Continued from Part 1

Religion:
"Believe nothing because a so-called wise man said it.
Believe nothing because a belief is generally held.
Believe nothing because it is written in ancient books.
Believe nothing because it is said to be of divine origin.
Believe nothing because someone else believes it.
Believe only what you yourself judge to be true."
-Buddha
I would add my own, "Believe nothing because a "friend" is so insecure in her beliefs she will not discuss them unless you pretend to believe them, too." Perhaps DJ has never heard of The Great Commission.
Let me start by saying that I belong to the ACLU, support them 99% of the time, and do not get upset about a public display of the Ten Commandments. This editorial from Science & Theology News tells why; I do not think that displaying a religious icon is an establishment of religion, any more than having a Christmas tree or holding a "Christmas Party" at a government building would be.
(The Ten Commandments in the US Supreme Court building-includes pictures!)
(For example: If the President of the United States has a Christmas tree on the White House lawn, that just means the President is a Christian. It doesn't mean that Christianity is a state religion.)
(According to adherents.com, the population of the USA is 82% Christian, after that, only "no preference" is in double digits.)(I'm hardly a religious person, but if the Christians want to have a cross on Mount Soledad, its fine with me. As long as the government leaves me free to hold whatever religious beliefs I choose, no display of a cross, or a Star of David* or whatever, is going to make me change my mind.)
*(NOT unlikely: in 2000,Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is Jewish, should have been elected Vice President. Gore/Lieberman got half a million votes more than Bush/Cheney.)
In addition, I'm not upset that "Under God" is in the Pledge of Allegiance. This may be a violation of seperation of Church and State, but I doubt that many thinking adults believe in the existence of God solely because they said "Under God" every morning in elementary school.
In addition, again, I have no problem with the teaching of evolution (as a scientific theory) and "Intelligent Design" as an alternate hypothesis in public schools. Again, I doubt that many thinking adults either believe or don't believe in the existence of God because they heard either of these ideas in Junior High School (usually grades 7-9 in the USA) Science class.
A gentleman named Bobby Henderson has suggested that a third hypothesis should be taught, as well: Everything was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
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I am a "fan", not a member, of the Roman Catholic Church. I find their Thomist philosophy to be intellectually intriguing. I am also a fan of Judaism, which also has a solid philosophical grounding. (See the writings of Maimonides, in particular. Maimonides, often called Rambam[RaMBaM (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon)], is contrasted to Aristotle here. Maimonides and Aristotle were both major influences on the great medieval champion of reason, Thomas Aquinas). Aquinas argues that we can know God by natural reason in this life*, part of his masterwork Summa Theologica
*This appears almost word for word in The Catechism of the Catholic Church, specifically at Part 1, Chapter 1, section 3.
The 1913 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia is now online; they explain that newer editions are still protected by copyright, plus my own opinion is that Catholic doctrine is timeless and changes little in the kind of entries one finds in an encyclopedia. Actual performance of Mass and the relationship of the Catholic Church to what used to be called "heretics" (Protestants and Orthodox Christians) was changed dramatically at the Second Vatican Council. (Actually, I am not now, nor have I ever been, especially religious.)
I have come to like the Jewish religion a great deal; they are incredibly intellectual, even today, more so than the Catholics. (one *brilliant* example of Catholic apologetics today is Catholic Answers.) I live right down the street from the Desert Torah Academy, and was disappointed to find out that it is for k-8 kids, not adults. Where do we over-50 types go? (Well, of course, we should start with the Conversion to Judaism Homepage.) (I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood:; honesty note: a Jewish woman told me that if you really grew up in a Jewish neighborhood, the schools close on Jewish holidays, but mine did not, and now feel like I really missed out; there was so much I could have learned!)(Some years ago I got first the Catholic Encyclopedia, then the Jewish one; perhaps no accident!) There are places like Talmud Torah in New Jersey, but not in Las Vegas....The 1906 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia is also online.
(Personal note: I have always, for as far back as I remember, liked Jewish people better than my fellow Gentiles. The Jewish kids I went to school with from 1st to 7th grade were the intellectual elite. I lived with a *brilliant* non-observant Jewish woman from 2000-2005, and have been disappointed by the shallowness of Gentile women more than once. I can not understand how civilized human beings could hate Jews enough to put them in cattle cars for transport to death camps.) The (supposedly)great Christian Martin Luthur wrote a notorius anti-Jewish document: On the Jews and Their Lies.
Perhaps my greatest problem with Christianity is the doctrine of Original Sin. An excellent article questioning Original Sin is here. I really like this exerpt from The differences between Judaism and Christianity: "Judaism does not accept the notion of original sin, the idea that people are bad from birth and cannot remove sin by themselves but need an act of grace provided by the sacrificial death of Jesus as atonement for all of humanity's sins. For Christians, there are no other forms of salvation other than through Jesus." I also like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Articles of Faith #2: "We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression." A great introduction to the LDS Church is Kay's LDS Site; it was certainly my introduction. The LDS church is often ignored due to the popular belief that it supports polygamy. Not so: since 1904 polygamy is grounds for excommunication . The idea that Joseph Smith was sent by God and inspired to write (translate, actually) the Book of Mormon is at least as believable as the idea that the prophets of the Old Testament were sent by God and inspired to write the O.T. books that bear their names. (The same logic applies to Prophetess Ellen G. White of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, of course.) The Book of Mormon and other LDS scripture can be read online. The whole Encyclopedia of Mormonism is online, as well.
Several years ago I was visited repeatedly by members of Jehovah's Witnesses(official site); also Wikipedia entry for Jehovah's Witnesses. They knew I was a nonbeliever, but talking to them was fascinating! (Although considered to be a "cult" by mainstream Christians, I found the ones I talked to rational and likable.) They have a well organized belief system that is well worth listening to and reading about. I got a bunch of their books and a Windows CD-ROM for only marginal financial contributions. The CD-ROM contains the back issues of their cerebral publication The Watchtower, and its more-for-the-common-folks cousin Awake!, as well as their hardcover and other softcover publications.
The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM) has a page critical of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Longtime atheist philosopher Antony Flew seems to now be a Deist(NOT a Fideist)*, accepting that God exists on the basis of philosophical proofs, but denying, apparently, belief in any particular "revealed" religion. (Antony Flew's discussion with Christian apologist Gary Habermas.) This is controversial and awaits publication of Flews' revised God and Philosophy in April, 2005 for his definitive statement. (Review of Flew's new book There is a God.)
BTW, I have three of Flew's books and they all spell his first name Antony, not Anthony. Flew has a truely great mind. His ability to remain "friends" with Habermas is very commendable, for both. I identify with Antony Flew, in that while I share his rejection of approaches to religion that are not compatible with reason, like him I have no burning desire to convince believers that they are wrong. Believers are very interesting to talk to, but proselytizer/believers are better read and studied. It's a rare proselytizer/believer who won't try to "convert you to the Truth". I wish there were more theists like Habermas out there.
*(A better article on Fideism, IMHO, from the Catholic Encyclopedia.)(Fideism is the doctrine that religious truth can be discovered only by faith, not by reason.)
The Anthony Flew brouhaha explores this controversy.

Also online: the Holy Koran

Islam 101-(on terrorism and jihad.)

It was the rational Islamic philosophers like Averroes who preserved the writings of Aristotle during the "Dark Ages"; without them, there might have been no extant Aristotle for Aquinas to be influenced by.

Islamism(the Taliban, Hamas, Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini, Islamic Jihad) is not Islam. It more correctly resembles 20th century totalitarianism: fascism and communism. "Countries ruled by Islamists.......are among the most unfree places on earth"-Apolegetics Index, page on Islamism. A new word has been coined to describe this trend: Islamofascism.

Theological Dictionary-includes a LOT of terms from philosophy and from religions other than Christianity and Judaism. This is a MASSIVE site with definitions about things religious. Very useful.

Martin Luther's 95 theses.

Gospel of Thomas. It says in the intro that this might be the elusive Q document, which might be a source for Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

The entire 38 volume set of the writings of the Early Church Fathers, indexed by Volume.( alternate location, includes alphabetic index by author.) This set includes Origen Contra Celsus. Celsus was a Roman pagan philosopher who had written an attack on Christ and Christianity called "On the True Doctrine", which was saved from suppression as Origen had quoted most of the original in writing a reply to it.
(If you are a Pastor or scholar or need to impress others with how "learned" you are, you can buy the actual books from CBD, for $199.99; list price is $1,100.00.)

Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy (Original 1910 Edition, public domain, not a Christian Science site.)

The Babylonian Talmud

Maimonides' best known "popular" work: Guide for the perplexed

Maimonides identified 613 Commandments(!) in the law of Moses.

the Tanakh (the Jewish Bible)

HUMANAE VITAE, the encyclical of Pope Paul VI regarding birth control. (It's in English!)

Anselm's Ontological Argument for the Existence of God. Also: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy-Ontological Argument. I learned this one in college Philosophy. It is absolutely fascinating! Simply stated:
1. God is that Being than which none more perfect can be conceived.
2. A Being would be less than perfect if it did not exist.
3. Therefore, God Exists.

Aquinas did not accept Anselm's proof, but had his own Five Ways.

Really good: The Case for the existence of God, a modern (1995), rational look at the existence of God.

Pascal's Wager, a very popular but unfortunately unsound reason to believe in the existence of God: If you believe and there is a God, you will be rewarded; if you don't believe and there is a God, you will be punished. Therefore, in the absence of proof, it is rational to believe, as that is the only way you will get a post-death reward. But, if you believe *only* to get rewarded, God will see you as the hypocrite (you dont really believe!) you are, and punish you anyway.

Pascal's Wager is one of a group of Pragmatic Arguments for Belief in God. They don't prove that God exists, just that it is a good idea to believe that God exists!

Is "faith" alone a sufficient reason to believe in the existence of God? Aquinas and the the modern Thomists argue that faith is necessary only for the "mysteries" (or for those unable to follow an abstract argument), but that for the main question the Evidentialist approach is conclusive. See The Epistemology of Religion.

The "problem of evil" is considered by many nonbelievers to be a proof of the nonexistence of the God of Christianity. Two academic philosophical examanations are here and here, a Catholic philosophical examanation is here; Aquinas's position (from his Summa Theologica) is here; a Jewish perspective, from an article on Cabala, is here. The Christian Scientists get around the problem of evil entirely by denying the existence of evil. From An Introduction to Christian Science: "Christian Science is a religion of reason and revelation. In harmony with the Bible, it teaches that God is the only creator, and that all that He created is good. If this is true, it follows that sickness and evil, which are not good, can be no part of His creation."

Somewhere I read it this viewpoint:
God is all powerful, therefore He has the ability to eradicate evil.
God is all good, therefore He has the desire to eradicate evil.
Evil exists.
Therefore, God is not all powerful AND all good.

(Copied and pasted from Religion Quotes)"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. . . . If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. . . . If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?" Epicurus

Is "Creation Science" really science? Creationism is looked at positively here, and philosophically balanced here. Many think that Creationism was decisively defeated at the "Scopes Monkey Trial" in 1925, basing their "knowledge" on Hollywood's version of events: the play(by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee)/movie "Inherit the Wind" . It didnt happen that way, though: see The Scopes "Monkey Trial" Home Page. The Skeptic's Dictionary entry on Creation Science says that creationism is pseudoscience.
The open minded might want to read: Creationism as a thinking disorder, which is almost an extended ad hominem argument: it compares creationists to anorexics.
Anyone who wants to find out what *really* happened at the Scopes Trial can get a complete transcript of the trial from the Answers in Genesisbookstore; I did. (A transcript of the actual questioning of Bryan by Darrow isonline here.) The title of the book is "The World's Most Famous Court Trial" and sub-titled "Tennessee Evolution Case". (AiG is an explicitely young Earth organization; they hold that the Earth is only thousands, not millions, of years old.) (Based on the use of "Day" in the Bible, Creation only took six literal 24 hour days: their thinking does not, AFAIK, include the idea of Archbishop Ussher that Creation took place in 4004 BC.)(Oct 23, 4004 BC, to be more exact.)(AiG does sell Ussher's book The Annals of the World, but they do not seem to be pushing his explicit reasoning or his precise dating.)
The authors of the play Inherit The Wind, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee state, in the book transcript of the play, which the movie closely resembles: "Inherit the Wind is not history", and "Inherit the Wind does not pretend to be journalism. It is theatre. It is not 1925. The stage directions set time as "Not too long ago." It could have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow."

Do "Bible Codes" show that "the Bible was written by an intelligence far beyond the abilities of mankind"? And do the codes predict events like 9/11 and the Holocaust? The Isaac Newton Bible Code Research Society says "yes". The Skeptic's Dictionary entry on Bible Codes is.....skeptical.

Internet Sacred Text Archive; lots more online religious texts.

And more: Ancient texts library.

And still more: Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers.

