Eat slower fatty!

A plate that weighs how much food is on a plate and tracks the speed at which that food is shoveled into your gob has been invented.

Apparently, speed is important. It's not the shit your shovelling its the speed in which you do it. So, eating a bucket of fried chicken very quickly is worse then eating it slowly. It's all to do with the behaviours of fatties. Fat people tend to eat quicker, and consequently the experts suggest more.

I am fascinated by human behaviour, so I agree with the premise that fat people share common behavioural traits, but eating quickly?! I know plenty of people who eat quickly and are thin as a rake. The computerised plate, just seems very gimmicky, and unnecessary, when the truth is that fat people eat more (period). Now they also probably don't get very much exercise, but again there are plenty of people who don't get any exercise, but still remain thin.

Boy 'suspended for crisp dealing'

As a clear example of how prohibition of anything, no matter how inane, causes the market to respond in unexpected ways I would like to draw your attention to the seedy underworld of 'crisp dealing'. Yes that's right the 'fatty potatoe' snacks that were once part of a child's packed lunch are now being 'marked-up' and sold on the black market. The crisp dealer has been suspended from Cardinal Heenan High School in Liverpool. A school in which all fatty snacks have been outlawed. I mean its quite funny, but it really does highlight how prohibiting a product doesn't remove the demand it only creates a culture of criminality around the product.

Full story

Cassetteboy vs Nick Griffin vs Question Time

I agree with nearly everything in this edition of Question time.

The price of life

If you were terminally ill how much would you pay or what would you give to live longer than you expected. I mean if the pain and agony you might be in was only exceeded by the psychological distress of leaving loved ones behind on this mortal coil, how much would you pay?

If we are to believe that life is priceless and health care is a right then surely £3,000 a month is a minuscule price to pay, right? I mean the biggest advocates for the NHS argue that the UK system with all its flaws, is a righteous institute, whereby if you get ill or injured and need to come into a hospital or see a doctor you'll be treated regardless of your ability to pay (God save the Queen!). Well, the reality (truth) is different. It would seem that the preservation/prolonging of life is secondary to our health bureaucrats, instead management and rationing is its primary concern.

NICE, an Orwellian new-speak abbreviation of 'The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence', has decided to not give patients in the last stages of Liver cancer a drug which could prolong their life for a couple of months to a year. Yes I said 'could'! Now for all of you leftists out there who bang on that making profit out of health care is cruel, take a look at what rationing and health care does, people die and suffer. Think about it! So, next time you start getting all teary eyed and patriotic look at what you, because apparently this Government represents you, are doing to sick people. I mean these people probably payed their taxes and contributed to society, and when they need it most the door is slammed in their face. As you can tell this makes me somewhat angry..

Full article here.

Distractions

Well i haven't posted in a while. No excuses, except that I was on my holidays in a part of the world where prolonged Internet access is very difficult to come by. But I'm not going to use that as an excuse. Anyway, I'm going to start posting again but its like running its so easy to keep moving but once you stop you might as well call it a day and hit the shower.

Life lessons from a Ninja

Change your thoughts, and change your world...

Crime doesn't pay and nor do the perpetrators apparently, well at least not very much. A couple have been convicted of falsely claiming benefits. The man in the wig aka the judge told the accused couple that for claiming £55,000 falsely the punishment is they 'must' pay back 85p a day!

I actually don't have too much of a problem with the so called 'benefit cheats' claiming this money falsely, what I have a problem with is the concept of benefits. I mean human nature is such that if something is easy to get we will take it. Also, why are these two cheeky chappies getting punished for having their hand in the cookie jar when not so long ago the politicians were caught doing the same thing, and the criminal justice system didn't give them so much as a slap on the wrist?

Money's too tight to mention

Money's something that I try not to worry about.
I know we keep being told that we are in a recession, but I have a relatively good lifestyle. I mean the signs are there; rising unemployment etc. Although, nobody is going to convince me that the problem of having millions on state welfare appeared overnight this has been going on even in the good years. Anyway, the truth is that I have been thinking alot more about money recently. I have been looking at setting up a pension at work and maybe taking out some private health insurance. This made me realise that these things which I have so far ignored are quite important and if I did pay them more attention my lifestyle would probably be severly impacted. So, this post is a bit of a moan and basically an excuse to link to a song which I recently re-discovered.

