less implies that everyone was Schizophrenic, so they were visually and mentally "hallucinating" (for the record, you're hallucinating right now) voices and images, and lacked an identity as defined as ours. The idea is essentially that humans in bronze age cultures experienced the Gods in reality as a result of functions in the right side of the brain. According to Julian, this functioned as their decision making process. It is also believed that the people of these cultures believed that their world was paradise, and heaven was literally right next door to them (usually placed on top of a mountain or thought of interchangably with the sky) and their chief purpose was the service of the gods, preparing sacrifices, doing their will, and so forth.

This mental state supposedly began to break down with the advent of writing, which is also credited with a technological boost over the peroid after it appears. Writing was first seriously utilized by the First Babylonian empire (not to be confused with the much later Babylonian empire that is mentioned in the old testament) under the King Hammurabi. This technological boost results in a few neat and new things, such as chariots and horseback riding, and iron. Iron appears roughly 1500 BC, credited to the Hittites, who quickly put together a massive empire. Also around this period of time, the island of Gnossis erupts/explodes, bringing an end to Minoan culture, dramatically changing the climate, displacing millions. Around this time, the first and very short lived monotheist god appears in Egypt under the reign of Phaeroh Nephretiti (one of the few female Phaeros.)

This "iron age" world is dramatically different from bronze age culture. It is here that the first literal and historical records of betrayal commited by humans appear (which is really weird when you start to think about it.) It is during this period a new form of thought (or rather, several) is developing. The first and probably most important is that paradise has now been thought of as lost. No longer do Gods and Men walk toghether, we now walk the earth as punishment for some abhorrent sin. The Gods are now lofty beings that must accessed through mediums and oracles. In one culture particularly, an idea that instead of many Gods running the universe in it's different part, there instead could be one God responsible for the whole thing. This idea later gets merged with a seperate idea that humans could freely choose their Gods, an idea originated in Greece and made possible for all by the Iron age megaculture, Rome. Rome was the so called "height" of iron age culture, encompassing the mediterrainian sea and having influences all the way back to the Euphretes. There is a record of a Buddhist Monk visiting Athens around 150 BC or so. The idea that one could willing choose to worship a God or not matured into Christianity and later Islam, where one could accept Jesus and be saved or not be saved, although the concept later became symbolic with the fall of Rome and the gradual conversion of Europe and Africa to either/or, when majorities swung in either direction.

The key thing was that the literature and records went from the perspective a culture walking hand in hand with the gods and living in paradise to the perspective of having had lost paradise and drifting further away from it, thus the meaning of life was to reach that paradise, and numerous methods appeared to fufill that mental goal. Paradise/Heaven was now this aloof place one needed to reach through one's life actions, God was an aloof being who was listening (hopefully) but wouldn't neccesarilly talk back, but one could interpret his will in life phenomina. This was the era where humans were in control, God was merely watching over them. This mindset was a very successful one, because it's still around today in rather large numbers. But this is no longer the iron age.

The late iron age heralded the rise of industrialization. Large workforces did simple jobs in succession to produce products en mass. The thousand year old nobility, ordained by God who was watching over us and the power holders since the fall of Rome, were suddenly rivaled by a new class, the bourgois/wealthy entrepeneurs. An "industrialized" version of the societal model appeared in Adam Smith's concept of capitalism, where the "invisible hand" of God guides the markets in a manner that promotes overall wealth. This modified feudal system begins to replace the older system in the 1700s. This newer system revives the older concept of freedom to choose, and the idea that God does not or never did exist can begin to be stated by the mid 1800s without certain death.

Now, we're still technically in this world, but we seem to be on the tail end of it. Most of western society operates on steel (made of iron and nitrogen, among other things). Christianity and Islam still account for the vast majority of the world's population, with newer religions such as Wicca, Mormonisn, Aethiesm, Neopaganism, Darwinism etc. making up the minority. But this is a minority that is beginning to hold a lot of sway in global politics and, perhaps moreso, technology. At this point in history, a professor in Britain has successfully connected his nervous system to the internet. Whereas children a thousand years grew up on stories and playing in the fields, today children grow up piloting digital bodies throughout virtual fantasy worlds. Where a thousand years ago the best one could hope for was a year or so to cross Europe, today we can do it in weeks. While first charcoal production was needed en mass to produce the stock needed for a market, then factories and now the Rapid Prototyper, a device under development that can reproduce an item in actual space from a mathematical formula. Our model of the universe covers trillions of trillions of miles. And the dominant idea among the power elite is that we are moving towards paradise. No longer have we been lost, we're coming towards it. Dozens of books have been published claiming that immortality is just around the corner, that disease will someday be a memory. It's all boulderdash, but it's a good motivator. The point is that we are on the verge of a very significant mind change than what you or I are used to.