Back in the late-70s, I saw a TV special (sponsered by the Interfaith Committee Against Blasphemy, chaired by the Rev. Dr. W. S. McBirnie.) debunking the 1976 movie The Passover Plot, which was based on the book by the same name , by Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield. Schonfield was a Jewish Bible scholar, and did not think that Jesus was the Son of God, but he DID think that Jesus was the Messiah. (More important, Schonfield thought that Jesus himself saw himself as the Messiah, and as a Jew, and not as the founder of a new religion.) I was young and curious, so I bought and read the book. Very interesting.... (Christian Courier's Pass Over "The Passover Plot", plus Dr Norman Geisler's refutation of Schonfield's hypothesis; this is a PDF file.) Schonfield would go on to do another translation of the New Testament (published as The Original New Testament in the UK, The Authentic New Testament in the US), billed as: "A Radical Translation and Reinterpretation", and a followup to The Passover Plot called Those Incredible Christians.
Schonfield's root thesis, that the Holy Bible's account of the life of Jesus is not entirely accurate, is shared by Dr Barbara Thiering, who after 22 years at the School of Divinity at the Univ of Sydney (Australia), cannot be written off as a non- or anti-Christian. Thiering has several books that doubt specifically that Jesus died on the Cross.

In 1843-44, William Miller predicted three times with absolute certaintainty the exact date of the Second Coming, ie., the end of the world as we know it. After three strikes he was out and his following dissipated. (Many of the "Millerites" became founders or early members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.) People who claim certain knowledge about current events based on their reading of a Holy Book might keep Mr. Miller in mind. (Special Letter to the Adventists contains the math behind Miller's predictions, plus his disagreement with attempts to explain his failure!)(Harold Camping predicted the Rapture to happen May 21, 2011; when it didn't happen, he revised the prediction to a combined Rapture/ End of the world on Oct. 31, 2011!)(2011 end times prediction by Camping)(Ronald Weinland predicts the return of Jesus May 27, 2012!)

The Date Setters Diary lists many other failed predictions of the Second Coming.

Even in modern times, some people are scared by the Left Behind scenerio; that there will soon be a Rapture, where all the saved Christians are taken up into Heaven, followed by a Tribulation, where everyone not raptured (left behind) will be subjected to the misrule of the antichrist. Left Behind presupposes a pre-tribulation rapture, which is not exactly universally accepted as biblically sound. See: Rebuttal of the Pretribulation Rapture. Author Gary DeMar has written, "End Time Fiction: A Biblical Consideration of the Left Behind Theology", refuting the position of the Left Behind authors. Western Michigan University Prof. of Ancient History Paul Maier, an ordained minister, says (on the back cover of "End Time Fiction.....") that the ONLY part of Left Behind that will actually happen is the Second Coming of Christ.
Also: The Rapture -- Is It Scriptural?
In "Left Behind", the antichrist is depicted as the UN Secretary-General. See Who is the antichrist?
My own view is that the Book of Revelation (the last book of the Christian Bible, aka Apocalypse to Roman Catholics) is subject to so many different interpretations that it's hard for someone without a Doctorate in Theology to really understand it.

When did the Last Days begin?1. 1947, with the founding of the State of Isreal? 2. During the earthly ministry of Jesus, in the early first century AD? 3. Sometime before 2000? Test your own theory at this link!

There is a minority view called Preterism, that holds that the End Times have already happened, and that Jesus has already returned! The Preterists (generally) think that the Roman Army's destruction of Jeruselum, especially the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, and the consequent permanent stop of ritual animal sacrifices, was the "End" referred to in Scripture. (Preterist Q & A)(What is Preterism?)

In 1914, former SDA member D M Canright wrote Seventh-day Adventism Renounced; amongst other things, Canright demolished Ellen White's claim that *every* word she wrote was inspired by God.

Years ago, someone in Kalamazoo, Michigan gave me a little book called "Knowing Him Better", which is Ellen White's book Steps to Christ in current day English. I promised to read it. I didn't. Doing the research to find out about William Miller (above) led me to Ellen White. I really will read it this time. My thanks to whoever gave me the book in the first place!

The best of the non-believers: Robert G Ingersoll 's What Must We Do To Be Saved?,
and Why I am an Agnostic.(Writings of Robert Ingersoll.)

The thinking man's theist: John Ankerberg.

Wiccan and Magick Terms. Magick is sorcery: supernatural, unlike magic, which is just illusion performed by humans skilled at sleight of hand.

Magick(Wikipedia entry)

Magick(Skeptic's Dictionary entry)

alt.magick FAQ

Wicca FAQ

Ingersoll's Superstition.

My personal favorite theist: Dr. Norman Geisler, author of the over 800 page long Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Geisler has a PhD in Philosophy(Loyola University). I've never heard him speak, but from his books and his website I get the impression that he is a logical, rational, intellectual theist, not an emotionalist. If I were a theist, I'd want to be in his company.
My favorite Christian apologist: Ravi Zarcharias, author of The Lamb and the Führer: Jesus talks with Hitler, which argues what I call the "morality is impossible without belief in the Christian version of God" position, and The Lotus and The Cross: Jesus talks with Buddha . (He has at least two other "imaginary conversations" books that I havent read, yet, one with Jesus talking to Krishna, one with Jesus talking to Oscar Wilde.)(Another book of his, Light in the Shadow of Jihad, also argues the "morality is impossible without...." position: The Argument from Morality, in Philosophy.

My favorite Catholic apologist: Martin de Porres Kennedy , author of A Phidelphia Catholic in King James's Court, which brilliantly answers common Protestant misconceptions about Catholicism.

And finally: dreamed up for the Okhrana (Tsarist Secret Police ) before the Russian Revolution and accepted by Hitler as proof of the Jewish plan to dominate the world:The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. (Wikipedia entry on the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion".)(I have actually read on the Internet, here, in an article praising Julius Streicher (!), that the Protocols were the secret minutes of the First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897!
NOTE: Also on this page Streicher is quoted as stating on the stand at Nuremberg that the Holocaust did not happen. But, OTOH, here is the Nuremberg Indictment of Streicher, which accuse him of making it possible, and certainly make it sound like something he would have wanted to have happen. (I have a difficult time with the execution of Streicher: in the USA we value freedom of speech and press(Streicher was a newspaper publisher), and hold killers responsible for their actions, regardless of their motivation.)(Relatively respectable Germans like Colonel General Jodl and Field Marshall Keitel were convicted of "waging an aggresive war" and executed. Although acting on orders, they "should have known better". Surely the people who put Jews in cattle cars for transport to extermination camps knew better, more so than military officers who were doing what they were trained to do and ordered to do. But I digress....)

"Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants
And the Hindus hate the Moslems
And everybody hates the Jews"
-Tom Lehrer, National Brotherhood Week

It is to be believed because it is absurd-Tertullian(lived approx 155-230 AD)

My view of the Christian version of God

The Christian God is supposed to be very, very smart, and the Creator of everything. But when God created human beings and told them not to do something, it never occured to Him that they would do it. God's design was so flawed that He had to drown everyone except Noah and his family, who then became the ancestors of everyone alive today. That one family still begat lots of sinners, so God sent Himself, in human form, to be executed to save us all from God's minor error, if only we would accept this human, who we call Jesus (in English), as our Saviour.

Its all mythology.

"“We may define 'faith' as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of 'faith.' We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.” -- Bertrand Russell

When I was a little boy, my parents told me about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Jesus, and God. When I became old enough to think for myself, I put aside Mom and Dad's view of reality.

I wouldn't be too surprised if there really was a wandering preacher named something like Jesus, and that he ran afoul of the Authority of his time. I would be surprised if someone could prove that the mythological stuff like the Virgin Birth, bringing the dead back to life, and his own death followed by his own coming back to life, actually happened.

Why do Christian people believe in Jesus and God?
Why do some Islamic people want to die for Allah?
Why did Julius Streicher publish the children's book The Poisonous Mushroom?
Becauase if you get to the kids early enough, they will never question this stuff, unless they happen to grow up in a time like the late 1960s in the USA, when "questioning accepted truth" was the norm, or their parents encourage "questioning" behaviour.

My two big gripes with God, if He exists:

Thanks to "original sin", my Uncle Bill, Dr. William Derr, a surgeon, is dead when I need to ask him questions, plus a great neurosurgeon, Dr. Frederick Latimer, is old enough to at least be retired. Those 2 MDs I trusted more than any other. One of the consequences of "original sin" is a shortened lifespan.
How it came out: After 5 days in Hoag Hospital, in Orange County, California, Dr. Duma's non-invasive Gamma Knife left me in roughly the shape I had been admitted in.

The political/philosophical question I have the hardest time with:

Abortion. I've been on both sides of this issue. The best, the very best anti-abortion site is Libertarians for Life. The coordinator of this group is an atheist, you will find no religious content here. (I object to the Christian religious argument against abortion, as there are plenty of mainstream theologians who read the same Bible and find no argument against abortion in it.)
I have noted with interest the very public change of "Jane Roe", one of the plaintiffs in Roe vs. Wade. She now regrets the part she played in the landmark Supreme Court decision that struck down laws making it a crime to get or perform an abortion. "Jane Roe" tells her story here.
I am convinced, however, that forcing a woman through a pregnancy is a form of involuntary servitude. As soon as the medical technology is devised, and it may already have been (An author named Victor Koman presented this in a novel called Solomon's Knife; reviews and the author's comments can be found here), I will support legislation outlawing abortion procedures that are fatal to the unborn infant, in favor of transplantation to a willing host mother or a premature birth situation in a hospital. (Yes, the latter would cost money. Time for any well-heeled right-to-lifers to put their money where their beliefs are. I am not "well-heeled", but I will pledge whatever I can to end prenatal infanticide once and for all.)
Once it becomes a medical certainty that the unborn child can survive outside of its biological mother, it is no longer valid to argue that said child is the property of the mother, hers to dispose of at her whim. At the time an unborn child can survive independently, it becomes a full human being with the same rights as those of us lucky enough to have been born. I deny that conditions such as rape, incest, or hazard to the mother's life have any bearing on the question of the humanity of the unborn. No mother will be forced to continue her pregnancy, given the options above. I reject the idea that a mother has a "right" to kill her child, whether before or after its birth.
For an immediate reduction in the abortion rate: guys, there is this device known as a condom....yes, I know from experience that sex with a condom is inferior, but it beats making a woman go through something that might scar her mentally for life. Maybe someday "they" will invent a condom that allows all the sensory delight of unprotected sex but will not let even something as small as a virus pass between sex partners.

The political/philosophical question I have the LEAST trouble with:

Should smoking around non-smokers be legal? It is established beyond doubt that smoking is "hazardous to your health" (Surgeon General's Warnings)(Surgeon General's Reports). Smokers are addicted to nicotine and ignore the health risk to themselves and those they live with. For the same reason that it is illegal to shoot others with a gun, except in self defense, it should also be illegal to subject others to one's toxic and carcinogenic cigarette/cigar/pipe smoke.
Need help quitting? You won't get it from me; I've never been a smoker and have no personal understanding; but this guy knows how!
For the more conventional, the American Cancer Society Quitting Smoking page is here
For the "I could never quit" people, try the CDC's You Can Quit Smoking Consumer Guide.
The US Surgeon General has a 5 day plan to get ready (to quit).

About smoking, seriously now, folks

I'm a libertarian. If other people want to inhale toxic gas, that's their business. I do think that people who sell substances which, when taken as directed long enough, will kill you, should label their products with the same skull and crossbones that any other poisonous product carries. (I understand that in the European Union and in Australia cigarette packs are labeled, among other things, "SMOKING KILLS IN A SLOW AND PAINFUL WAY ".) I don't think the government has any obligation to support smokers after they get, say, lung cancer: how many smokers still alive really think that smoking is a harmless diversion anymore? They know perfectly well they are killing themselves. Health insurance companies should charge higher rates to smokers to cover the inevititable health costs that smokers incur.

