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Well, I am a 41 year old American male. I started writing this blog back after my Dad died in 2006 because I needed something to keep my mind occupied. I havent written anything in a very long time, mainly because I have been so busy at work. I am one of those people who still actually gets up in the morning and goes to a job. I am the forgotten guy out there who works his fingers to the bone every day to pay for everybody's free section-8 apartment, food stamps, welfare check, disability check, unemployment check, free education, free healthcare, and obamaphone. Your welcome. Politically, I am a moderate republican, and I thought Mitt Romney was the best nominee we have put up since Eisenhower. I think we have reached the tipping point in this country where the number of people who either depend on government for their basic needs or who work for the government providing for those needs now exceeds the number of people who work to earn the money that pays for said benefits. I dont see a way back for my country from this point, and I think it's all downhill from here. I was raised in a presbyterian christian family, and I like to think I got some good from that, but I am not a born-again believer. I guess I would describe myself as being somewhere between "agnostic" and " wounded theist". I see more to life than random molecular interactions and natural selection. I do believe in a higher power and purpose, but I would be very careful about ascribing traits and charachteristics to that power and purpose. Certainly I dont believe in mesiahs and prophets. I am a strong believer in intellectual honesty and objective reality. I like Aristotle's philosophy of epistimology. I believe that a large part of the world's problems exist because of people who believe in things that are demonstrably not true. I believe in being willing to see what you see, not what you want to see. Often , people on both sides of the big questions of life are unable or unwilling to do that. I am a fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Declaration of Independence, and The United States Constitution. I find some of the arguments of people like William Dembski and Micheal Behe to be persuasive as pertains to Intelligent Design. Mainly because I fail to see how a self-replicating instruction-set and memory storage device like DNA or it's precursors could manage to self-assemble before random mutation and natural selection existed. ( Selection cant exist without a way to conserve useful information ). I also find the principal of irreducible complexity somewhat persuasive, and if we apply Occams Razor to the Fermi Paradox, the most likely answer is that this thing we call life wasnt an entirely random event. If Garrett Lisi's "Extrordinarily Simple Theory of Everything" winds up being true, then the most mathematically complex structure imaginable- the E8 matrix- was programmed into the very fabric of the universe from the moment of the big-bang, and the metaphysical consequences of that would be inescapable. I have no use at all for young earth creationism and I acknowledge common descent as a proven fact. I am interested in astronomy and anything to do with the space program. I am a trekkie. I like Gene Rodenberry's optimistic vision of humanity's future, and the idea of a destiny out there in the stars. I enjoy a good game of Scrabble, my favorite movie is Forest Gump, and my favorite books would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer, and Hitch-hiker's guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams... The best thing I saw on DVD recently was the John Adams HBO mini-series. I have a tendency to read 3 or 4 books at a time and skip back and forth between them. Currently reading 1776 by David Mcoullough, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and Mr. Lincoln's Army by Bruce Catton. My favorite TV show still on the air is "Gold Rush". Other favorites are; Repo Games, Cajun Justice, and The First 48. Favorite shows of all time would be every Star Trek series, Seinfeld, That 70's Show, Battlestar Galactica ( the re-make ), The Sopranos... I am single and never plan to marry. I only had one great love in my life, and I never got over her. I never wanted to settle for less than what I know is possible, so I will ride out my days alone. I would make an exception for Scarlett Johansen. I would like to be interrogated by her in her Black Widow costume. My Likes : Objective truth, intellectual honesty, patriotism, moral courage. My Dislikes: Islam ( Churcill was right- it's the most retrograde force on the planet and represents evil in our time ), emotion-based arguments, low-information voters, people who think it is my job to go to work every day to provide them with everything they need so they sit on their lazy asses all day just because they can. I am not a racist. I am, however, an equal-opportunity hater of assholes regardless of race, color or creed. I have nothing against gay people. I never made a conscious decision to be attracted to females, and I have it on good authority that gays didnt choose who they were attracted to either. It just happens that way, and i say if you can find love in this life, then who am I to judge that it is wrong, and how does it hurt me if somebody else is different? I seem to have a great deal of patience and tolerance for people who mean well, even when they make big mistakes, but in contrast, I seem to have absolutely zero-tolerance and a wicked temper for people who go through life not caring about others and constantly showing disrespect- even when that disrespect is manifested in small ways. People who play loud bass in apartment complexes fall in that category. People who walk around with their pants pulled down and their underwear showing would be another example of things that put me in a fighting mood. Something I inherited from my Dad is a tendency to speak the truth with absolutely no regard for the consequences, and no conscern whatsoever for how I am liked or disliked for speaking that truth. I don't think that truth is relative or that every story has two sides, and I dont care if everybody in the world disagrees with me about something- If I think God is on my side, I'll walk alone. Intersting factoid: 41 years old and have never been drunk or stoned. It was just a personal choice I made when I was about 14 and everybody else started drinking at parties. I didnt like how people acted when they were drunk, and I never wanted to be like that. In my life, I have seen alcohol and drugs cause a lot of harm, but I have yet to see them do anybody any good. The closest I ever got to being high was being truly in love once, and also when I was running on the high-school cross-country team I entered some kind of transcendental state sometimes when I was out there with the wind in my hair- pushing the limits of my mental and spiritual capabilities. Those were some truly intoxicating times, and like the old cliche- I was high on life. I like to read, and it's opened up whole other worlds to me- of thoughts, ideas, and imagination that a lot of the Television and Playstation Generation is sadly missing-out on. Seriously, if you love your kids- limit the TV and video games and get them a library card. Reading is such an incredibly enriching experience- and you never know... they might even take some some of that knowledge and form an intelligent worldview- which is getting harder and harder to find these days. I have moved all over hell-and-gone in my life. I have probably had 30 different adresses. My family moved a lot when I was a kid, and I have continued the tradition as an adult. But If I had to pick one place out of all of them, to call "home", it would be the small rural, mid-western town that my Dad grew up in- Byhalia, Ohio. At the time I lived there,the population was "50"- at least according to the sign on the side of the road as you approached our one traffic intersection. ( I checked recently, and they seem to have taken Byhalia off the map now...) When I was 12 or so, my family moved back there to my Grandma's house for a while, and I would climb up on the roof of the house to a secret alcove that wasnt visible from the ground. I would lay up there for hours looking out across the corn fields that stretched as far as the eye could see. I dont think I have ever been happier. I live in the city now, and sometimes, on long driving trips, when the roads get desolate enough, and I find myself surrounded by nothing but empty fields of corn or wheat, I will find myself heaving a great sigh of relief as though a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders that I wasnt even aware that I was carrying. I am not sure exactly what that means.... I am a notorious tinkerer, and if left alone in a garage with tools, materials, time, and an ample supply of ritz crackers and diet sunkist -there is no telling what may emerge. The only reason I have not been killed test-flying my own homemade Iron Man suit is because I am too busy at work to actually build one. God help me if I ever find myself with a lot of time on my hands... My aspirations include; self-employment, to grow the world's largest pumpkin, to compete in a robotics competition, to learn about and become proficient in astro-photography, to live long enough to see humans walk on Mars, and to construct a robot butler that will make me dinner and look like Scarlett Johansen. My favorite thing in life are boobs, and if there are no boobs in heaven, then I dont want to go.

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