If we are able to connect our nervous systems to the internet, and mentally "surf it" or push a button to activate an electrode to stimulate instant happiness, if a person can control a machine seperate from their body as if it were attached to them, if a person can mentally "email" someone, this is essentially telepathy.

Imagine a world totally oriented towards this. Humans are connected to the internet at the youngest age possible. Video games are now played with the mind, perhaps the individual is able to download a game into his brain and play it in a field or perhaps areas are set up for children to play properly; the game itself is experienced in reality, as if it actually happens. Everything is connected to the internet, people can activate devices with a thought. From the outside perspective it would appear that everyone is a jedi or some sort of scifi superbeing, conjuring objects around them as if with their mind, just as the Aztecs thought Cortez and the Horse he rode were the messengers of the god Quetzalcoatl. I envision a world where machine and human live in unison, with machine providing and controlling, more likely. Wars would likely decist since such a culture could probably exist across an entire globe, probably replaced by some other fucked up form of population control. Maybe this will be the culture that finally places humans in space permenantly.

This future appears technologically possible from the technology under development today. The real question is what kind of mentality would operate in this enviroment? Surely with technology covering so many life functions, functions in the brain would cease, freeing up energy for development elsewhere?

Okay, I'm done for now.

The War on Trolleys

Councilors attacking trolleys

For crying out loud, we replace the trolley fleet in two years. What on earth would we gain by scrapping them and establishing a new system of routes, requiring adminstration costs as well as loss of work hours due to people getting used to the new system. Sure they're old, they cost a bit to maintain, but traffic can easily flow around them.

Putting more fast large vehicles on the road isn't going to solve anything. The traffic still has to stop ever fourty feet or so every five or so minutes. Dumping a couple tons more of diesel fumes a day just so council can budget itself raises is absolutely retarded. I personally would rather know exactly when the bus is coming so I can plan around it. There are way better ways to cut costs in city operations. Let the trolleys finish their job.

More war stuff

Well, I have been quite entertained by myself and my own blindness over the last months. Like most people in this country, I fell for the same cultural illusion that, since Canadian troops were not in Iraq, Canada was not involved in President Bush II's crusade. But of course, we were in Afghanistan since the beginning, first as "Peacemakers." But somewhere along the line, we ended up invading some insurgent territory, also known as people who don't want foreign rule and have united under a ferocious warlord in terror. So we've been fighting the war on terror, and in the process terrorizing people to unite under warlords, and now we're going to take out those warlords by killing those same people we terrorized, who are supposed to be the people the army is there to save.

Harper of course will not discuss this; he won't even examine the issue critically, he simply argues that we must "support our troops." Sound familiar?

The forces' mission is up in Feburary. That's less than a year. We should be discussing this now because it's going to take a long time for all the information to make it through the labrynth of government. We need to know who is benifitting, who is suffering, and what ultimate purpose this is serving, and if any of the logic it is based on makes any sense at all and isn't drawing from the same wealth as the logic of bombing a nation to make them revolt on their leader, for spreading democracy by the point of a gun. The Bush regime continually points out that Iraq is not Viet Nam, and I'll point out that Afghanistan isn't Holland. This is not an allied democracy that was occupied by enemies and we are not necesarilly being interpreted as liberators, and our military is small enough that we really should be considering the lives of Canadian soldiers seriously, and not wasting them on wars that are primarally benifitting Haliburton and oil barons. It is not that we do not respect our forces or want to harm their morale, we don't want their lives wasted needlessly for a war that appears to be more suited to benifitting the billionaire's club than the people who actually make the nation function.

Since Harper so far has already thumbed his nose at the ethics commisioner and is apparantly putting restrictions on his MPs vocal chords, it's becoming pretty clear that his "Moral Authority to Govern" was only a sound byte, and I am really getting sick of being taken for an idiot by government. Clearly the Cons are no different from the Grits, except the Grits are willing to call inquiries sometimes. But then again, we just spent two years pretending we weren't part of the coalition of idiots and we destroyed a government over a scandal that cost us five dollars each, goaded by Harper. So I suppose Harper's view on us is somewhat justified...