Television, the vast wasteland:

I agree with Newton Minow, former chairman of the FCC, that television is a vast wasteland. He did say that before CNN arrived, though. Among the very few broadcast network programs I have found worth watching are: 1. Forever Knight, 2. Nowhere Man(a fascinating page of theories about the plot of this show is here) , 3. TW3, 4. Nightmare Cafe, 5. The Invaders, 6. The Time Tunnel (All have been cancelled; if you are not old enough to know what TW3 is short for, it was a brilliant satire on the news which Tom Lehrer has immortalized on his album called "That Was The Year That Was".)
Many years ago, I was a nightly watcher of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman!
Back in the early 60s I watched The Fugitive, and I plan to watch its 2000 reincarnation.
And my favorite comedy: Married...with Children!
Best single episode of a TV show: "Star Trek"....The City on the Edge of Forever
2nd Best single episode of a TV show: "The Twilight Zone"....He's Alive, which ties directly to:
2nd Most Depressing move I've ever seen: Exodus. where survivors of the Holocaust flee to Palestine and found the State of Isreal, only to find that the Palestinian Arabs dislike them as much as the German Nazis did. The He in "He's Alive" is Adolph Hitler, who is still alive wherever hatred and irrational prejudice persist:
and:
3rd most depressing movie I've ever seen: West Side Story, which is a modern Romeo and Juliet story. Luckily, I had read a synopsis, so I knew in advance how sad the ending was going to be. At the end, "Maria", the female lead, condemns the hatred and prejudice of the rival gangs (one ordinary white guys with (Northern) European ancestors, one Peurto Rican) that causes the deaths. But personally, the way that "Tony and Maria" meet reminded me a lot of the way I met my ex-wife. (Although it was not love at first sight for me, at some level I just *knew* it would work for us. And it did; I would still be married to her today if I hadn't gotten sick.)
(This movie is not completely depressing. It has some great songs, and it has a great female character, a tomboy nicknamed "Anybodys", who wants to join the white guys' gang; instead of whining about discrimination she sets out to prove she is worthy, and succeeds.)
(I also really like the song America, which in the movie is a disagreement between Puerto Rican girls who like America, and Puerto Rican guys who don't. In the play's version of America, the disagreement is between PR girls who like America and detest PR, and other PR girls who want to go back to San Juan. The anti-PR lyrics in the play were all removed for the movie.
And the #1 most depressing movie: On the Beach, a 1959 B & W movie, based on the 1957 book, back when Gen. Eisenhower was President, before Mr Hope-and-Change was born, about the aftermath of a nuclear exchange between the USA and the USSR, the radiation killing everyone on Earth except some Australians and the crew of a submerged US submarine, which docks in Australia after finding nobody alive anywhere else. Will the Earth still have a future when "The Bomb" gets into the hands of religious people who think God wants them to kill nonbelievers in their version of God? Religious people who think they will go to Paradise if they die in the service of their God are a lot more dangerous than the atheists who ran the USSR.
Note: There is a 2000 remake with substantially the same plot, but which is not as darkly depressing. With the USSR defunct, the nuclear exchange is between the USA and the PRC (People's Republic of China), after the PRC invades Taiwan

Most television SUCKS ! "Free" TV is nothing but an advertising delivery service (and it could get worse! AOL and Microsoft are developing interactive TV (SpyTV), which will monitor your viewing and deliver advertising customized to your personality) . In between commercials, there are mindless soap operas, mindless game shows, mindless sitcoms, and with the exception of the more cerebral "The Apprentice", mindless and sometimes downright gross "reality TV". YUCK! Even cable TV, originally conceived as commercial free since the viewer was paying for it, is also drowning in advertising and mediocre programming. Only the "premium" channels like HBO and Showtime are anywhere near commercial free.

"Television is about advertising, and advertising is about selling people things they don't need. "-Barbara Dudley (seen here). I abhor TV advertising, and love the remote control with its MUTE button. I especially abhor those "Did you have a loved one die from using Product X? If so, call our sleazy law firm. We will get you Big Money!" (Of course, we will keep half for ourselves.)

On 6-26-05, I read on CompuServe that 50% of "us" leave the TV on all the time, whether someone is watching it or not. If its just for background noise, play a CD instead! Those of us who like to think or read do better without obnoxious commercials blaring in the background!

How Television Affects The Mind. Scary; this article argues that television is addictive! (I HIGHLY recommend that frequent TV viewers read this.)

Are you addicted to TV? (A 5-question quiz)

Most thought provoking page I have ever read:

Debate about the "Neuro-Semantic Political Illusion Complex"(NSPIC)- this is an anarcho-libertarian page I found rivitingly interesting: there is a long argument about whether "government" is something that really exists.

(2nd) Most thought provoking page I have ever read:

Warning: this is a page about Christianity. If you are a militant atheist, you may not like it. But if you are an open-minded nonbeliever like me, or if you are a Christian looking for a greater understanding of your history, or any non-Christian trying to figure Christianity out, check out Who are YOU in the Body?

(3rd) Most thought provoking page I have ever read:

Understanding the lyrics of "American Pie"-Speculation, as the original author never said what the lyrics meant. Just tonight, 6-6-09, I saw Dion on Fox News explaining that he was supposed to be on the plane "the day the music died".

Dumbest Thing I EVER did:

When I was a freshman in college, in 1967, I had unprotected sex with a woman my age. DUMB!(It may have been the Summer of Love in San Francisco, but it almost became the Summer of Unintended Pregnancy in Michigan for me.) The resulting pregnancy scare gave me a (permanent, it turned out) desire to never have kids; I value my freedom too much to turn my life over to childrearing. In 1994 I took the logical step and got a vasectomy*; the horror (to me) of possibly producing a litter of anklebiters is now safely past history.
*I would have done it a LOT sooner, but an MD in Michigan had advised against surgery: the vasectomy procedure was really pretty minor, certainly preferable to the psychological damage I would have suffered as a Dah-dee.

The four luckiest/best things that ever happened to me:

Regarding the woman in the previous paragraph,
1. After telling me that the midpoint of a woman's cycle is the best time to have sex and avoid pregnancy (later reading revealed that it's really the best time to conceive), and that she was at that point, she didn't get pregnant. (Thank goodness! It would be unfair to say that little kids are irrational; actually they are arational.)
2. After we got married, I held my no-kids ground. She could have pressed the issue and prevailed; I will always be grateful to her for not doing so. I would have been a terrible father, and I am so glad to be childfree!(Being an honesty-compulsive, I must add that she disagrees with me on whether I would have been a good father to this day.)(Probably more important: I cannot recall a time in my life, EVER, that I wanted to have children. See Ann Landers' famous "The Childless Couple".) (Also Ann Lander's If You Had It To Do Over Again— Would You Have Children?) (Think having kids isnt expensive? Thanks to LV No Kidding, I know about bankrate.com's What is the cost of raising a child? )
Children are so overrated
Happily Childfree FAQ
Ugly Little Crying Babies
3. Near the end of my marriage, when I was suffering from agoraphobia, she dumped me for Greener Pastures. She told me later that she felt that it was what I needed to recover. She was right. Someone once suggested that I have "unresolved anger towards (my ex-wife)". More like unexpressed gratitude! I know she read this; she emailed me to correct the spelling errors, but I will leave it up for her anyway: THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!!
4. On my 50th birthday in 1998, my ex-wife, who I last heard from in 1976, called me to wish me Happy Birthday. I didnt even recognize her voice! What a nice thing for her to do!

Biggest mistake I EVER made:

Being an idiot and letting my marriage collapse!!! My advice to married people, based on what I did NOT do: Do not make pre-marital promises that do not have to be kept for years and then not keep them. (I had promised that we would have children. Years later, the whole idea was so repugnant I could barely speak to my then-wife about it. The marriage was doomed.) Talk about important things, especially things that might effect your whole future, way ahead of time. Always stay in communication with your spouse. Never assume that because you are decent and faithful, your loved one will be there tomorrow. Never assume that because you have a piece of paper from the government, and you made some promises in front of a religious or secular authority, you have guaranteed affection for life. Never assume that because your parents were good at living happily after ever, you know how to emulate their success. (And from what I have seen in other marriages, never assume that having children will keep you together.) Never assume anything, you have to work at staying in love.

My rant against having children:

I do not see the reason for having children. Repopulation? One family with 12 kids surely relieves many of us of ANY necessity to procreate. Love? To each their own: I find nothing lovable in small children . Parental pressure? Since your parents did it, must you do it? Heirs? I have left my vast fortune(!) to a cat charity!

More reasons for not having children can be found at the childfree webring!

I dislike small children. I especially dislike baybees. Typically, I refer to them as anklebiters, rugrats, and similar unflattering labels . I have found a webpage that rationally (no name calling) considers the "having children question": The Shame of Not Wanting Children.

My favorite childfree essay! This woman says exactly what I would say about having children, if I could write as well as she does.

Very humorous! 'So when are you going to have kids.'
And the other side: 101 REASONS FOR HAVING CHILDREN!(Warning: this author is a religious überbreeder who obviously plans to keep having kids as long as it is biologically possible.)(I read in the comments on this page, Breeder Bingo, that she has had 12 so far!!)
And the other side of that: 101 reasons to NOT have kids.
Guys! Want to know what your wife's/girlfriend's body will look like after pregnency and childbirth? See The Shape of a Mother. I knew a woman, who, after 2 C-sections, was so ashamed of her stomach that she only had sex in pitch darkness. However, I knew another woman who had 2 C-sections and plastic surgery, and you would never know she had even been pregnent.
I have come to think of parenthood as a sort of BDSM activity. It's great for women who like morning sickness, nausea and vomiting, intense labor pain, stretch marks, and don't mind that men will never think of them as sexually attractive again. It's great for men who like losing their freedom, and dont mind the end of a spontaneous sex life with the mother of the child.

Childfree news (blog)

"if people knew what hell it was raising an infant, they would never have sex in the first place." -Bristol Palin

I used to think that I just never wanted children of my own. I don't agree with Jerry Steinberg, "founding non-father" of No Kidding! that children are wonderful, just not for him. I am a lot closer to the attitude of this woman, that small children are no fun to be around, period. As part of this, I have stuck to women my age whose children are grown, forgetting that grown children can have children, which due to "circumstances" can get put in MY household. NEVER AGAIN! Having a house full of kid toys, kid videos, and kid sounds is sufficiently obnoxious to make me thank God, if there is one, that I was never "blessed" with children!
Note: on 9-18-00, this child was reunited with its father!!!!!

While Granny's grandoffspring was living here, she said, "Grandma, your smoking makes me cough!" Granny kept right on smoking, of course. Why not? Granny has been inhaling this poison herself for 40 years, and it hadnt killed her (yet) . It says this at the Philip Morris USA Secondhand Smoke page: "Particular care should be exercised where children are concerned, and adults should avoid smoking around them. "

5-4-01: More "circumstances"! The child doesn't live here, but it is grandma's (my now ex-gf) responsibility during the day, and is in my presence. Listen, Granny, if I had wanted little kids around I would have had my own!

Isn't she CUTE?

6-3-01: The child is around until its' Daddy gets his life in order. How annoying! I think one doesn't appreciate how having small children around effects one's life until one is around! YUCK! I have had a life of freedom, thanks to my ex-wife's not forcing the "having children question".
Listen up, Granny! I moved in with YOU, not with your family.I would rather sell the house and go back to living alone than put up with your Offspring's Offspring. I have a few additional comments about your grandoffspring:

1. that she is accidently related to you does not entitle her to a lifetime of baby-sitting.
2. couldn't you baby-sit her at her house rather than inflicting her on me?

YIPPEE!!!!! On 12-12-01, Daddy and his offspring moved back to California!

And then on 12-18-03, Granny announced that SHE was leaving too, to persue her chosen career as a professional compulsive gambler.

But she returned; then on 9-30-04 announced she was leaving AGAIN!

But she didnt go, then on 2-4-05 announced she was leaving AGAIN! The drama continues.
(Her 2 big complaints: I dont like her high volume, imbecile level TV watching, and I keep reminding her that she stole from me to finance her gambling addiction.)(She seriously believes that after you scam someone, the victim will not resent it, and never mention it again. She calls mentioning her bizarre financial activities a JUPA (John UnProvoked Attack). Uh Huh...

Finally, on 7-19-05, the grandoffspring returns for a "3 day, 2 night visit", but those "circumstances" will make it longer than that. Having the grandoffspring around does have a good effect: it makes me SO GRATEFUL to my ex-wife for not oops-ing me when she was on "the pill".

Gulp! And then on 9-20-05 she died. "Dont it always seem to go....That you don't know what you've got....Till it's gone." (From Big Yellow Taxi, by Joni Mitchell.) Although she was a brilliant woman who I miss a lot, she was a VERY heavy smoker; I have had a poster since before I knew her with the theme, "Smoking Kills", and I think it did.

(My ex once wrote in a poem:
"Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As each of us sometimes learns."
-
How true! Putting up with the grandoffspring was easy compared to having granny die.)

And on a semi-related subject:

Why do many women keep their married name (i.e. their husband's name) in the event of divorce? It makes sense if the divorce occurs when the couple has small children and the wife gets custody. It doesn't make sense after the children have grown up and are living independently. It really doesn't make sense if there were no children, as in my case! (And why do women automatically take their husband's last name when they get married, anyway? In bygone days, it might have been to show ownership, in the same way that slaveowners surnamed their slaves, but haven't we moved past that point yet? I see absolutely no reason for Miss Smith, who marries a Mr Jones, to become Mrs Jones. Sure its tradition, but just because we have always done a silly thing, must we keep doing a silly thing?)

The big scam:

Paradise by the dashboard light. An all-too-true look at the relationship between (some) men and (some) women: in exchange for sex, this woman demands eternal love and lifelong happiness.