Why the USA should not socialise their health care

I have concluded that there are two fundamental obstacles in making socialised health care work.

1. Human nature (...and its impact on economics)

When something is free human nature is to use it excessively.
When something has value and a cost to yourself then we are more sparing with its usage.
Socialising healthcare obscures market forces. For example, if an individual wanted to buy a certain treatment for an illness in a totally independent health care system they would shop around for the service that provided the best quality to cost ratio. When you introduce socialised healthcare there is no incentive to shop around and people are likely to except lower quality because its 'free at the point of need'. Plus the socialised healthcare does not have to respond to market indicators and compete on quality and price. Thats why no matter how much money you throw at the NHS it will never be fixed, because they do not have an incentive to respond to market forces and the people who use it will use it more excessively.

2. Moral arguement

You will often hear that 'you shouldn't make a profit out of healthcare'. Should we be making profit out of people with cancer? Well what if the profit was used to develop a cure for cancer? If a company did that then doesn't it deserve a profit? I know that people often say that health care should be altruistic but that removes human nature from the equation. Would you do anything without a benefit to yourself? Would you work for the benefit of your boss without being cut a pay-cheque at the end of the month?

People often say that mixing healthcare and business is abhorrent, but what about healthcare and politics? The NHS only reacts to things which the politicians think they can get political mileage from. Take for example the treatment of mental health patients compared to that of the elderly. Politicians can target the ever increasing elderly people voting block, however what would be the point of targeting mentally ill people?

I discovered this link from a discussion on Free-Talk Live ( I am telling you its a brilliant source of info not just political but about life in general.) . The website is a blog about life skills and self improvement and I have been reading avidly for a few days now.

The url is quite comical too http://www.dumblittleman.com/

Killer ratings

In Brazil politicians can literally get away with murder!

Wallace Souza, a popular Amazonian MP who moonlights as a TV presenter(or maybe the other way round),has been accused of orchestrating a series of murders in Brazil to boost ratings for his tv show.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/12/brazilian-tv-host-accused-of-crime

Humans built with awareness of pentatonic scale?

Just to prove that I do have hobbies outside of ranting about the government, though that in itself provides plently of material, I am including a link to an experiment conducted by Bobby McFerrin. The following video suggests that fundementally humans are hard wired to recognise certain musical patterns?! I am not a musician but its quite interesting to see an audience, an unrelated mass, being unified almost magically.

Autonomous robot soliders!?

Now I know what your thinking, stupid decisions and the government don't go together. However, you'll never guess what scheme they have come up with now - Terminators! Well actually its better than that. The US and UK government want to create robots that can 'determine whether or not to unleash lethal weapons –without human intervention'(PcWorld.com). What could go wrong!?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/28/us-air-force-says-decision-making-attack-drones-will-be-here-by/

If your thinking that this is a little far fetched just look at the following links

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7419751.stm - Holy crap they called the damn thing 'Skynet'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQ-9_Reaper

Michael Jackson - Dead?

The King of Pop has died, but his Legend lives on! Like millions of other people around the world I have been fervently searching the web for news relating to Michael Jackson. In doing so I have also been on YouTube looking at classic clips of the musical genius during what appeared to be happier times. Here is one of my favourites, which was his first live television performance, during the Motown 25th Anniversary show.





L.A. Times now saying he is dead.

TMZ.com reporting Michael Jackson died from cardiac arrest.

Obamanomics - wealth distribution

As the USA spirals into the abyss of socialism its interesting to see the people who are now speaking out against it. In the clip below FOX's very own Bill O'reilly is arguing the side of civil liberties and laissez-faire economics. This is the same O'reilly who vehemently supported G.W Bush junior, a president who increased the government's size beyond imagination. What O'reilly needs to get through that dense head of his is that the USA has been on the road to socialism for a very long time; Obama, as the Americans would say, has just stepped on the gas. Watch the clip below kids as you get to see this hypocrisy and also a real life socialist defending government theft and social engineering.

Judge and no jury

The justice system has managed to rid itself of that pesky thing called the jury. The BBC reports that the top judge, 'Lord Chief Justice' aka. the bloke in the dress and wig has ruled that its ok for a trial to go ahead without a jury.