Neo Nazis assult cool guy; R.I.P Beach House

Edmonton Sun Article

I'm good friends with Pat. We smoked a lot of weed together. We've had some really awesome times. I've also had a great relationship with this particular house, my current girlfriend lived there when I met her, and my friend Pat lived there up until last night.

Now, according to him, he was assaulted by Neonazis before the home was firebombed. They knocked on his door and began to question his Soviet Flag in the window, and then forced their way in and proceeded to break a number of his blues CDs, calling it "Nigger Music", and scratched a swastika into his stereo. They made him take down the flag and busted up a number of his instruments. Later, after the firebombing, everything was lost.

But he has survived. Therefore, this act of hate has failed. I am now in the market for a Soviet flag to wave gloriously in defiance of these assholes. Anyone with me?

We can be heroes

I am concerned about the apathetic stance my peers appear to take on most issues. I have a friend who is being informed and telling that a super secret power elite are planning a population cull around 2012. I assume he doesn't actually believe this, but still is just interested in reading it. But you never know, I'm not him. Anyhow, while we were discussing this at work today, I responded by saying " Don't worry, we'll stop them." attempting to get my optimism back online after the sudden seizure of the Commons by the facists (more on that later.) Another friend of mine then went on to rant that we were pawns. I again reiterated that we would overcome the facists, noting that we didn't spend our youths playing games about great heroes who defy the man. He crabbed that those were just stories and reality wasn't like that.

Obviously I have a problem with this view. It's self defeatist, it stops the mind from even considering the possibility of trying. Psychologists, physicians and mystics alike are now all spouting the same message; "If you don't believe you can do it, you won't." If you don't believe you can fix the stove, then you never will. If you believe you can, then you can. If you're determined, you'll figure out a way. Not necesarilly the best way, but a way. Similarly, the Wright brothers believed they could fly, and guess what? They could.

Arguing that we can't possibly overcome the empire is a waste of energy, and that brings me to point two of the day; the Cons are in power! Now, here in Canada, we can be united in fighting the man; let us walk together my brothers, vive la resistance!

Remember; we've all overcome the evil Bowser, king of the vile Koopas. How much harder can Bush, Harper and the rest of the aristocracy be?

Why you should care about the enviroment

Alright, let's see if I can convey my concerns in an orderly fashion.

1. Humans are a part of nature.

2. Humans are animals.

3. Humans therefore are subject to the laws of nature and function in the same manner as animals.

Typically in nature, when an animal population thrives, it grows at an exponential rate. This occurs for a period known as the "Net Growth" phase. This occurs until one or both of the following conditions are met: 1) There is little or no food left, or 2) There is so much waste that an outbreak of disease wipes out the majority of the population. Once this happens, we enter a period known as the "Net Death" phase, where the population collapses almost as fast as it grew.

The human population has tripled in the last century. There are now over 6 billion homo sapiens, most of them want to breed. Most of them want to eat. You see the problem here now, correct? If we divide that 6 billion into 4 assumptive factors: males, females, children, elderly, we have at least 3 billion potential babies. Within a generation or two, we'll have nine billion humans. Then 12. Then 18. Then 24...

There has to be a point when we reach one of those conditions. Some argue we already have. I prefer not to be as fatalistic.

The reality of the matter is that our industrial society is based on disposability and convenience, both have terrible consequences for both health and the enviroment. We are now generating more waste than the enviroment can handle. This is chiefly because we are demolishing the biosphere's ability to "digest" our wastes effectively at an alarming rate.

For the first time since anyone, including the resident amazonians apparantly, can remember, there is a drought in the rainforest. In an ecology that depends on rain to fall daily for months on end, this is catastrophe. For us, this the beginning of the sacrifice of 10-20% of the world's oxygen for the richness of a few and the ever needed "job" for everyone else.

This is why you should care; the economists and the cons and energy industries seem to think they can go on expanding and building products for your consumption forever. They seem to have no concept that all that paper is coming from wood, all that beef is coming from farmland from demolished rainforest, all that mercury is pilling up in oceans, etc. They don't see that resources can only be consumed at a rate they can be recovered at.