Things I despise:

*****War*****

War(especially the Vietnam War)(Vietnam War Overview.)(I was in college on May 4, 1970, during the infamous Kent State Massacre; if memory serves, there was a big demonstration on the WMU campus after word was received, which was broken up without fatalities by the Michigan State Police: at KSU 4 people were killed by the Ohio National Guard. I still love the sad song Ohio); violence, hatred, the Holocaust, the Allied firebombing of Dresden in 1945; the so-called USA Patriot Act,aka Dictatorship at your doorstep, a rightwing overreaction to 9/11 (it says here that Pres. GW Bush has Patriot Act 2 ready)(now before Congress , its called the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003")(!)(Wikipedia entry for DSEA03)(there is also a "secret law", which you the citizen are not allowed to read, that requires showing ID in order to board a plane. This is being challenged in Gilmore vs. Gonzales); those parts of the US criminal justice system that incarcerate people for committing "crimes" that have no victim, paying taxes(LOL, written April 15!). That was last time! This April 15('98)(and in '99, '00, '01, '02, '03, '04, '05, '06, '07, and '08) I used Kiplinger TaxCut(now called H & R Block TaxCut)(4-15-06 Warning: The 2005 tax year version of TaxCut has very dangerous code in it: if you elect to pay the electronic filing fee out of your refund, you are agreeing to let Block turn your refund over to people you owe money to. I will not be using TaxCut again. But I did in '07. Despite Block's sneaky code, their product really is good. I always hated filling out form 1040: using TaxCut is much less painful. ) software to electronically prepare and file, a BIG improvement over doing it by hand.

"Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the tax-ma-an"
-George Harrison, 1966

(Lyrics and image seen on the front cover of Mind Bets, the newsletter and journal of Southern Nevada Mensa, April, 2005 issue, Hillary Litwak, Editor.)

*****"Race" prejudice*****
I'm not even sure that "race" is a viable concept. I see what is commonly called "race" as being a subspecies of humans, not entirely dissimilar to the concept of "breed" as used to describe different types of cats or dogs. Breeds are different, and some breeds are better in certain ways for certain functions; for example, German Shepards are preferable to Beagles as "seeing eye" dogs for blind humans, however, it does not follow that German Shepards are "superior" to Beagles.
I see race prejudice as being inherently irrational. The differences between the races are mostly cultural, not genetic.

*****Community Property*****

"Community Property" is my least favorite legal concept. In states with rigid Community Property laws, "goldigger" types will seek out wealthy spouses. It is foolish to think that the wealthy partner is the only victim of this scheme. The non-wealthy, non-working partner can easily fall into a state of mental disuse, so that when the wealthier partner finally gets tired of being exploited, the goldigger can be left without a thought in her head.

*****The Nuremberg Trials*****

The post WW2 Nuremberg Trials(International Military Tribunal-Major War Criminals), where the defeated Germans were tried and convicted of committing crimes that did not exist before they were committed. (Please note: my complaint is with the trial of civilian and military personnel tried for "conspiracy to wage an aggressive war" or "waging an aggressive war", not with the trial of the architects of the Final Solution for "crimes against humanity".)
A (long) account of the creation and operation of the IMT.
Judgment of the International Military Tribunal (Major War Criminals) at Nuremberg(quite detailed.)
The Nuremberg trials were followed by the Tokyo Trials, where the defeated Japanese got the same treatment.
NOTE: At the Tokyo Trials (International Military Tribunal-Far East), some Japanese were tried for using a form of torture called Waterboarding. In his confirmation hearings in 2007, Attorney General nominee Judge Mukasey did not know if waterboarding was torture.
"Why do we kill people who kill people to show killing people is wrong?" - seen in the Northern Sun Catalog.
"the crime for which the Nazis were tried had never been formulated as a crime with the definiteness required by our legal standards..... By our standards that crime arose under an ex post facto law." -former US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas .
Particularly absurd was the inclusion of Soviet judges, representing a country that rivaled Nazi Germany in the commission of war crimes; the Katyn Forest Massacre of Polish Officers by the Soviet military comes to mind. (Wikipedia entry for Katyn Forest Massacre.) (Also the Red Army's inaction during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising(Aug 1-Oct 2) of the Polish Home Army(Armia Krajowa, the Polish Underground, or just AK), which was, as the Soviets had hoped, wiped out by the Germans.) (Also the Soviet treatment of German POW's; of 91,000 Germans captured after the Battle of Stalingrad, only 6,000 survived to return to Germany.)
Also the Soviet invasion of Finland on Nov 30, 1939, and the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland on Sept 17, 1939(The Soviets had agreed to split Poland with Germany, which invaded Poland from the west on Sept 1, 1939).
"It is not right to bring to trial officers or men who have acted under orders from higher authority... The most brutal act of the War was the dropping of the Atom Bombs on Japan... I consider it wrong to try Admirals, Generals, and Air Marshals for carrying out definite orders from the highest authority...the Allies were far from guiltless and should have taken that into fuller consideration."
-Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Chatfield, P.C., G.C.B.
I agree with Lord Chatfield about the use of the Atom Bomb.* Incinerating Japanese civilians to shorten the war was just as immoral as the firebombings of Dresden and Hamburg, where the Allies incinerated German civilians to break the will of the German leadership and shorten the war.
-
I watched the movie Judgement at Nuremberg, which is about the 1948 trial of Nazi judges. The prosecution shows the films that were taken when the Western Allies liberated the concentration camps in Western Germany, like Dachau. The defense attorney objects, and wonders out loud about films of charred bodies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I dont think I have ever seen such a film; perhaps the USA has suppressed the graphic evidence of its use of mass murder.
(In the movie"Nuremberg" there is a reference to the Nazi position that Jews were "not really human". In the Twilight Zone episode The Encounter, these words are put into the mouth of a US WW2 (Pacific Ocean area) veteran, "We were told that the Japanese were 'not really human '." IF this happened in real life, then the position of the US government towards people it wanted to mass murder was identical to the Nazi position.)
Note: I have always found the Holocaust to be depressing. Especially things like the Diary of Anne Frank, and the story of the escape ship St.Louis, whose over 900 Jewish passengers from Germany were denied entry to the United States in June, 1939; over 600 of them perished in the Holocaust after the USA forced them back to Europe. (Also depressing is the "revivisionist" view that the Holocaust never happened. See Why "Revisionism" Isn't, and A Brief History of Holocaust Denial.)(Skeptic's Dictionary entry on Holocaust Denial)( The Simon Weisenthal Center Faq #5 lists the number of victims by country, hard to do if there were no victims!)
Himmler explicitly refers to the ongoing extermination of Jews in his Posen Speech of 10/4/43. (Full text of the Posen Speech, in German with an English translation.)
However, the Rescuers, people like Raoul Wallenberg(A Swedish diplomat to Hungary, Wallenberg stood up to both the German SS killers and the indigenous Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross killers)(Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviets after the fall of Budapest, and his fate is still uncertain), Oskar Schindler (a German industrialist who ran a fake war production plant that employed Jews, who were protected as "essential to the war effort"), Carl Lutz and Sempo Sugihara, who defied/outwitted the Gestapo to save Jews, are an uplifting part of an otherwise dreary portion of the history of humanity. (These Righteous Gentiles are now honored in Jerusalem, which I hope to visit in a year or two.) There was also the very underground White Rose anti-Nazi German resistance. (Unfortunately, the White Rose was discovered by the Gestapo in 1943, and most of them were executed.)

Anti-Jewish actions did not die with the German Nazi Party in 1945. Today in the USA there is a nationalist.org, which uses the same symbol as the Hungarian Arrow Cross noted in the previous paragraph. I support the Anti Defamation League. The ADL has A Visual Database of Extremist Symbols, Logos, and Tattoos, which includes the Crosstar(US Nationalist)/Arrow Cross Symbol.

Lest anyone think that Russians and Germans are more evil than others, during the Vietnam War the USA napalmed a 9 year old girl named Kim Phuc; the picture taken by Nick Ut, of Kim running naked after removing her burning clothes changed many minds about the morality of the war; it bothers me to this day.
Kim Phuc herself has forgiven the American who set up the bombing, that story is in the link above.

And of course, there was that shameful phase of US History that can best be referred to as Indian Removal, of which the Trail of Tears alone cost about 4,000 lives. The final (military) act of this shameful phase of US History was the Wounded Knee Massacre.
SIGH! On the front cover of the Spring-Summer 2005 Nothern Sun catalog, there is a picture of 4 armed Native Americans with the words, HOMELAND SECURITY "Fighting Terrorism Since 1492". It looked a lot like this:

I understand that Columbus Day, the day a group of European sailors "discovered" America, is considered to be a day of mourning by the decendents of the people who were already here in 1492, people who were killed*(some by force of arms, more by European diseases), enslaved, or put on "reservations" ("rural ghettos" would be more accurate)(When I see "Pine Ridge Reservation" , I think "Warsaw Ghetto")( "I am told that the life expectancy here on Pine Ridge is between 48-52 years old." -David Swallow). I support the Libertarian Party on American Indian Rights, especially the part about abolishing the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
* In his 1992 book American Holocaust(prologue, page x), author David E. Stannard (Professer of American Studies, University of Hawaii) estimates the loss of Native American life to "between 90 and 98 percent", and "95 percent has become a working rule of thumb."; and at page 151 estimates the total dead at "close to 100,000,000." (That is in the whole "New World", North, Central, and South America.) In HIDING GENOCIDE: The National Museum of the American Indian , Carter Camp puts the death toll at 200,000,000. (Population History of American indigenous peoples)
"Open borders"? It is amusing to note that those who are upset about "illegal immigration" are mostly people with European ancestors. These ancestors did not ask permission from the people who already lived in "America" before coming over from Europe.

*****Book Burning*****

I do love books! In May and June, 1933, the German Nazi Party held massive book burnings, especially of books by these authors. The pictures of SA(Brownshirts) men throwing books onto the fires show what the intolerant and authoritarian mind is capable of.

It goes on: In my ex-wife's hometown, a Christian church burned not only Harry Potter books (sorcery), but the Book of Morman and any Holy Bible other than the King James Version.
(Story here)
(Wikipedia: King James Only Movement.)

*****most logical fallacies*****

I dont *despise* all logical fallacies, but there are two I find especially loathsome:
1. The Appeal to Popularity, "most people believe X, therefore X is true". Many people have an almost religious devotion to popular beliefs, and want to criminalize rejection of their pet belief: According to Jarret Wollstein, writing in Freedom Network News #75, May/June 2007, an ISIL publication, "Global warming true believers also insist that...global warming skeptics are either industry shills, incredibly misguided, or simply evil and should be silenced."(Global Warming: Myths and Reality).
2. Ad Hominem Arguments, "Mr X is a (insert unpopular political, religious, racial, or ethnic group). Mr X believes Y. Therefore Y is false." This seems to be obviously false reasoning, but it is incredibly common. How else does one justify locking up US citizens of Japanese descent during WW2, but by an ad hominem argument in the form: "Mr X(a US citizen) is Japanese. Japanese people (in Japan) favor an attack by the Empire of Japan on the USA's West Coast. Therefore, Mr X is an Enemy of the State and should be "detained" in a "relocation camp".

And, saving the worst for last Compulsive gamblers, Casino owners, and Junk Debt Buyers

These three are somewhat interrelated: Casino owners get rich by exploiting the (mentally ill) compulsive gamblers; compulsive gamblers get money to gamble with by exploiting non gamblers; junk debt buyers get rich by re-exploiting the same non gamblers. Junk Debt Buyers are really gamblers themselves: they buy up worthless bad debt for pennies on the dollar and hope they can turn those pennies into dollars. I have personally been exploited by a compulsive gambler, then re-exploited by a junk debt buyer after not paying some of the debt the compulsive gambler had racked up on my credit cards. (Compulsive gamblers can lose an enormous amount of money trying to "win back" money they have "borrowed" and then lost.) (A very interesting story about a compulsive gambler who is suing casinos for $20 million for not stopping her. I hope she (a lawyer) wins; she is absolutely right that "Nobody in their right mind would gamble for four or five straight days without sleeping.")
(In a rational, moral world, casino owners would agree to eject obviously mentally unstable gamblers and have a shared "blacklist". Cutting off free alcoholic drinks to unstable gamblers would be a good idea, too. I was once with a gambler who was ejected after getting drunk on free drinks and tried to stagger across the street to the next casino. She is lucky to be alive.)
People who try to get rich by exploiting other people's mental illness are
the scum of the Earth!

Historical speculation:

A few years ago S Nv Mensa asked this question on its' mailing list: "If you could go back in time once and change history, what would you do?" One of the most popular answers was "Kill Hitler". This idea was dismissed by one member on the grounds that someone just as bad would have taken his place. I have since had reason to look into the incredibly byzantine prewar German power structure and have come to this conclusion:
Killing Hitler in the late 1930s would probably have precipitated a power struggle between the police, led by Himmler, and the military, led by less "racial purity" types but more prowar types (Göring, for example). So yes, someone just as bad or worse would have taken over.
Killing Hitler on the battlefield during WW1 might have prevented the entire rise of the Nazi movement and averted the European part of WW2 and the Holocaust!