I do understand the arguement that it would be costly or time consuming, and jurors often not the best qualified people to make sense of complicated evidence, but if you remove that fundemental pillar of the judicial system then why have a judicial system at all?

One of the main reasons why having a judge ruling on a case without a jury to keep them in check is that the judge is just a glorified government bureaucrat. Afterall he is on the payroll of the government, so he utimately answers to them. Another reason is that the jury can exercise the right to question the law itself, which is known as jury nullification. There has been periods in history where jury nullification has set a precedent for the law itself to be changed, e.g. like slavery. Its another weapon the citizen has which has been snatched from their grip.

Taser Quest

Hey the boys in blue, i.e. the police force, have a new toy and they are itching to try it out! Nottingham got an upclose look at what their taxes get spent on, and weren't they impressed!



Not to be outdone here is an example of recent taser action from the good old US of A. This time the prey was a 72 year old grandmother - wow whee!

Voting nightmare

This post again is a bit late. Thankfully I have more to occupy my time than worrying about the mess this Government is in.

As I have stated before I have come to the realisation that voting does not achieve real political change in the sense that the system is so corrupt what use would it be to change the individuals in control? This caused a dilemma for me as on the one hand I wanted to send out a message to the man and let him know, whoever he is, that i am bloody angry! So, for a while I convinced myself that using a tactical vote for UKIP would make the mainstream political parties sit up and take notice (yeah right!). This same dilemma I would imagine manifested in the minds of otherwise sane people, who voted for the BNP. Being someone who would not be welcome at a BNP meeting, I could not possibly vote for them, masochism does not appeal to me. Lately I have been telling people that voting for the BNP when you otherwise would have voted for the main political parties is kind of like having an itch on your finger, but then thinking what the hell I am going to cut the whole arm off. I honestly believe that the majority of people who voted BNP are not racist bigots they are just disillusioned. These are people that let fear and uncertainty cloud the better part of their judgement and Nick Griffin and Co were more than willing to provide the smoke and mirrors.

On the BBC site there is an interesting article with lots of peoples comments on why they voted BNP and they seem to be citing the same things over again, e.g. mass immigration of criminals; welfare scroungers; wasting money abroad (wars) and pushing of minority rights etc. What these people don't realise is that all of these things are problems caused by the system. We have entered into immigration agreements within the EU. The EU dictates to us who and how many migrants we have to accept into the country. Welfare on the other hand is a self-inflicted wound. The problem with welfare is the concept of 'welfare'. Once it is removed the incentive to come here and scrounge disappears. I don't want to fund the indigenous scroungers let alone imported ones. Minority rights are a contentious issue. I disagree with the concept that minority groups should have special rights, as I believe only individuals can have rights and not groups. I don't see a problem with everyone having the same rights, and I can see how people would get angry if they thought one group was being favoured over another. However, as I have outlined this is a problem created by the system not by the minority groups. I wonder whether the BNP if they were to get control over the country would bring everyone's rights to parity, i.e. level the playing field, or would they also favour one group over another. Let me be honest I don't care about ethnicity or nationality. I want the best doctors, plumbers, builders etc not someone who is british for the sake of it. Let us also not sugar cote anything, when Nick Griffin says British he means white, even if he tells the public otherwise.

I began by saying I was going to vote UKIP but as you can probably guess I didn't go through with it. I couldn't bring myself to vote for anyone. after all nobody represents me on every issue except me!. This is the problem with democracy, and the concept of 'popular government'. Can we honestly say that the BNP are representational of the Black, Asian communities where the BNP were elected? The ridiculous thing was that 62% of the population didn't vote. Can we still say majority rules?

Double Speak - reframing conversations

When talking with people I have noticed that many of the disagreements or misunderstandings emerge due to different definitions of words. Now this is quite an important thing, because if two people have opposing understandings of the meaning of a word then how can they communicate? So, below is a short list of a few words and how I interpret their meaning, but you may disagree. The words are examples of the stumbling blocks that will definitely trip you up if you ever want to persuade someone to the principles of freedom and liberty.

government = force

Anti-government = pro freedom

anarchy = voluntarism

taxation, welfare, benefits = stealing / slavery

democracy = mob rule

citizen / social contract = B.S

public services / nationalisation = protectionism / monopolisation

The Philosophy of Liberty

I thought I would add this video to my blog as it is a very good explanation of Liberty.