So what can you do? Recycle, recycle, recycle. 90% of people's garbage is recycleble (is that a word?) If it's paper, you can recycle it. If it's plastic, recycle. Food, you can garbage or compost. Something simple as recycling and using recycled paper can prevent trees from being cut down, providing us with more Carbon Dioxide (Greenhouse Gas emissions) breathing and oxygen exhaling trees to slow the tide of global warming.

The alternative concept is fairly easy to imaging. If we continue on our present course, eventually the weathern patterns will be altered enough to promote large scale drought conditions. Without food, people will stop being concerned about silly things like cds and movies. The economy will collapse. Governments will lose control. People will flock around those who can provide them food and protect them from preditors. These protectors will quickly become warlords. One of these bozos would eventually aquire the leftover nuclear warheads from our glorious civilization, and that's where the real problems would begin.

Nations less affected will of course also try to seize any nuclear assets left in the wake of a superpower crushed by famine. War would quickly follow a serious famine.

This is not doomsayer paranoia. This has happened to civilizations before. Mayan cities, the old kingdom of egypt, the Anazazi, the Nordic Greenland colonies; all these cultures appear to have fucked with their local ecologies (whether consiously or not) and made their lifestyles unlivable.

So there you have it. Remember, we are nature, we are natural beings, but we also are rational beings. Societies have changed before to suit new circumstances, and we can too. Just worry about what you gotta do, and the rest will work out fine.

We've been Conned!

Well, we went and did it. We split the vote on the left, confident the liberals were no more. But nooo, they still got 30% of the vote. So while apparantly only some of the liberals were miffed, they weren't as fucked as everyone believed. Fancy that.

Anyway, what a surprise, we now have a Con government. That's right, the party that one year ago was pushed down our throats by the corporate media; the party that was soundly rejected by the more sane voting population because of appearances by candidates at anti-abortion rallies and comments by their dipshit, creepy leader about how the presence of the Canadian military could have somehow turned the tide in the war in Iraq and forced Saddam to surrender, as well as Harper's utterly bigotted stance on homosexuality. But, one year later, utterly lamblasted with sponsorship scandal bullshit, canadians voted conservative in enough numbers to put Harper in the driver's seat, although luckily in a minority.

The conservatives have no plans for dealing with enviromental damage currently being delivered by our consumer demands. If anything, they are likely to sabotage the efforts of enviromentalists in all sectors. The fact of the matter is that we cannot count on this government to work towards any functional goals for a society that doesn't stand poised to use everything up. One of the local cons, Peter Goldring, believes that any solar panel project would have to occur at the expense of natural landscapes. For the uninformed, such as Peter Goldring, solar panels work best on or as close to the area in which they are powering, like the roof of a building.

This government will undoubtedly attempt to crack down on internet piracy, despite the impossibility of prosecuting the near whole of modern civilization. It will also likely at least contemplate an increase in sentences for marijuana.

On the grander pissoff scale, however, is that, despite capturing 7% of the vote, the Green party failed to capture a seat. I cannot help but feel partly responsible. But now, with Anne out of our riding, there's room for a new Lefty to combat the facist evil that pervades all democracy, like a cruel mother octopus, to enter the ring and fight for all that is good and green, like a loving mother bird.

So decide what concerns you, research the issue and decide where you stand, and do it fast. This government will (hopefully) be dissolved before the year is out.

WARNING: Marijuana Grow Ops are in YOUR neighborhood!

Anyone else in Edmonton get a how to foldout on marijuana grow ops? It explains ways you could spot a grow op and inform the police.

Allow me to give you a brief summary of the history of marijuana according to myself (I of course, being as biased and logically incorrect . Following the second male culling of the early 20th century (also known as World War I, it was a particularly large clensing of the gene pool.) there was a rather drastic social change. Having basically kept the countries operating while the men gleefully trotted off to slaughter, and the men having nearly all died, weren't able to really take over when they came back. Consequentially, the housewife, likely the most abused social group in history, were suddenly given a say in the determination of government all throughout the western capitalist imperium. These are people who bore first witness to drunken idiots coming home and beating them nightly, children destroy themselves under the influence of their fathers, and other such ghastly horror stories. So, they want changes. Changes such as prohibition. Fear of minorities lead to marijuana being added to the list of banned medicines and soon everything was illegal. And then the stock market crashed. Since then, the government has been informing us that marijuana leads to insanity, rape parties, swollowing glass, severe brain trauma and the like. It is ironic that despite all the claims by the government, more people are smoking pot now than ever. We're probably outdoing the hippies (although they get points for the free flowing acid.) I could probably count the number of people I know who haven't tried pot on my elbows. Not everyone is a chronic, but it seems like it's everywhere.