A Thought:

I just saw (3-6-01) a documentary on A&E about the Gambino crime family in New York City. Individual mobsters can kill a few people and control a small part of society. (In the same sense, in 3-02 CompuServe ran a piece about the "10 most evil men", people like Charles Manson and the "Son of Sam" and others who killed a few people.) But to really do evil, it is far more effective to take over the government. Hitler was able to erect a mass murder apparatus that killed six million Jews alone. The RSHA (Reich Security Main Office, which included the Gestapo) had power unimanginable to the Cosa Nostra. If Hitler had read more History, he might not have made the mistake of invading Russia like Napoleon foolishly did before him. Scary!

Another scary aspect of Nazi (and other totalitarian) gov't

Night and Fog, where enemies of the Reich, particularly resistance organization operatives, were not only executed but had all record of their existence erased.

Historical things I wonder about:

Vince Foster, a lawyer(Deputy White House Counsel) for President Clinton, formerly a partner with Hillary Clinton in the Rose Law Firm, who (officially) killed himself on July 20, 1993, by (officially) putting an 80 year old .38 in his mouth and pulling the trigger. Many doubt the official story. (101 Peculiarities Surrounding the Death of Vince Foster ).
Of these 101 Pecularities, the three I found to be the most interesting:
1. It is normal police procedure to treat a violent death as a homocide until there is no doubt. There was no homocide investigation.
2. It is normal Federal procedure for the FBI to handle the investigation of a violent death of a highly placed government employee. The Director of the FBI had been fired by the President the day before Foster's body was found; the first time a US President fired the Director. The Park Police handled the investigation.
3. There was no blood or other tissue found on the gun, even though it was loaded with high velocity (extra powerful) ammunition, which should have blown out the back of Foster's head and left a very messy (bloody) death scene. There was no pool of blood under Foster's head. (Plus, the gun was found in Foster's hand.)(A man uses a powerful gun to shoot himself in the head, and the gun stays in his hand?
http://fbicover-up.com-a large Foster site with extensive documentation.
Was Sen. Paul Wellstone murdered?(In 2002, just before Election Day; he was running for reelection. There is a book out by James Fetzer and Four Arrows, "American Assassination: The Strange Death of Sen. Paul Wellstone", which argues that it WAS murder.
Anastasia Romanov, one of the daughters of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. The whole Royal Family was ordered executed after the success of the Bolshevic Revolution in 1917. Many have thought that Anastasia survived the slaughter, including especially Anna Anderson, who claimed to be Anastasia.......it says in this account of the story that science has now proven that Anna was not Anastasia.
The O.J. Simpson Trial: I watched the whole thing on television, and agreed with the jury's verdict. I could never shake a "reasonable doubt". It appears most white folks think he was guilty; and most black folks think he was not guilty. I don't know. (BTW, there is a LONG article here, arguing that Kato Kaelin is the "real killer".) (I have no idea who the "real killer" was, but I am convinced that the prosecution blew it in the criminal trial when they did not prepare their own witness Mark Fuhrman. His blatant perjury under cross-examination by F. Lee Bailey was fatal to the prosecution.)(It says in this account of the case that the testimony of Defense expert witness Dr. Henry Lee was the deciding factor to the Jury.)
French Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, hero of the Allied victory at Verdun in 1916, later head of the Vichy French government from 1940-1944. Was he a traitor? I don't know.
"Custer's Last Stand", or the "Battle of the Little Bighorn". What led a previously successful military leader to divide his forces in the face of an overwhelmingly superior enemy??
The German WW2 battleship Bismark. Though superior to any single Allied warship of the time, what made the German Admiralty think it could stand up to the whole British fleet? The Germans had been successful, sort of, in WW1 at the Battle of Jutland, where they had a fleet to oppose the British.
The Gunfight at the OK Corral(Tombstone, Arizona, USA, October 26, 1881), in which 5 cowboys (the Clantons) stood up to 4 experienced gunfighters (US Marshal Virgil Earp, Deputy US Marshal Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, plus "Doc" Holliday), and (predictably) lost.
Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller, who walked out of the Führerbunker on April 29, 1945 , never to be confirmed seen again(dead or alive), although three volumes of his "memoirs" exist and are for sale online! (Note: This is an IHR site. I have no connetion with, or sympathy for, the IHR.) (declassified CIA report on Müller.)
Martin Bormann , said to be the #2 man in Germany after 1. the failure of original #2 Göring's Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britian, and 2. the flight of Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess to England in 1941, and prior to the Allied victory in 1945. Bormann was indicted at Nuremberg and sentenced to death in absentia, as he was never apprehended. Ladislas Farago's book After-math(copyright 1974) claims that Bormann escaped to South America. It says here that Bormann's body was found in 1972 in Berlin and identified! However, Hugh Thomas' 1995 book The Murder of Adolf Hitler has a long section about the survival of Bormann until 2-15-59, when he died in Paraguay from stomach cancer.
Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer of Germany until his flight to England (above). There is a book called The Murder of Rudolf Hess, by W. Hugh Thomas, which argues (quite convincingly) that the man imprisoned by the British in the Tower of London, later tried at Nuremberg and imprisoned at Spandau Prison until his death, was NOT Hess at all. Thomas says the real Hess was wounded in WW1, but the Hess the British held was examined at Nuremberg and showed no trace of the wound. If true, this would explain Hess's "amnesia", and Göring's belief that Hess was insane. (Göring sat next to Hess in the dock at Nuremberg.)
Thomas, who is a Medical Doctor, has another book (pub. in the UK as SS-1 The Unlikely Death of Heinrich Himmler, pub. in the US asThe Strange Death of Heinrich Himmler A Forensic Examination, which I havent read yet, which argues that the body supposed to be Himmler was not Himmler. But not to worry. If Himmler did survive the end of WW2, he would be 107 years old if he was still alive.
Adolph Eichmann, Nazi butcher who was abducted by the Mossad from Argentina, taken to Israel, tried, and executed. As a civil libertarian I deplore the lack of due process for Eichmann, but of course I also deplore the fate of his victims. [Eichmann was head of the infamous "section 4-B-4" (RSHA Dept 4, Gestapo; B, religions; 4, Jews). (Structure of the RSHA.)] A partial parallel would be the USA's seizure of Panamanian chief of government Manuel Noriega, his trial and imprisonment for violating US law.
Gallipoli, a WW1 Allied military disaster. Whatever made the British think that this was a viable plan?

The Scott Peterson murder trial: If the body of Laci was so decomposed that cause of death could not be determined (nobody was ever able to determine time or place of death, nor was a murder weapon ever found, nor was a plausable motive ever presented)(the autopsy report on Laci stated "Cause of Death: Unknown" and "Method of Death: Homocide." HUH? Without a known cause of death they can know she was killed?), how can a jury find that *anyone* killed her? "To a moral certainty and beyond a reasonable doubt"? All the prosecution can *prove* is that Laci is dead.
(scottisinnocent.com: argues that Scott P is *innocent*, not just that there is a reasonable doubt of his guilt.)(Scott's attorney, Mark Geragos, is continuing the investigation.)(Marlene Newell's Why Scott Peterson is NOT Guilty.)
[Update 3-16-05: well, the jury did vote guilty and recommended the death penalty. The judge did then sentence Scott to death. There will be an automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court, where hopefully it can be argued successfully that this purely circumstantial case leaves a big hole of reasonable doubt; too much doubt to justify either conviction or execution.]
Update 12-14-05: Yesterday, California executed Stan Tookie Williams. Tookie also maintained his innocence. Thinking about him and Scott Peterson, I have decided that the usual "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt" test may not be enough for the death penalty. Before the State kills someone, they better be able to establish guilt "beyond a shadow of a doubt", which is real hard to do with just circumstantial evidence.
(A really good read: Presumption of Innocence, which is something Scott (and OJ, and Leonard Peltier(below), and Assata Shakur(below) did not get from the media or from the general public.)
Marlene's complete e-book "The Journey from Presumption to Conviction" is now online
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The Leonard Peltier murder trial: Another case where, like with OJ and Scott Peterson, there were no actual eyewitnesses, the defendent asserted his innocence, and there was some question about the ability of the circumstantial evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. (The State's case against Leonard: Two FBI Agents were killed on the Pine Ridge Reservation on June 26, 1975; two people who were arrested and tried were acquitted; Peltier was physically present on the Reservation the day of the murders; when a Law Enforcement Officer is killed, somebody has to pay; Peltier had a gun; Peltier belonged to AIM, the American Indian Movement; therefore Leonard Peltier shot the FBI Agents.)
Yes, I'd rather err on the side of the defense than lock up or execute someone who cannot be proven guilty. (Note: Peltier was nominated for President in 2004 by the Peace and Freedom Party in California, and got over 25,000 votes.)
Free Leonard Peltier page.
Statement of Facts, from one of Peltier's attorneys.
Peltier's story is told, partly by him, partly by his appellant attorney William Kunstler, partly by many others, in the DVD Incident at Oglala.
Amnesty International's APPEAL FOR THE RELEASE OF LEONARD PELTIER.
It is known that President Clinton considered granting clemency to Peltier before his term as President expired on Jan. 20, 2001. A federal judge had indicated that clemency should be considered back in 1991. Clinton took no action; see: LEONARD PELTIER: CLEMENCY WHAT HAPPENED?(CNN: In one of his last acts as president, Clinton grants 140 pardons (his brother Roger and Whitewater figure Susan McDougal, but NOT Leonard Peltier.)
NOTE: One used to be able to donate to, or buy stuff from the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee(LPDC) online using PayPal. For some reason, PayPal no longer allows this: The LPDC is urging a boycott of PayPal and its parent company eBay.
Note: In 2008, Peltier himself disolved the LPDC and formed the "Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee". The website of the LPDOC is here!
NOTE: Probably more important: Peltier, born 9-12-44, who is now 63 and not in the best health (not surprising: he was convicted in 1977; 25+ years in prison is not a recipe for good health; , was transferred from Leavenworth and tossed in the "Hole" at his new prison home in Terre Haute, Indiana over the 4th of July weekend, 2005. He stays in the "Hole" (solitary confinement) until the transfer paperwork is complete. (I could be wrong, but how many 60+ year old men are such a danger to society they must be held in a maximum security prison?)
In mid-August, Peltier was transferred again to the federal prison at Lewisburg, Pa., where his "rights" were restored.
Assata Shakur aka JoAnne Chesimard (her birth name, she considers it her slave name), another very dubious (no eyewitnesses, plus testimony from neurologists that she was not physically capable of doing what she was accused of doing) murder conviction. Where Peltier fled to Canada to escape US justice, and was extradited, then convicted and jailed, Assata Shukar was convicted, jailed, escaped, and fled to Cuba, where the government is FAR less likely to agree to US extradition requests. She is still free in Havana. Various US police agencies have offered huge rewards for her capture. (Assata Shakur Speaks!)(Assata Shakur Wikipedia entry.)
The JonBenet Ramsey murder: Here we have the opposite situation; an accused who claims he did it, but the local prosecuter refuses to go to trial because there is no proof that the accused really did do it. From the news accounts I was inclined to think that the accused, one John Mark Karr, probably did do it
The Casey Anthony Case.Wheteher she did it or not, she was never given herMiranda warning. Any decent lawyer would have told her to shut up, and would have been present during questioning. The whole case is circumstantial: all the prosecution can actually prove is that Caylee is dead, and that Casey was not grief stricken after the death. Casey was found not guilty by the jury Pure speculation: My guess: When Casey's lawyer said that she had been molested by her father, the lawyer expected Casey to testify to this. As the case progressed, the lawyer realized that letting Casey testify and be cross examined would be very risky. Casey was released from jail just after midnight, accompimied by two guards who, I think, were rather heavily armed and wearing bulletproof vests

Who (if anyone) planned to kill President John Kennedy ? The CIA? The Mafia? I didn't seriously doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald was the actual shooter.*(Mark Lane argued, in Oswald Innocent? A Lawyer's Brief, that LHO could not have been proven guilty in court beyond a reasonable doubt)
*(Robert Groden argues in his video/DVD JFK: The Case for Conspiracy, that there was not enough time for LHO to have run downstairs after shooting JFK from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository, to the lunchroom on the 2nd floor where he was found, therefore LHO was not the shooter!)(I haven't thought Oswald was the only shooter since I saw Oliver Stone's movie "JFK". This movie is a dramatic telling of the events surrounding the Clay Shaw trial in New Orleans, and includes exerpts from the famous Zapruder Film that show, to me at least, that the fatal bullet that struck JFK in the head came from the front; LHO was *behind* JFK.)
Who (if anyone other than LHO) were the brains behind the killing? This paper, by Michael Collins Piper, argues that the CIA, the Mafia, and the Mossad (Isreali Intelligence) were all in on the planning. (His theory: David Ben-Gurion , the Prime Minister of Isreal from 1948-1954 and 1955-1963, had it done because JFK was going to block Isreal's nuclear program. Here is Ken Rahn's refutation of Piper's theory.) Yes, Piper seems to have an anti-Jewish tilt, but the facts are always independent from a specific author's bias. Ad hominem arguments are always fallacies; it will never follow from:
1. Mr. X is anti-Jewish [(or anti-Catholic, or anti-(insert ethnic group of choice)].
2. Mr. X's opinion on individual Jews, or Catholics, or whomever.........
Therefore, Mr X is wrong.