Daniel Hannan

Well Dimbleby just annonced that Daniel Hannon will be on Question Time next week! I don't think my blog post can take all the credit for that

I would like to encourage people to recommend Mr Daniel Hannan as speaker on Question Time. We need to hear something resembling common sense on that program, you can do that by clicking here.

I can't believe I missed this speech by Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan. I don't often bother to watch the House of Commons debates (if you can even call it that) or worse EU Parliamentary speeches. However, what Mr Hannan had the guts to say is what a lot of the UK and undoubtedly the world population was thinking. Imagine that a politician representing the public!

Non-aggression / Non-violence

It amazes me how the people who claim to care for others the most, are often also the most willing to use force against their neighbour. They will claim for example that free health care is a human right, but then when you highlight the inherent force required to create such a system they will turn off the logical part of their mind. A person that I admire greatly is Gandhi; not least for his belief in the principles of non-violence. However, unlike Gandhi I am not a pacifist I just believe in not aggressing against others to get your way, and not getting the government to aggress against others on my behalf. However, self-defence when people are using force on you is in my opinion acceptable. This is often reffered to as the golden rule - 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. This is perfect for everyone except masochists! Despite this difference in our beliefs I found some quotes by Gandhi, which I think perfectly convey the hypocrisy of those individuals that believe using force to achieve political gain is acceptable.

-"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always."

-"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

-"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

-"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."

If you have nothing to hide

The presumption of innocence is the greatest of all legal rights. It is the very foundation of the British legal system, yet it is under threat - not by foreign enemies ('terrorists') but from those within our borders, namely the government. How is this being done? by passing evermore laws and creating evermore layers of bureaucracy. If you needed more proof that Britain is on the slippery slope of tyranny and quickly approaching, if not already arrived at, a police state. Ask yourself what has to happen before you are convinced of this?

There will be those who say that these laws only effect criminals, and there is no chance of me ever becoming entangled in such affairs. This of course would be wishful thinking. Take for example the case of Moazzam Begg who was held for two years in Guantanamo without charge or trial. Now, he was released without charge, but frankly I don't know whether he was innocent or not, but the problem is that we never will know. If he was guilty he should have stood trial for our good and his own. This case like many others proves that Habeas Corpus has been destroyed in this country. Just in case your wondering the government can now detain us for up to 28 days without charge!

The ability to detain an individual without charge is one sign of a police state, but another one would be the invasion of the individuals privacy. An example of this would be the government's proposal of a National Database which will contain the personal details of everyone in the country. Apart from being a sever infringement on personal privacy it will also lead to more identity theft, as the government have proved on numerous occasions that it is incapable of keeping even the most sensitive of data protected. The cost of ID cards is rising rapidly, recent figures suggesting somewhere in the region of £5.3 billion. But it benefits national security - I hear you say. Even the National Database's/ ID card's biggest advocates cannot honestly think that this will be a very effective tool against terrorism? The July 7th bombers were all British so they would have had an ID card, so a bit of plastic is not going to keep us safe. Oh Osama if you can hear me your ID card is in the post.

Perhaps the most chilling signs of a police state is the torturing of individuals that the state deems as a threat. Now to be fair we outsource our torturing to different countries and we only act as a refueling stop for American torture flights, which has come to be known as extraordinary rendition .

I'm always amazed by people's ability to ignore the facts if they interfere with their own world view. I can give example after example but it won't matter if your not willing to critically examine what I have wrote and your own beliefs. This blog is becoming more iconoclastic, but sometimes that's the only way to get through to people.

Insanity

To paraphrase something Albert Einstein once said the definition of insanity is 'doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome'. This made me question how many things I do and expect a different outcome to emerge. More specifically it made me question the concept of democracy. Take voting - every four years we all go (well 60% roughly at the last election) to the polling station and cast our vote in the hope that this time we will make the right choice. During this time of civic 'duty' you often here people exclaiming the brilliance of democracy, and how this highlights the we the people have the power. Well this is what I believed for a long time.

Does voting actually change anything? I have to be honest I don't think it really does. Now I can hear the objections already - 'well if you don't like the current group of individuals calling themselves government then cast your vote for the opposition, and with a little prayer, luck etc you might, maybe, perhaps get your way. So, on the face of it if we have a choice between the current government and other political parties (namely conservative this time round) then obviously change can occur. Well again I used to agree, but now I am not so sure.