In the last five years, a rather un-publicized ruling was made by the Supreme Court of Alberta (if I recall the article right.) This was that a person should not be jailed for the cultivation of marijuana because the persecution of marijuana users is unconstitutional. Just like persecuting homosexuals and blacks. No one has challenged the ruling. What this means, legally, is that marijuana grow ops are LEGAL. The only thing they can actually get people who grow pot for are stealing electricity and water/mold damage. So I agree; marijuana should not be cultivated commercially indoors, it should be out in the fields, as free as free can be.

Not to mention it'd save tax dollars. Come on, who's the greedy Albertan? COME ON!

Let us hypothesize the future of me

Planet Space

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, listen up! All you consumers, all you canadians, all you sci-fi geeks, we are about the enter the space age. No, really. Check the link above. Of course, I myself or anyone else I know won't be able to afford it, but by the time we're 30 the price should be reduced significantly. The true question is how one can get their foot in such a door; imagine, you could be a space pilot. Of course, this requires (among other things) jet engine training and that means the Air Force, which it would take me prob. 4 years of detox before I could pass the urine sample. Not to mention the military kinda sucks the dick in the face of the new style of warfare (one murder-intent-idiot with explosives can do far more damage than ten soldiers.) I wonder if one can get private training... NAIT, you listening?

Perhaps a better solution would be to study rocketry, something I have a growing interest in anyway. As the space tourism industry begins to flourish, the fuel and materials will (hopefully) drop in price. Perhaps I'm just fantasizing, though.

Still, a Canadian based private space program. How cool is that?

More cool space news

Quick update; space races are on the way.

Uh, that's it.

Origin of war repost

We, as a civilization, continually make the same mistakes over and over again. A good study of history would make one realize that most humans were in a near constant state of war for the the last 30,000 years. Most likely, it all started when bacteria "A" ate bacteria "B"'s food particle, and we've been fighting ever since.

Thus, evolution began.

With the declaration of war by bacteria B, the three billion year war began. 10^114 innocents were raped. 10^99543 were killed, often eaten alive. At first it was between those that wanted to eat their food particles in peace and those who wanted to hoard food particles for themselves. At first, the two sides were evenly matched, but the hoarders ate more and got bigger, until they started to see the pacifists as food. Thus the war became more intense. The pacifists now needed a means to protect themselves from the predators. They opted for a variety of defenses, poisonous gases, calcium spikes, gorging on food particles themselves, but the wiley predators were always a step ahead of them. For three billion years the two sides battled, although the battlefield changed dramatically through that time. At first, the sides were clearly drawn, but as the conflict raged on, it was eventually forgotten what the fuss as all about. This took approximately two weeks. However, some three billion years later, a sign of change has arisen. For the first time in known history, a peaceful resolve is brewing amoung many of the thousand sides. People now willingly march in the streets and tell the alpha males to merrily fuck off when the they tell \ them to send their children to die. It's a start, more work is needed, but for the first time, the conflict between those who have enough and those who want more is beginning to be resolved. Let us push on in this effort!

The illusion of authority

So I was daydreaming when I was supposed to be working and I'll attempt to summarize what I came up with; our society operates very heavily on a particular illusion: authority as a means of power. This is of course the result of the tendency of humans to operate chiefly on their mammalian politics and value themselves on what they think everyone else says about them. Others decide that they don't care what people actually think about them, in fact, they are happier when they can think others have some sort of disdain for them. Either way, the position in the social pack is very clearly the chief motivation for behavior in the social pack. This is seen in the microcosm of the work place and the macrocosm of the overall nation. Mammalian politics (and this is common to nearly all mammals to some degree or another) is very hierarchal. In some mammals, only some members of the pack are even permitted to mate. Humans, being mammals, are also subject to this phenominon. Some people take their position very seriously, as of course higher status in the pack leads to a greater portion of the kill, respectively. In the modern sense this of course translates to greater pay, as well as greater privellidge. In some social packs, this is determined by popularity, in others, like most businesses, it is determined by someone higher up. This was also the case of human politics for the majority of the last 8000 years; best described as the agricultural society.