There are a LOT of other conspiracy theories regarding the John Kennedy assassination: here is a list of books written, and summaries of, various theories, both simple and bizarre.......
And another list of books with summaries(there have been hundreds of books!): here. But, here is a FAQ which argues: Oswald was the lone killer, there was no conspiracy, and the Warren Commission Report got it right.
The Academic JFK Assassination Site reaches the same three conclusions.

BUT, again! In 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations(HSCA) reported a "probable conspiracy" in the JFK assassination!
BUT, yet again, in this page about Lee Harvey Oswald, it says that four of the seven members of the Warren Commission "expressed doubts about the Commission's conclusions within a decade of their report."
AND, there is Best Evidence: The Research Video, presented by David Lifton, who also wrote the book Best Evidence. Lifton presents hard evidence that the coffin containing the body of JFK that left Dallas was not the coffin that arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, where the autopsy was performed; furthur, that the condition of the body had demonstrably changed from the time it left Parkland Hospital in Dallas, before it reached Bethesda. This 1980 book and 1990 video came out too late to be considered even by the HSCA.
Before Lifton published his book, Fred T. Newcombe and Perry Adams published the same basic theory in Skeptic in 1975: Did Someone Alter the Medical Evidence?
I got a newish DVD on eBay, called "JFKII....the Bush Connection", the cover of which can be seen here, which argues for a truely MASSIVE conspiracy, includes Lifton's ideas and relies on former New Orleans DA Jim Garrison's investigation, and names former President George H. W. Bush (elected in 1988, defeated by Clinton in 1992) as one of the conspirators.....beyond a reasonable doubt. The alledged conspiracy goes all the way back to GHWB's college fraternity Skull & Bones; I've watched it twice....its VERY interesting, but I have a reasonable doubt about the Bush connection. I also have a reasonable doubt about the conclusions of the Warren Commission, especially the magic bullet theory, originally advanced by then-WC attorney Arlen Specter.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Earl Warren said we're not going to know the truth for 75 years and it's better that we don't." -Walter Matthau, who played Sen. Russell Long in Oliver Stone's JFK. (This quote appears on this page.)

Rose Cheramie, aka Melba Christine Marcades, a heroin addict, had advance knowledge according to PROBE, V6,N5, of both the time and place of the assassination. (HSCA staff report on Rose Cheramie.)(Here is a page saying that Rose Cheramie's story was bogus.)(And another, saying that her story was true, but her main detracter is bogus!)

So why are people still, over 40 years later, so interested in the death of JFK? I think that the events of 11-22-63 in Dallas were a Turning Point in History. With JFK dead, Lyndon Johnson became President. Under LBJ, the USA launched a major escalation in the Vietnam War, which eventually killed 47,410 (US battle deaths), mostly men my age. (It says on this page that 6 women were killed in Vietnam.)

So, who do I think planned to kill JFK? Dunno, but here are some possibles:
Diem: President of South Vietnam. Diem had Motive. He was ousted from office and killed on 11-2-63, in a coup that JFK probably had foreknowledge of and which probably would not have happened if JFK had ordered it stopped. Since JFK outlived Diem by three weeks, the hypothesis is that Diem had set the machinery in motion before his death. But Diem was on the other side of the world and would have needed major co-conspirators to pull off a murder in downtown Dallas. (CIA?)
Castro. Premier of Cuba. Castro also had Motive. If JFK had delivered air support in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion , Castro might well have also lost his office and his life. Plus, if I have heard the rumor that JFK was going to get the Mafia to kill Castro, then surely Castro heard it, too.
(More to come)

I AM SHOCKED! I had always thought that at least we knew for sure that Sirhan Sirhan had shot Robert Kennedy in 1968. But Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the LA County Coroner and Medical Examiner, said that Sirhan could not have fired the fatal shot. (See here, for the 1st quote I saw, and here, for details.) So I looked it up. There is a PROBE Magazine article, Vol 5, No 3, demonstrating the scientific problem with the "Sirhan as the lone gunman" idea. (here are 6 more PROBE articles about the RFK assassination.)

I'm not so shockable anymore! The HSCA has also found a probable cospiracy in the assassination of Martin Luthur King, Jr. The HSCA does think that James Earl Ray did shoot MLK. Ray, who was never actually tried by a jury, denied it, and wrote a book before he died asserting his innocence. (There are 8 PROBE articles about the MLK assassination.)(Ray's attorney, William Pepper, wrote WHY JAMES EARL RAY DESERVES A TRIAL NOW.(The King family agreed.)

*It would be unfair to remember Lyndon Johnson just for the Vietnam disaster. During his presidency, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed. These Acts dramatically changed America for the better.

Non-historical things I wonder about

"Gender identity disorder", or in PC terms, "Transgender". I haven't the slightest idea as to whether this is a mental illness, as previously thought, or just a preference like dying your hair blond.
Are people "born gay"? In the documentary "Religulous", Bill Maher interviews a Christian man who works with gay people who want to lead heterosexual lives. Maher suggests that some people are "born gay". The Christian man denies emphatically that there is a "gay gene", but Maher later interviews a scientist and says, "And you identified the "gay gene"? Is the entire LGBT spectrum as easy to explain as "why do some women get breast implants"? Is it just a personal preference? Or can it be explained by Behaviorist psychology?

Organizations I belong to: (in no particular order)

Mensa, Southern Nevada Mensa,(my comments on its Oct, 2000 to Oct, 2001 behavior)(my campaign statement when I successfully ran for Treasurer in 10/01, 9/02, 9/03, 9/04, 9/05 and 9/06, and successfully ran for Asst LocSec in 9/07, and for Treasurer in 9/08), the Libertarian Party, and as such I supported Harry Browne for President in 2000(Browne's essay on the events of 9-11-01, their causes, and their aftermath.)[my second choice was George W. Bush, who might have had the election stolen from him the way Kennedy's supporters stole the Presidency from Nixon in 1960(looking back, I wish Gore had won)]. In 2004, before the LP convention in May(May 27-31), I am supporting former radio talk show host (now full time campaigner) Gary Nolan, winner of the California LP primary, and the Massachusetts, Missouri, and Wisconsin LP primaries; I will, of course, support the LP nominee; also running is Hollywood producer Aaron Russo(here is his IMDB entry, he's best known as the producer of "The Rose" in 1979.), computer consultant Michael Badnarik, who won on the 3rd ballot*(an analysis of the LP convention by a Russo backer is here; another analysis critical of Russo from Reason Magazine here), jazz musician Jeff Diket, and ! Dave Hollist. (Hollist on the issues)(Hollist has really thought things out! I'd support him in an instant!!)
*(Aaron Russo got the most votes on the first ballot; the second ballot was a virtual tie between Russo(first), Badnarik(second), and Nolan third; Nolan then withdrew and asked his supporters to vote for Badnarik.)
Actual vote totals by ballot.
(I was impressed by Russo; I was hoping he would run again in 2008, but unfortunately he died between elections. Before he died, Russo produced, directed, wrote, and starred in America: Freedom to Fascism,

There is already, 2-2-05, an announced candidate for the 2008 Libertarian nomination, and he has a website up.....Jim Burns for President! Burns is from Las Vegas, Nevada.

Dave Hollist is also already in the 2008 race; here is his updated campaign site:I'LL TRADE YOU.

Badnarik on the War in Iraq

Other organizations I belong to: Sigma Tau Gamma, my social fraternity when I was a student at WMU(Chi chapter)(elected Treasurer twice)(it's said there will soon be a Las Vegas Alumni chapter, and I will join that), the ACLU, the International Society for Individual Liberty, the American Humanist Association, the Humanist Association of Las Vegas and Southern Nevada, the Phoenix OS/2 Society, and Peacefire(although this is a teenagers' anti-censorware organization, they allow us older folks to join, but not as "full" members.), and the new in 2008 ,The Objectivist Party, which was on the ballot in two states.

My theory about Nixon becoming a "crook"

There is a link in the previous paragraph about the 1960 USA Presidential election, where John Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon, possibly with the illegitimate help of Richard Daley(died 1976), then Mayor of Chicago. Nixon felt that he had won, but kept quiet for the good of the country. Could brooding about this have produced the man who later had to resign the Presidency to avoid impeachment and removal for his crimes?
SHAMEFUL ADMISSION, placed way down on the page where it won't be seen: I voted for Nixon in 1968. I even had a "Nixon's the One" placard in the window of my apartment at Married Housing at WMU. But I did NOT vote for Nixon in 1972. And I NEVER voted for George W Bush! (My then-wife was a big fan of Spiro Agnew in 1968. I still have her huge red, white, and blue SPIRO candle. I also still have a well-done *psychedelic* "Nixon's The One" poster!

Online services, good, bad, and OK

The best online service I've ever seen (well, I loved it, faults and all; the problems had been fixed on a new version which was never released) was called . Born 3-21-96, it was killed by its parents 1-31-97. Bring Back WOW! is an effort to do just that. CompuServe is pretty good; they have FINALLY announced an unlimited price; $24.95. Prodigy Internet, from what I've seen, is also pretty good. The service I'd most like to avoid is America Online; see www. For people who are not too fond of AOL, there is an AOL SUCKS SUPERSITE!(I thought AOL was bad until I looked carefully at WebRing. Dont click on any link to webring.com unless you LOVE pop-up ads.) A TV ad for AOL (seen 3-9-98) contains this line, shown briefly, "Availability may be limited, especially during peak hours". (Amusing note: WOW!, with its problems attracted, and continues to attract, support pages, while the #1 online service attracts mostly aolsucks pages.)Please say it isn't true Dept.: On 9-8-97, H&R Block sold CompuServe to WorldCom, which in turn sold the online service part(ie. most) of CompuServe to AOL. Ugh! WorldCom kept the CompuServe network, and got AOL's network subsidiary. I've been on CS since 1992, when I got a modem for my (then)8088-based computer, I was a member of WOW! from CompuServe, then SpryNet(owned by CS) when WOW! was killed; but I will move to Prodigy Internet when CompuServe and SpryNet are taken over by AOL. My main HIV-AIDS page already exists on two other servers, so it will continue there, and there, without interruption. I had seen myself as a "life member" of CompuServe, but I will have nothing to do with AOL. (Note: SPRY, Inc. is such an incredibly classy operation that I don't think even AOL can mess them up, so I have decided to stick with SpryNet. Which worked out fine, as AOL has sold Sprynet to MindSpring!)

My Favorite websites:

Unfortunately, most of my favorite sites are now defunct:
1. AppleKay's sites are all gone: her interest in computers replaced by the chores of procreation.
2. All of the former homepages.go.com were deleted by Go.com without any notification. (Most of these were former members.wbs.net homepages which had all been transferred to the domain go.com after Go took over WBS.)

BUT, using archive.org, I was able to retrieve archived copies of SOME of these missing favorites, and those URLs are used here

In addition to the now defunct AppleKay's Movie Cafe* and the sites for the organizations I belong to, there are (at least) three other AppleKay Design projects, kayla.net, NeonVox's homepage, digital MINT, her review of the movie Goonies, and HER FBI Profile. Other favorites: Berry's homepage(Berry has deleted most of her excellent page, and invites those who wish she hadn't to write her at: berrysweet1@hotmail.com), DrvnMyNeon's (a/k/a Phoenix) homepage
Note to Drvn: I found a diskette with a copy of your old page, it even has the Neon pic! I miss DrvnMyNeon.
, Charlotte's Web Page, Ask ms-analysis! "the Internet's answer to Dear Abby and Miss Manners", my ISP Sprynet, Netscape, The Sinister Sliding Stones Studies SIG, the Cat Fanciers' Association(CFA), and finally! wolfeyes' homepage. Plus some recent additions: Yvonne's homepage, and Vivien's homepage, and Legacy's Page
My favorite website of all: Sappy Love Songs; and they actually play with Windows Media Player.

On 3/28/98, I came across this former WOW! writer's Master's thesis. It is a brilliant look at her hypertext writing and at the whole concept of writing for the Web: Kim Amaral's Graduate Thesis.

And......WOW Lives!

*This address leads to the most recent version still extant. If you ever saw AppleKay's Movie Cafe, and thought it was a really exceptional site, write kayla@hehe.com, and tell her so!

Pet peeves:(in no particular order)(Please note: a pet peeve is just a minor irritation; no big deal. I hope my favorite bird understands that.)