If you look at how Labour took the reigns of 'power' you will remember a country fed up with all the Tory 'spin' and 'sleeze'. Fast forward to the present day - what have we got now? An unelected prime minister with seemingly no intention of calling a democratic election anytime soon; politicians fiddling their allowances and themselves whilst watching erotic movies at the public's expense and allegations that our government have been complicit in torture. You see what I am realising more and more is that the choice, or ability to change anything politically, doesn't exist anymore, and perhaps it never did, at least not within the system of government we have had up until this point. Currently the choice is a choice between the lesser of two evils (red team or blue team).

Now I don't want to be a pessimist, so I will present a way in which I believe change can occur, and has occurred in the past. Civil disobedience - the true check and balance against government and the only way real political change has occurred. For example, the very emergence of democracy in England occurred because people disobeyed the King and women's' rights were won largely due to the suffragette movement who took direct action against the system of governance at the time. Another example would be the USA voting in their first black president, now hang on a sec this was achieved within the political system, wasn't it? Well true, but without the civil rights movement, which included product boycotts, sit-ins, non-violent and violent (which I don't like) protest; Obama may have not been able to vote let alone actually become president.

Civil disobedience, spurred by the concern of a few individuals is the only thing that can bring about real change. If after reading this post you still have the belief that we can have change this time if only we all voted the right people into government' then I would like to repeat 'doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome' is simply insane!

Bad news Brown / Socialism

The government released 'their' budget a few days ago. You may be thinking that I missed the boat on this and your probably right, but if I spent all my time immediately responding to bad news I wouldn't get much else done.

So, the government have got into quite a mess with the heavy borrowing to 'save the banks / economy', as though they or anyone else has a clue about saving the economy. The way to do this is apparently raiding the pensions of the most productive people in society and redistributing that 'taxed' money. This will have little effect on me or the vast majority of people in the UK, but I for one won't be feeling warm and fuzzy inside that now even the rich can't escape the huge tax burden placed on us by the government - yes the government, the banks don't have the power to borrow money on our 'behalf' and then tax us. We aren't dying from the disease we are dying from the cure.

This diktat from our masters will roll out across the country to little opposition. I mean they could have said 100% tax, £10 on the price of a pint of ale etc. So, I was thinking about 'lines in the sand', what would be your 'line in the sand'? I mean what would be the issue that made you think, hang on sec, I don't agree with that and I'm not going to obey? Examples, of 'lines in the sand' in the past have been 'Poll Tax', 'Peasants' Revolt' etc. I think its important to consider whether you believe a government could ever over burden the 'governed' through taxation, and what, if anything would you do?

I think what lies at the root of the current problems is that we don't allow anyone to succeed and fail, which is the opposite of capitalism. When the banks were having problems we stepped in, no doubt for good reasons, could we let the banks collapse taking with them all the money that people had deposited? Its a difficult decision, no doubt, but the government stepping in means that the banks haven't learned their lesson. They know now that any mistakes they make will not ultimately impact them but instead will punish all of us. Now even the car companies want money, claims being made that they are 'too big' to fail. Its amusing to me when on the news they talk about the 'British car industry' going through hard times, and that the government should step in. Pretty much every industry is suffering at the moment, and its basically the market trying to correct itself. For example, the car companies just made too many cars, they gambled there would be a demand and unfortunately there isn't. It was a gamble that went wrong, but that's capitalism. So, now we must pay out of our pocket to prop them up. I wonder if in the past the horse shoeing companies went to the government and asked for bailout money because 'ever since this darn thing the car came out we just haven't been selling many horse shoes'?

This is a story - not my own, very anecdotal I must admit, but highlights the mentality that we are encouraged to buy into in order to justify forced equality.

'An economics professor of a University said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little. The second Test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else. All failed to their great surprise and the professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder to succeed the greater the reward but when a government takes all the reward away; no one will try or succeed.'

Now, there is a moral to this story. That moral is...well I could tell you, but you have a mind try to work it out...

Obama sucks!

There I said it.

Has the world gone mad? I know 8 years of George Bush has left the world jaded but really what's changed?