Now this has worked for a long time, however, I must stress that this is an illusion. Think about it, in the chain of command/workplace scenario the owner (alpha male/female, though still usually male) is in power because the people below them are willing to work for them. If everyone employed by Microsoft walked off the job and no one were willing to work for Bill, he wouldn't be able to mass produce winows and thus would not be a billionaire. So his authority is only by the willingness of his followers. Inefficient leaders are rarely in power for long. The majority of empires existed for a generation or less.

Communism of course was an attempt to equal everyone, but it failed horribly, due to the fact that it still followed the biological social structure, from the working prolitariate to the politburo. Economic equality was impossible to achieve because social equality had not even been looked at, all the Soviet Union and China really represented was the rise of a new dynasty over the older noble classes. Capitalism embraces the mammalian social hierarchies of old, and so far seems to work, if not poorly. So it's logical to assume most humans aren't ready for a society of equals. So now that you've read this and realize that all things are equal and that their is no such thing as superior or inferior and that everything relies on everything in a semi-functional system you are ready for such a society. Congrats. Spread the word.

R.I.P WinMX

So it appears WinMX is the latest file sharing program to be shut down. Music pirates the world over will soon have to resort to CD swapping.

So I don't get it; they're going to what? Shut down people writing file sharing programs? Start monitoring IRC, the various internet chat programs, and removing burnable CDs on the market? Infiltrate CD Burning Software projects to ensure they respect archaic laws? Fine everyone 25 and under and cause a recession, just because some artists are making less money? To exactly what lengths are governments going to go to stop this?

I strongly encourage the world to stand against this; as a wannabe professional musician, I do not give a rats ass whether music of mine is downloaded for free or I get 10 cents or whatever it is per released copy. The internet is supposed to transcend the will of any one tribe of humans. No government/corporation/secret society/whatever has a right to infringe on it.

On a side note, anyone in Edmonton, AB want to start a rock band? I play guitar with an influence ranging from AC/DC, old Rockabilly, Dick Dale, Ventures, Hendrix, Led Zepplin, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Queen, Tom Petty and others I can't be bothered to think of right now. Punk/Garage/Surf/Metal/whatever, I'm not picky, I just want to get on stage and wail.
Substance abuse a must. Leave a comment if interested.

Alberta's logical inconsistancies

You know, one would think I would be happy that I'm getting a cheque from the government. However, our great leader Ralph Klein decided that, rather than spend all the money that the province of Alberta is making off the high oil prices, he'd just sit on it. So it comes as no surprise that the rest of the country asked if they could use it if we aren't going to.

Of course, this is all PR; that's Klein's specialty. You don't spend ten years in government doing basically fuck all except laying people off and assaulting homeless people and getting pie throwers charged with assault without some sort of idea how to keep the people happy, and he knows how. The precision of the announcements and speeches, he's done this hundreds of times; he does it so seamlessly that it's almost beautiful to watch until you realize you're going to have to deal with the consequences of his actions.

So, for those of you who spend too much time in the Alberta mindset to rationalize out what it stands for, I'll spell it out for you;

1. Alberta has lots of money due to a couple million sudden and catastrophic avalanches that occured in the region between 400-200 million years ago, which buried a great deal of coral reef life which was subsequentially condensed by the weight pressed down on it by future avalanches and then melted by the heat of the earth, until it finally became what we call crude oil.

2. Albertans feel that due to the fact some guys murdered/conquered/enslaved a great deal of first nation populations in this region some 150-200 years ago, all this oil, and the money earned by it, belongs exclusively to them.

3. Nearly all Albertans believe that the federal Liberal party, currently holding the most seats in a parliament that was elected by 60% of the eligable population, has an active agenda to steal all of Alberta's money. This is first due to the National Energy Program, which was passed in the 80s by the Trudeau government because it was felt by the majority power that Alberta should share it's oil wealth with other provinces to help their own economies that weren't abudant in expensive commodities. See point #2. This was recently enforced by what has been dubbed "The sponsorship scandal." This was an incident in Quebec that involved people scared that Quebec was going to seperate and a bunch of opportunists who decided they'd try and get rich off it some ten years ago. The party that housed these people was of course the Liberal Party. But we'll discuss this some other day. The point is the people of Alberta are so scared that the Liberals are going to steal their money that they're completely oblivious to the fact that their own Conservative Government, lead by Ralph Klein, is actually stealing/wasting all their money. That billions of creatures died violently to produce, long before mammals even evolved.