People who use "cyber" as a noun or verb meaning to talk about sex or in a sexual manner online; people who display hypocrisy, dishonesty, stupidity, or irrationality; web authors who put in links to non-existent pages(you know who you are); web authors who write untrue statements intended to have a psychological effect on some particular person, ignoring the possibility that others will read and believe untruths; the UNIX operating system, which is fine for AT&T but why do universities insist on using it, and making students learn it?(These students were probably exposed to Apple operating systems in high school, and will need to know Microsoft systems in the real world.)(Compulsive honesty: I actually like and am going to install several variants of it, including Linux, and FreeBSD on my computer.); the idea that marriage MUST produce children; parents who overprotect their teenage children, forbidding them to watch MTV or use Internet chat programs (if anybody wants to get Powwow®, download it here!)(sad news: the owner/operator of PowWow was taken over by CMGI, which killed PowWow 3-1-01); IRC room operators who use automated scripts to give the impression that they are present and participating; people who start things (the Save WOW! movement comes to mind) and sort of fade away; people who have excellent web sites, run out of time to maintain them, discontinue them, and then criticize others for doing the same thing; IRC room operators who say things like "I have the Power", and use it to "kick", meaning eject, those whose opinions they disagree with; Geocities' obnoxious "Word from one of our sponsors" window, which opens on every Geocities page and sub-page (this has been largely fixed by Yahoo, which seems to be in control at Geocities)(Yahoo then replaced the obnoxious ad for Geocities with obnoxious popup ads)(Yahoo then deleted the entire Geocities domain, too bad, there were some great pages there!); Xoom's even more obnoxious Xoombar, which is always onscreen and provides an absolute guarantee that I will never get a "free homepage" there. Past peeve: ICQ, which was a great idea but was slowly collapsing under the weight of its users. ICQ probably never expected to be the massive popular success it has become, and as a free service cannot upgrade its system with user revenue. Confirmed: AOL has bought Mirabilis, parent company of ICQ, 5/98.

My gripes with Microsoft:

Microsoft's unethical attempt to capture the web browser market by giving MS Internet Explorer away free (Netscape responds, Jan, 1998, by offering to give Communicator/Navigator away free, too.); Microsoft's alliance with various online services, which must offer MSIE, exclusively, in their Windows95/98 version in exchange for getting their service's icon included with Win95/98. Prodigy used to be really bad; if you closed MSIE you got disconnected from Prodigy; the appearance of a website (www.zone.com) which offers software that will not run on any version of Netscape, nor on any Apple or UNIX system, but only with Win95/98 and version 3+ of MSIE; the MS FrontPage HTML editor, which allows non-standard markup codes that are (surprise!) supported only by MSIE, creating the illusion that MSIE is a superior browser; Microsoft deepens the illusion by distributing non-standard, allegedly GIF, images which are only recognized by MSIE; Prodigy's MSIE "hidden" cache folders. HINT: If the user has Windows95/98, use the find command with the keyword cache. Once found, go to "properties" and remove the checkmark from the "hidden" box. These cache folders are in \Windows\Temporary Internet Files, and will eventually take over a chunk of your hard drive if they are not monitored. Catch: the next time you sign on to Prodigy, they get re-hidden, so I wrote an unhide routine into my autoexec.bat:
attrib -h c:\windows\tempor~1\cache1 (repeat for cache2-cache4).
(Good news: Prodigy had published instructions on how to use Netscape as the default browser, after long claims of "incompatibility", then said you only had to use MSIE to sign up, then dropped the requirement entirely! I was going to remove MSIE from my computer, but I will keep the relatively non-intrusive version 3.02 for testing.); With the introduction of Windows98 Microsoft declared that MSIE was an "integral part of the Operating System"!
I strongly object to the emerging, as I call it, IEonlyism, where websites and various services can only be accessed with MSIE. (I wonder how much M$ pays software vendors to include "You must have IE X.X installed to install this software"?) If Microsoft gets a defacto browser monopoly and does not support IE for systems other than Windows, the entire World Wide Web could become "Windoze Only". Malicious hackers LOVE the Microsoft monopoly! Malware need not be written for non Windows, non IE computers!
32-bit Windows users are only too familiar with the Vulcan Nerve Pinch, also called the "Microsoft Maneuver", but known best as Ctrl-Alt-Del.
Anyone interested in Microsoft's practices might want to check out the Boycott Micro$oft site. Business users who are a little tired of Windows NT might want to see O'Reilly & Associates' News Focus: Microsoft. A "UNIX Geek" expresses his attitude toward Microsoft here. And here is Microsoft Humor, very lenghty! (An Internet friend who tried IE4, has this reaction to the Active Desktop buttons that have appeared promoting IE, "no it gives you an active headache...")
"Windows 95: Five years ago, corporate software giant, Microsoft, spent millions of dollars, and put a team of hundreds of highly specialized programmers on an extensive and highly ambitious project to find another name for the Apple Menu." -- David R. Hendrickson
"Saying Windows 95 is equal to Macintosh is like finding a potato that looks like Jesus and believing you've seen the Second Coming." -Guy Kawasaki
--
I must admit, I have never owned, or even tried out, an Apple computer. For all I know, they may be far superior to the Intel hardware/Microsoft Windows computers that are dominant in the USA.

And finally, there is The International Anti-Microsoft Network!

Good News!!!

An attempt is being made to produce an OS that will run both Windows and Linux programs, called Lindows(now called Linspire, after Microsoft found some foreign countries that would declare "Lindows" a trademark or copyright violation). Now out of beta, its "Windows" support ends with Windows 3.1, like IBM's OS/2 Windows support does. More good news: An attempt is being made to get the Mac OS X to run on Intel, the OS would be called Rhapsody. (Apple did develop Rhapsody in the late 90s but never released it.)

Lest anyone think that I do not practice what I preach, in Oct Nov Dec? '98 (actually Feb. '99), I will be replacing Windows95 on my computer with IBM's OS/2 4.0 32-bit operating system. IBM's official claim is that OS/2 will run "most Windows 3.x applications", however, it will run Windows 95/98/NT applications if the user installs "Win32s". Instructions on this can be found in The Win32-OS/2 Project, now moved and renamed The Odin Project.

My first try at installing OS/2 on 9/27/98 failed when my A drive crashed. After buying a fabulous new external diskette drive that will run the new 120MB diskettes as well as the old "legacy" 1.44MB type from Imation, on 10/17/98 I learned the hard way that the OS/2 install program expects you to have a working diskette drive A, and that good old bug ridden Windows95 does not make it easy to change drive designations, so for the moment I am still running Winblows. Then, on 10/24/98 I learned that if I had read the manual "Up and Running" that comes with OS/2, I would have found out the easy way about the "first 528MB" boot partition size limit on IDE hard drives! Getting a BIOS translation utility is required to access the area above this limit; I have ordered and installed the one mentioned in the manual, Ontrack Disk Manager. Unfortunately, the next try proved that buying a diskette drive without drivers, hoping the existing NEC drivers will be compatible, was not too bright. Luckily, I found a supplier that sells NEC diskette drives, so now, 11-27-98, I am waiting on WestCoast Computer Parts. Unfortunately, WestCoast is out of stock on this particular floppy, so I have ordered more 120MB SuperDisks, and will use Ontrack to designate the SuperDrive as Drive A.

12-2-98: In the Win32-OS/2 Project, above, the author advises that if you want to convert a Win32 app to OS/2, its best to install it under, say, Windows95 originally. Taking his advice, I have ordered a 10.1 GB Western Digital hard drive to house OS/2 on, and I will let Windows95 remain on my original little 750 MB hard drive. As 10.1 GB is a lot of space, I intend to partition it and install OS/2 in one half, and Linux in the other half! Linux is a free download, but I wanted backup, so I bought it on CD-ROM from Red Hat Software. The *three* CD-ROMs include X Windows, WordPerfect 8 for Linux, Netscape Communicator 4.06, the text editor Emacs, plus one whole CD-ROM contains the source code for the OS.

12-18-98: To install the new hard drive, I needed two little parts, which I got from pccables.com! Once again I had not read enough; this time it was my computer manufacturer's Upgrading and reconfiguring your computer, which insists that if you are going to install a hard drive they didn't make, you have to use their "mass storage rails kit". A net search turned up two places in Canada that might still have this part in stock. I had written to both, but finally found it at good old PC Cables & Parts (pccables.com). They seem to have everything!

12-29-98: And so they did! But once *again*, if I had read the manufacturer's manual, I would have known that the bays I was going to put an internal drive in were made for external drives! The screwholes I was sure would be in there were not once I took off the casing and looked. Duh! Maybe it will fit in the floppy drive bay.

Consumer Alert: If you want an operating system that just installs easily without too much thought, you want Microsoft® Windows®. But if you really love computers, and like thinking and challenges, and want to learn a lot about hardware and software, you will love OS/2.

On 12-30-98 I experienced what every computer owner has heard about, but which I didn't expect to happen to ME. The IDE hard drive controller in my machine can only support some limited drive capacity, and 10.1GB was way over the limit. I fried my original hard drive as well as the 10.1GB one. After several service calls, my poor computer went into the shop for a replacement motherboard and CD-ROM drive. I replaced all of the other moving working parts myself. The service tech told me that my configuration would support four IDE devices, with the maximum hard drive size being less than 4GB, so I got three Seagate3+ GB hard drives, and on 2-18-99 I installed OS/2 on one of them. Having had a LOT of time offline to think about it, I decided to install some other operating systems as well. On the day I finally got my OS/2, I also installed BeOS 4.0. I have installed DR.-DOS, which takes up where MS-DOS ended, and restored Win95 on 4-23-99. Future installations will be: FreeBSD 3.0, Solaris 7, RedHat Linux 5.2, Slackware Linux 3.5 ,OpenBSD 2.5 and Windows 3.1(for old times sake), for a total of 10 OS, with two slots open. I will probably get Windows2000 if Bill Gates keeps his word and Win98 is his last OS based on MS-DOS. And he has! Anyone interested can get Windows 2000 now! (There are discounts to bona-fide purchasers of Windows NT 3.51 or 4.0.) Windows 2000 has these system requirements: 166MHz Pentium or higher, 32 MB of RAM with 64 MB recommended, 2 GB hard disk with 650 MB free. (I was a beta tester for Windows 2000 and can verify that Microsoft really does test its' products before releasing them! Who would have thought?)
DISCLAIMER: I have installed and run Windows 2000 beta 3, and now the regular production version, and it does have MS-DOS in it, it is just called "command prompt", and appears under "Accessories". The good old DOS commands are there; missing now is the old BACKUP command, which with RESTORE was moved to Windows, under Accessories, System Tools.
10-27-08: I'm still running Windows 2000 Professional; I skipped XP and have heard nothing but bad news about Vista
4-14-09: Earlier this year I got a new laptop that was supposed to come with Vista, but all it had was Linux and a blank Win32 partition. I did NOT complain, just bought a copy of XP, formatted the whole hard drive, and installed XP, which is a very good OS. Not everything Microsoft does is crap!

Slight change of plans: I have become quite fond of OS/2, after running 4.0 on my desktop. Through a service called Warpcast, I found out about eBay auctions, and ended up bidding on OS/2 Warp 3, Warp 3 Connect, OS/2 2.1, and OS/2 1.2! I plan to run them all, sacrificing a few of the BSD and Linux versions to get space.

System Disaster II

7-11-01: I had also got, on eBay, Windows NT 3.1. Installing it on my Drive #1, where MS systems have to go, corrupted Windows 98, which was listed as "unformatted". To reinstall W98 I had to format the partition, losing everything! Bummer!!! I had not backed up my saved e-mail or my MP3 files. NT 3.1 was the first of the NT series, and had no support for IDE CD-ROMs, so the installation was done with the vast number of diskettes, and failed during the first restart, after about 7 diskettes, when it encountered my boot manager, System Commander Deluxe, from V Communications. I suspect it would have installed correctly if I had followed the SysCommDeluxe instructions on adding OSs!

Slight change of plans #2: I have discovered CP/M , the first microcomputer operating system, written by the late Dr. Gary Kildall. (8-bit)CP/M was ported to a 16-bit system called QDOS, the rights to which were bought by Bill Gates and licensed to IBM for use in the first IBM PC. Gary Kildall's company, Digital Research, developed CP/M-86, which was also shipped with the first IBM PC, but at a much higher price($250) than DOS($40) . Another high priced OS, UCSD P-System, also was shipped. I plan to run 1.CP/M-86 1.1 in my computer, along with 2-5. OS/2, all 4 major revisions, 6. DR-DOS 7.02, 7. Win95, 8. WinNT 4.0, 9. Win 3.1, 10. FreeBSD 4.0, 11. Caldera Linux 3.1, 12, Solaris 8, 13-15. BeOS 5.0 (unfortunately Be, Inc. has gone under, that story here, so in sadness I will also run 4.0 and 4.5) and 16. Micro C/OS 2.03, 17.OS-9, plus now that it is out on CD-ROM, 18. QNX!!