The rot of the new president's integrity has already started to set in. Not least highlighted by the recent revelation that CIA agents were carrying out torture, sorry utilising special interrogation techniques, on behalf of the United States Government. Obama has made a promise to his friends in high places that he will not prosecute the guilty parties. He has instead said that he will make such special interrogation techniques illegal. Well that's good news, oh wait wasn't torture already illegal under International law?

Don't get me wrong I wanted Obama to win. I was one of the people taken in by the tryst with history. However, I was under no illusion that the man of change was nothing more than another career politician.

It happens in all democratic political systems when we get bored of one team we vote the other one in, and it goes on and on like this. Where is the change in that?

Ideas are not property

This concept, so elusively obvious, formed out of a lengthy and heated discussion I had with a friend of mine about intellectual property. To me the notion that ideas can be treated as property, i.e. the sole possession of the one whose brain it originated from simply doesn't work.

Property within nature is something tangible, for example, Items such as shoes can only be in use by a single person at any one time. If someone was to take my shoes I could not use them, and therefore I would be shoeless. Ideas on the other hand are not like shoes. If someone was to take my idea they can use it, but it does not prevent me from also using the idea. Neither of us possess the idea solely, yet we each posses the whole thing. Therefore, I rather like the metaphor of ideas being like fire, when my idea inspires another person the fire spreads it does not make mine diminish. In fact the idea burns more brightly (god that's beautiful I'm going to have to use that line more often).

Another problem I have with intellectual property is the myth that it fosters innovation. I'm sorry but you don't encourage creativity by preventing people using 'ideas'. I mean it would be a bit counter intuitive. I think people have the stereotypical vision in their mind of the inventor/scientist bloke who creates something wonderful in complete isolation. This is ridiculous as ideas are not formed in a vacuum. For precisely this reason it is quite possible for two individuals drawing on the same pool of knowledge but working independently to invent the same thing. An example of this would be Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace both proposing similar theories of natural selection.

People who are in favour of intellectual property often use the ethical argument, saying that using some one's idea is 'theft' or 'piracy'. For reasons I mentioned earlier ideas cannot be stolen as the originator of the idea is still free to use the idea. So, I think the ethical argument is pretty much crap. I would go as far as saying that monopolisation of ideas is morally wrong. Take for example medicines that could possibly cure fatal diseases, would it be right for the government to grant a monopoly to a company who created the drug so that no other competitor could come in and compete with them. After all, without competition the drug company could charge as much as they wanted for the drug, and the very people who needed it would suffer.

I thought I would end with a list of things that would suffer if Intellectual property were enforced across the board. Keep in mind these were some one's ideas once too:

The car
The television
Penicillin
Toaster
PC
The printing press
The wheel
The Internet
Beer

I could go on people!

Where to start?

Its been about two years now since I stumbled upon the principles of liberty. I would like to say it was chance but I'm sure I unknowingly played my part in discovering said philosophy. The problem with philosophy is that it gets you into trouble, just look at Socrates, sentenced to death! Now lets just clarify a few things I have never felt that my beliefs will get me into trouble, at least not to the point of violence, but people do look at me with disdain when they hear my thoughts on certain issues. I don't want to force my way of thinking on others. There is a line that I try not to cross, which I may be crossing now with this blog, but anyway. However, if your bring up a topic that I am passionate about I will throw in my opinion also. Strangely, more often than not my opinion conflicts with consensus. People find me opinionated, as though holding opinions is a detrimental character trait. I hate people who aren't opinionated. Hate is a strong word, but if there was a word stronger I would use that instead. How can someone go through life saying 'I don't care', 'I dunno know', 'Don't bother me'? This kind of apathy just annoys the hell out of me...argggh! I also believe that people who don't know me well probably think I'm argumentative. Believe me I try not to be. I try to use reasonable logical discussion but people don't respond favourably to this. If you challenge some one's world view they act like a cornered animal and just resort to personal attacks. I think the technical term to describe this is 'confirmation bias'. To some extent we all suffer from this, but some people just won't even listen. I read a quote by someone, probably dead now, who said that 'It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it'. Listening to the other person's opinion is definitely the key to communication and a more peaceful society.

I don't know what my intention was when I first started writing this blog entry, but I feel like its been fulfilled. So, I am going to end it here,,,no really.

My first post

This is a test post.