4. Ralph Klein, Alberta's folk hero, saved the province from it's deficit to the country & so forth by cutting just about every government service to shreds. He has been somehow stopped at Health Insurance, which numerous attempts to privitize were met with outrage from both the majority of Edmonton (the most left wing area in Alberta by far) and the Federal Government. However, it's safe to say that what Ralph Klein did could have been done by just about anyone. It doesn't take a lot of effort or planning to stop writing cheques when you have absolute power. Anyway, the impotent government charged low taxes (though still not quite as low as in the United States, ironically) so the people got their beer and were happy, and since Ralph Klein wasn't a liberal, he got elected.

So taking this all in, we can now piece together what the last week or two of shennategins have been about. Alberta has tons of money because everyone wants our oil and is willing to pay nearly $70 a barrell for it, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. Ralph, being the sly bastard he is, decides to sit on it, not planning any use for it so that the rest of the country will figure we're just gonna save it and ask for it. Naturally, they do, because we do nothing with the huge revenues we get from the oilfields but buy votes with rebates and fly Ralph and his buddies all over the world Air Force One style, and Albertans immediately go apeshit and start ranting about how the immoral Liberal government is trying to steal their money. So Ralph, having dispersed attention away from the fact we have eight digit surpluses in budgets and they're doing nothing useful with it is now free to come in, give every Albertan a cheque for some dollar amount and look like the hero. Brilliant, except when you factor in that we could build a magnetic rail between Edmonton and Calgary, and have it take less than an hour commute for relatively cheap. We could convert the provincial infrastructure to green power and sell ALL of our oil and get greater surpluses, while dramatically improving the air quality which would reduce Health Care costs. We could retrain all these bankrupt ranchers and give them a new means of supporting themselves (if they're willing.) Hell, if you're not willing to have vision you could build a 400 foot tall statue of your savior, Ralph Klein, that breathes fire and pisses oil onto a bunch of liberals. But we can do a lot better than a freakin' cheque.

On Stupidity

So let's see, the lame word of the day is stupid. People use this word and variations a lot. It's, well, stupid. I've heard the word stupid to describe a wide variety of activities, most of which aren't stupid. Most things are not stupid. What is true is that people have specialized intellects. Due to the conditions one endures (or concieves to endure) and the tasks one feels that they need to learn to please their food providers (usually parents.) These conditions are quite varied, and by adult age these lessons and methods of survival are quite engraned. People raised on TV and Books are not necesarily athletes and the memorization of motor controls is somewhat difficult, and stopping and relaxing and thinking activities through and reading and such is somewhat difficult to those who relied mainly on physical activities to get their "perks" and food. Consequentially, things that occur to some under some circumstanes do not occur to others. Remember, no one sees the world in the same manner; and it's primarally because of this. Our entire minds are the products of everything we've experienced. No one is stupid.

Okay, since we've established that people aren't actually stupid, why are so many people identified as "idiots"? It is because most people attach their egos, that being the part of our mind that we use to interact with the universe ie other people, social roles, dealing with others. Most people say someone else is stupid because they don't agree with them on how to acomplish various tasks. So stop doing that. Every idea is worth a minute of rational analysis. Take time to breathe and think. It helps the head.

First Comment

Okay, I guess I decided to start up a blog. Spur of the moment. Really.

So okay, I'm supposed to impart wisdom and such, right? Well, lemme think...

Most people don't understand that you have complete control over your thoughts. Well, sort of. You have the power to be aware of what you think and say, and when you blurt out something that you would prefer not to say, correct yourself. Most people do this automatically, but it is easily appliable to everything. I would recommend you begin by correcting yourself on the word "Hate." There is almost no reason on this earth to hate anyone. Most people don't realize, what you say is what you're thinking at that exact time, and what you think is processed by your brain, which is then extruded throughout your body. Everything is connected.

Seriously, whenever you think or say "I hate etc." Stop yourself and either say or think "No, I don't hate anyone." Superpositives and people not afraid of weird social dillemnas by their peers can alternate "I love eveyone." Do it for a month. You'll see results.

It also helps to breathe properly. Every once in awhile (about three hours or so) give yourself a really deep breath. Do nothing else by breathe for about, say, a minute or two. Very relaxing.

It also helps to remember that every single person sees the world in their own way, and most have had very different lives than you, and have had to develop different personalities to survive. The one thing they have in common is that they are doing what they think is "right".

And lastly, remember that there are infinite solutions to every challenge. Except in Zelda games. And FFC.