Idea: I am an OS junkie; my computer has a (limited) secondary controller, and I have another hard drive, so add 19. NetBSD 1.5, 20. OpenBSD 2.5, and two small UNIX-like teaching systems: 21. Minix, and 22. Xinu. And finally, 23. Windows 3.11, 24. Plan 9 (Plan 9 is Bell Lab's update of UNIX.), 25. eComStation (eComStation is Serenity System's update of OS/2 4.0.) I will use the secondary controller for old systems that do not use long filenames.

Additions!

Somehow I will also fit in 26. Debian Linux 2.2r2

Subtractions:

I realized that the above scheme was overambitious! So I got a second computer, a Sun Blade 100, with an UltraSPARC processor instead of an Intel one. I can run Solaris 8, Debian Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD , and QNX there, after I find something like Partition Magic (probably GNU Parted) for SPARC, plus I will discard the two small UNIX like teaching systems=8 subtractions so far; PLUS Uc/os, which can run within Linux=9, leaving a manageable 15 OS in the Intel computer; also adding the now defunct NewDeal(GeOS, graphical, runnable from within Windows95.)

Things that annoy me:

People who use false names online to imply that they are the opposite of their real sex; people who borrow money, promise up and down to pay it back, and then default; a good friend who borrows money, consistently making repayments until she makes me beneficiary on a life insurance policy. BUT, she is only two years older than I, which means that statistically she should outlive me. Chances of collection: slim; IRC system administrators who ban an entire domain for the sins of one user; male sexual predators whose actions convince females that the phrase, "men only care about one thing", is true; censorware like Cyber Patrol, which was probably written to block kids' access to porn sites but has greatly expanded to block things like Planned Parenthood. A group of teenagers has organized to protest this nonsense. (A member of Peacefire says that as bad as Cyber Patrol is, a censorware program called CYBERsitter is even more restrictive.); males whose idea of marital commitment ends with the wife's menopause; females who abandon sex after menopause without trying estrogen therapy, who have no medical reason not to try estrogen.

Women I have loved: (in order)

The saddest part about this section is that I have loved, with the exceptions of my ex-wife, Joyce, and my ex-fiancee, mostly smokers, who in shortening their lives have probably shortened mine.

Confession: As strange as it seems, my former wife was the first woman I dated. (I was asked out by a girl in the eighth grade, but the event was cancelled. It took me a long time to figure out that I was not actually irresistible!!) From dating her we progressed to marriage; as a consequence I never *really* developed what I call "opposite sex skills".
NOTE: "If the girl you want to commit your life to is the first girl you've ever dated and/or slept with, do NOT fucking marry her. You're a brainless idiot for even considering it." -Copied from Reasons not to get married.. *I* did this, with a woman my age. Just because women are emotionally mature enough to decide to get married in their teens, does not mean that men are! I wasn't. Now, 8 years of marriage + a crappy divorce + 25 years of living alone(well, during the 25 yrs I was engaged once and spent more nights at her house than at mine) + 5 years of living with a hopelessly irrational compulsive gambler, I am mature enough to try it again, maybe, or maybe not.....I have always liked women my own age.....by now, a single woman my age has probably already been married, produced offspring, divorced, and may even have grand offspring. Unless I am VERY lucky, her biological spawn, and their spawn, will probably come first, while second husband comes (a distant) second. (I was once engaged to a woman who actually said that having a child was the only worthwhile thing she had done with her life. Very sad; pathetic, even. Luckily, she dumped me when she didn't need my financial backing anymore.)

(Note: almost without exception, these women fall into the "brilliant woman" category.) Linda, my first crush, I haven't seen her since 1966 but I've never forgotten her. My ex-wife, I will never forget her either, she was the best thing that ever happened to me. (I'm not a masochist; I would never have married her if I had known her idea of a lifelong commitment was 8 years if I failed to impregnate her.), Joyce, she showed me how to love after a failed marriage. Julie, she never knew how much I loved her. Karen, my ex-fiance and the great post-divorce love of my life. Deanna, a long-distance love is better than none at all. (Deanna is also the person who "borrowed" over $10,000, bought a life insurance policy with me as beneficiary, stopped repayments, and then was "wounded and abused" when I refused to "loan" her more money!)(and then was forced to stop paying on the life insurance policy!!)(Outrage: Deanna suffered a career-ending injury on the job, as a Special Education teacher in California, and the Social Security Administration was dragging its feet in deciding her claim to Social Security Disability. She was living in an abandoned car! Luckily, one of her old flames was there for her: thanks, Al.) Eve, yes, I still love you today. (Eve is a Rare Gem: I should never have lost contact with her.) Finally, there is Anonymous, probably the second most brilliant woman I have ever met. And now there is ANOnymous, definately the most brilliant woman I have ever met.
(Unfortunately, though brilliant, ANOnymous is not Independent. Although she states an explicit belief in female superiority, she is addicted to male financial support to sustain her non-working, extravagant lifestyle.)
(On the subject of brilliant women, there is another I should mention. While I was working for WMU, there was a remarkable woman who worked as student help in Accounts Receivable. Her father was Director of Registration at the time, was Roman Catholic, and had twelve children! I met some of her siblings over the years, and all were above average intelligence, but this woman had a brain that came along very occasionally. Now married, I fear she will follow in her mother's footsteps, and that her exceptional mind will be dulled by the mind numbing chores of large family motherhood. Pity.)
Mightabeens: practically any unmarried female member in my age group of WMiM or SNvM! And my #1 Mightabeen of all time, Donna, a brilliant woman who unfortunately was both a born again Christian and a Mom.....I've got nothing against born again Christians as long as they are brilliant and can accept that converting me is beyond their ability, but mothers of small children I must live without.
(Honesty check: OK, it is possible to love a married woman, and I do, but doing anything with her that would violate her marriage vows is out.) (For me, that is. In a free country, what you do is up to you; neither I nor the government have any business in your bedroom.)

Two women I had a mad crush on in 7th grade (Norup Jr High School)

Lynn Levin and Jill Josephson (I'm not sure about Jill's last name): These were two of the most intelligent women I ever met; they should both have had very successful lives. As my parents moved to another city after my 7th grade, I never saw either again.

Actually, the most wonderful woman I ever met was my ex-wife. She was very honest and decent and very intelligent, but unfortunately she met Mr. Right AFTER she married me. Oh well, live and learn........

I do not believe in Internet relationships, but I did meet a woman through ICQ first, then in real life, who I love who I used to live with , named Hillary(also a member of Mensa) , pictured below, also her cat PK, and my cat Cleopatra (Cleo is a tough dark brown tabby, PK is a longhaired orange tabby).

I love cats; once when I was married I had a show quality seal point Balinese and four "regular" housecats; I believe that cats are far more intelligent and independent than dogs. (PLUS, they know how to use the kitty litter box!!)(You can actually leave them alone for a weekend without having to worry about coming home to a mess.)

Hillary's philosophy of money:
1. All money not needed for bare subsistence belongs to casino owners.
2. Any excess money must be turned over to casino owners through a procedure called "gambling".
3. Anyone who selfishly hoards excess money should be relieved of it so it can be restored to its' rightful owners.

Hillary's Philosophy of Money is a version of the general "Whats mine is mine, whats yours is ours" idea:
Deanna's (and my ex-wife's) Philosophy of Money:
1. All money belonging to men belongs to women.
2. Men who selfishly hoard money should "loan" it to women.
3. Women need not repay "loans". Women are Princesses and need not return what was always rightfully theirs. Men exist to serve women, after all.
4. A "Deanna" is morally superior to a "Hillary".

CONSCIOUS CONTACT: BRAIN, MIND AND ADDICTION (explains the biological and psychological nature of addiction).

A great place to flush other peoples' money down the toilet in Las Vegas is Charlies' Outhouse!
If you run out of other peoples' money, get one of them to give you a credit card with your name and their acct number, and take IT to The Golden Outhouse.

Now, if
A. Casino owners know that some percentage of their customers are compulsive gamblers, and
B. They also know that some percentage of compulsive gamblers steal or otherwise use illegal activities to finance their gambling, and given that
C. It is illegal to knowingly receive and use stolen property.
D. Are casino owners guility of aiding and encouraging illegal behavior by compulsive gamblers?
E. Are casino owners guilty of knowingly receiving stolen property?

Of course, not all gamblers become compulsive gamblers! The Responsible Gambling Council has a page called Responsible Gambling Tips which shows how non-addicts CAN gamble for fun.

There is some hope for the Hillarys of Nevada. The Nevada Gaming Commission has its Regulation 5.170 , which enables problem gamblers to (in a lucid moment) "self-limit" themselves at a casino by adding themselves to a list of people to be denied essential gambling services like check cashing.

Gamblers! Join Hillary in her one-person No millionaire casino owner left behind program!

For years after being divorced, I looked for that "right woman". I had found her, but like the other times I thought I had, it did not last. I now seriously believe that I met the "right woman" quite by chance, and she dumped me! (Note: One woman I have met post-divorce that I might marry now has made me promise never to ask!)(Another had declared that she would never get married again!! She was hoping to outlive her ex-husband and collect on his Social Security, but you can't collect if you remarry.)

Things I am SICK of:

I am sick to death of lying, hypocritical people:
1. Women who say "in sickness and in health", "for better, for worse", "until death do us part", etc. and really only mean "in health" and "for better" and "until someone else comes along". Liars!
2. Women who say "if you loan me $1,000, I will pay you back." Liars!
3. Women who say "I'm the most virgin virgin you have ever met." Liars!
4. Women who say, "Yes, I did dump your son, but if you loan me $500, I will pay you back." Liars! What other lie did you tell them? Bet it was a whopper!
5. People who say we have freedom to practice our religion in the USA, but add, "unless you are an elected public officeholder, like former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore." Hypocrites! (Come on, folks, displaying the Ten Commandments is not an establisment of religion, or a symbol of Christianity as a State Religion. The Ten Commandments were given to Moses, as leader of the Jews on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land: there have even been those who maintain that the Ten Commandments are not binding on Christians, an idea that was condemned by the Roman Catholic Council of Trent, session VI, canon 19. And why is it bad to have this display at the Alabama Supreme Court, but perfectly acceptable to have the Ten Commandments in the US Supreme Court? )
6. MakeBelieveChristians* who pretend that their "Word of God" only applies to OTHER people. Hypocrites!
*MakeBelieve, LetsPretend Christians go to church every Sunday, give money to the Church, go through all the "correct" motions, but never read what their Jesus said, "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46, KJV)(If you dont like the archaic KJV phrasing, here is the same verse in three modern versions.)(For Roman Catholics, here is Luke 6 in the Douay-Rheims version on a Catholic website .) Yes, yes, for a nonreligious person I DO know a lot about what it says in the Bible. I just don't understand how someone can think that Jesus was God, and think that the words of Jesus are accurately recorded in the Holy Bible, and then just ignore what Jesus said. Its MakeBelieve and LetsPretend, games usually played by small children.

Military stupidity:

This paragraph was inspired by the History Channel's "Great Blunders in History" series:
Gallipoli, a WW1 attempt by the British and Australians to capture a location defended by a far superior Turkish force.
MORE STUPIDITY TO COME! (Actually, looking for military stupidity is like looking for green grass: there is so much of it it's easy to find!)(Obvious stupidity: the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union in WW2(repeating the French blunder of invading Russia in 1812); the Germans grossly underestimating the effect of the Russian Winter, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; the Japanese grossly underestimating the effect of Air Power and Aircraft Carriers.)(They thought Battleships would be decisive.)
Ode to military stupidity: The Charge of the Light Brigade!(This poem really bothers me. You are a hero if you blindly follow a stupid order and get yourself killed? By that logic, all the Germans who followed orders and froze to death at Stalingrad were heros.)

Anyone who has read through this whole web page might also like: 714 Things to Be Cynical About! (Yes, I have read them all; there is great wisdom in this list.)

This web page was created by Fred Beeman's Imaginary Magic God(FBIMG), another faux God like the Invisible Pink Unicorn(IPU), the Flying Spaghetti Monster(FSM), the Roman god Jupiter, and the Greek god Zeus, created by humans to explain where everything came from. I am told that Fred does not believe in the most widely accepted version, Abraham's God(AG).
Fred's argument for the existence of his IMG is a restatement of Aquinas' Second Way: The way of CAUSATION Fred missed his calling! He would have been a great (Roman Catholic) Thomist theologian.

Remember the song, My Girl, which was remade as "My God" for the movie Sister Act? How about another remake called "Fred's God"? Religion is supposed to comfort people, right?
"I've got sunshine on a cloudy day
When it's cold ioutside, I've got the month of May.
Well, I guess you'll say
What can make me feel this way?
Fred's God!"

"When you believe in things you don't understand,.
You will suffer,
Superstition ain't the way! -Superstition

Hey, Fred....yes, I know Fred in Real Life....if your God was smart enough to create everything from nothing, why wasn't he/she/it smart enough to realize that the humans he/she/it created were really going to f**k up the planet? Why didn't he/she/it give us a list of rules like other IMGs do?

Part 2 Rev. 1/27/12