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I've been told by many a Republican lately that instead of quarrelling over petty things like "right" and "wrong", we should Unite with one another and fight the enemy (democrats) with our combined strength. What they really mean, though, is that I should join their Republican party.

I may share a lot of the same values as many of my Republican friends, but I can't join a party whose actions make them almost indiscernible from liberals. They may say they want things a certain way (IE, no Department of Education, constitutional judges, secure borders — the list goes on), but the desire to become re-elected and to be liked by the American public seems to rule their actual decisions. I can't be part of something so compromising.

If the Republican party acted like they actually were fighting the "bad guys", instead of just talking about it all the time, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Something for you Republicans to work on, I guess.

This lady named Arianna Huffington (an ex-Republican [I know, I know - what's wrong with that?] columnist who tried to run against Arnold in 2004) has decided to jump on the bandwagon and launch the very first liberal blog with substantial readership (I think she's trying to counter Drudge, although he doesn't exactly have a blog). This blog will supposedly contain about 250 contributors, the most notable being Gwyn Paltrow and Walter Cronkite. I'll give it a try when it goes public (9 May), but I'm not so optimistic it'll be something I read as often as Drudge.

That's a picture of UWF's Fort Walton Beach campus, where I will be headed this afternoon to pick up a couple of books for my first graduate class, which starts 2 weeks from yesterday. I'm going for my MBA, but I didn't know that until last Friday, when I was accepted to UWF's MBA program and registered for two summer classes before even fully completing my application. I still haven't even taken the GMAT, which I need a 450 on in order to qualify for the program. I took a practice exam Sunday night and made a 445. I really need to sharpen my math skills.

So, in three years or so I'll have an MBA (hopefully). Then what?



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Class Schedule for SUMMER 2005:

MAN6156 Management and Organizational Behavior
Term: B 5/9-6/21
Meet: M W 05:30 - 08:55 PM
Loc: Eglin Afb Center

ACG6309 Accounting Aspects of Business Policy Determination
Term: C 6/23-8/5
Meet: M W 05:30 - 08:55 PM
Loc: Eglin Afb Center

I was exposed to a brief conversation Monday night about the tendency of people to make their decisions based on statistics (kind of like Ben Stiller's character in Along Came Polly, but less exaggerated). We love to be told by scientists and doctors and politicians what to do and how to do it. Some of us don't smoke because 5 million or so people have died from it, or because 90% of lung cancer cases in men and 80% in women are supposedly caused by smoking, or because 46% of male high school dropouts smoke. We are told that people in accidents who don't wear their seatbelts are more likely to die, and that red wine is good for your heart, or that it isn't, and that video games cause real-life violence. Now the CDC is saying that overweight people are actually at a lower risk of death than average-weighing people. Maybe this stuff is true, maybe it isn't, but I do know that the people who release these "facts" are always changing their minds. I'm tired of trying to keep up.

Google Maps' new satellite service

I've been trying to say this all day. I'm not Catholic but I know what they believe, and I know what governs them, and it's their interpretation of the Bible and Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior and that's it and His Word is it and there's no changing His Word! It would be no different than if instead of the pope dying if Jesus Christ came back down here and Christiane Amanpour said, "Do you plan on changing what you believed in order to become relevant in the modern world?" (Amanpour impression:) "The American people say that what you stand for, Mr. Jesus Christ, is way behind the times." It's silly. It's absolutely silly. But I guarantee you, that's what would happen. You know what would be a great novel? I don't know that anybody's done this. I'm not qualified. I'm not learned enough nor educated enough to do it, and I don't know that I have the stick-to-itiveness to apply myself to it, but I can give you a great, great novel idea. Now, I mentioned this to somebody the other day and they said, "Oh, the guy that wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull tried it in the book that followed," and I said, "Well, since I haven't heard about it, it must not be very good." So let me mention the idea. Try this concept. The actual Jesus Christ arrives on earth, identifies himself, explains why he's here. The novel is: How would this be received? How long would it take before this guy is himself stoned to death? How long would it take before the media started doing hit pieces on this guy? How long? What would the reaction be? What would he do to prove it?

In this day and age, can you imagine, Jesus Christ actually reappearing, not the Second Coming, just reappear. Well, make it the Second Coming, whatever. Can you imagine the reaction around the world? Forget around the world, just stick with America. Can you imagine all of the different people that would be demanding all kinds of proof that wouldn't believe anything? As I say, it would be brilliant concept, if somebody qualified and learned enough to do this. It would be fascinating, because you know as well as I do that the number of people who would be scared out of their wits and would be doubting this and would be doing anything they could to disapprove it would gear up like they've never geared up before. I've often wondered what the reaction would be. Now, I'm taking this in a strict sense. I understand that many of you think, "Hey, if that happened, there wouldn't be any doubt." I'm telling you, there would be. I don't care what happened, there would be people that would start trying to disprove it. You just know, and it's those people and their reactions, their attempts to refute it all, deny it all, are what fascinate me or what would fascinate me in a novel.

While researching a little trip to Thailand for later this year, I came across the website of a young Buddhist monk from Thailand who writes for the Bangkok Post. It seems to be the most thorough blog-type site I've seen, covering basically every aspect of this guy's life you can think of - school, photos, girlfriend, culture, family, religion, marriage, travel, a timeline of his life and more - from childbirth till today. Most of us tend to publish only small pieces of stuff about ourselves, but this guy's gone all out. If I had the time, I think something like this would be fun to do.

   Okaloosa Avenue, Valparaiso, FL, in 1921 (facing East)

This one you may not want to spend to much time on, I'm afraid. Too much "poetry".

Interesting article on the hopelessly ridiculous efforts of the Left to de-throne Matt Drudge.

Trinity-ers:

Be Jolly For Girls!
.brodie
Down to a Sunless Sea
For the Love of Incense
God will honor those who honor Him
joebrodie
September in '86
What Is and What Should Never Be

Family:

coffeemagic
Notes from Little Spain
Omnis Viperas Mortum Est

People I Know IRL:

A Soldier's Story
Beautiful Feet
CARDCO
CARPE DIEM
frecklejess
keepin up
Peace, Love & Penguins
Ponderings by Brittany
Rod Martin
Scottie's Life

People I Don't Know IRL:

Barlow Farms
The Blog of Josiah Q. Roe
doodlepost
Next-To-Last Song
Razing the Bar

Music:

Asthmatic Kitty
Gorilla vs. Bear
Paste
Pitchfork
Stereogum
WOXY
You Ain't No Picasso

Version: 4.2
(January 12, 2007)