first, start with the government structure we (in the united states) have. it has its kinks and inefficiencies, but it basically works. then fill it with the following:

in the house of representatives, centrists. communists and fascists strictly verboten.

in the senate, leftists. i'll stop short of saying downright baby-eating marxists but part of me wants to.

in the courts (especially the supreme court), conservatives all the way. i hate the phrase 'strict constructionist' but the shoe fits.

for president, someone who is simultaneously 1. not affiliated with either party of the current two-party system, 2. ideologically libertarian, 3. economically paleoconservative, 4. socially progressive, 5. an actual scientist, and 6. neutral good in the i-roll-twenties etymology (which naturally eliminates any sith lords—huzzah!).

an independent and unmolested media armed with the much-hyped shield law.

and finally, for every single state and local office in the entire nation, from governor to county comptroller, this guy. (though as a condition of his holding office, he must uphold his election-season promise to frickin' blog more, yo.)

elections are instant runoff and are fewer and farther between, with single-term limits at every level.

there is, of course, always more, but this is the gist. in my head this guarantees that the government itself finds the balance between current and stable. pipe dream? oh yes, but a healthy one.

r.i.p. habeus corpus, 1305-2006

but don't cry, because you didn't really need it. it was only a goddamned piece of paper! that ridiculous bit of nonsense was just tying the hands of the judicial process and playing into the hands of the terrorists, the only ones it was protecting. endangering you, protecting them, don't you see?


…normally it's all fun and games until someone yells 'gestapo', but ask yourself: what happens when you become the next "them"?

(via, via²)

here's what i've been up to.

only now, for the first time ever, am i listening to a cd i got months ago. months! okay, here's why. the album is actually four cds meant to be played simultaneously. the logistics of this are challenging at best, but the result is worth it. except for the weird screaming in track 2. and the dogs at the end. get three friends with speakers and party down.

playing battle for middle-earth makes my head spin. sure it's a big advertisement for the movie trilogy, but it's a dang fun one. and dang pretty. you can't go wrong with mumakil and grond and ents. dang dang.

and i just finished the farseer series by robin hobb. i got an unwanted spoiler when i started, and then it turned out to be completely false. i kept waiting for a certain person to die and then the person kept not dying, and not dying, and in the end, finally didn't die. it was all very confusing.


our prospects involving countries east of the atlantic improve daily. hopefully this won't turn out like the failed las vegas bid last spring. hopefully medical conditions remain as they are. unlike last spring. though we might have saved ourselves the hassle of a national security letter, so maybe it all works out in the end. the bright sides just keep getting darker these days.



there's some bad news. jesus was trampled at wal-mart by middle america stampeding toward the 'half-price tripe made in china holiday sale' table.


dear jesus,

i'm sorry we always forget to invite you to your birthday party every year.

love,
matt.

har. now that i have sucked you in with the polarizingly political title i'd like to share some utterly offtopic things with you. you see, i had an altogether odd day at the office and i've been itching to tell someone.

to start, there was an unwrapped prophylactic sitting outside the door to the office when i arrived. cute.

then there were the electricians who put some bulbs in some sockets that have not had bulbs in them the entire time i've worked where i do. we now seriously have to squint when we come in out of the sunshine.

and the ongoing soap opera relationship between level3 and cogent made the online portion of my day extremely exciting (read: frustrating). i begin to fear for the stability of the internet when power sufficient to wreak this sort of havoc finds its way into any one (or two?) company's hands. any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. and since it's kind of what we do there, my boss and coworkers were obliged, though less than pleased, to stay up half the night trying to fix something they couldn't.

but everything worked out in the end; my leather jacket squeaked every time i moved and it made me feel a happiness that no internet outage could darken. (well, maybe one internet outage.)

i perceive that a certain wife of mine has trouble understanding a certain dichotomy in my life.

today on the way to work i was plugging a podcast i subscribe to. here's the skinny. it's called skepticality. it reports under-reported news, debunks myths/mysticism/pseudoscience, disseminates critical thought, and (in my opinion) generally promotes quality and discourages crap. it fits me because i try to maintain a skeptical worldview.

i mentioned to her one early episode in which they had discussed the religious philosophies of the framers of the united states government. the thrust of that episode was: most of them were deists, and contrary to popular opinion, did not espouse or endorse any sort of religion or theology. they certainly didn't form religion, much less one specific religion, as the foundation of the state.

there was a certain amount of excitement in my voice i'm sure, because the above is a common misconception (if not blatant untruth) and it was being clarified via a pretty popular channel. though i didn't go into so much depth with her, i gave her the overview. her response, and the last thing she said to me before getting out of the car, was 'sometimes i swear you're an atheist,' not spoken in a flattering tone. [aside:

she independently arrived at the same conclusion when she read what i wrote about the non-science of intelligent design, about which i've gone into greater detail below at no extra cost to you.]


i'd like to try to set the record straight here, partially for mrs matt, partially for personal clarification of thought, and partially so you can figure out who i am (because i honestly have no idea). so at the risk of losing friends but with the hope of enlightening them, here's what i believe. now with extra candor.

i am a scientist—not only by education but also by philosophy: i try very hard to form conclusions from evidence; it's very hard for me to give credence to claims or arguments for which i can't see any support. i'm certainly not perfect in this respect, as i'm sure you have seen in the past, but i do the best i can.

because the universe appears in so many ways to be 15 billion years old, i believe the universe to be 15 billion years old. because of the cosmic background radiation and because the universe appears to be expanding, i believe the big bang theory is accurate.

because individuals (not just human individuals; i'm talking about everything living) who are poorly adapted to their environs are less likely to survive and subsequently less likely to pass their genes along, the good genes of a species get distilled into individuals of successive generations. since mutations from various sources are occurring continuously, existing genes are not static. the process is recursive with continuously new genetic material. i believe the theory of evolution is accurate, though i believe it fails to explain the absolute origins of Life As We Know It™.

because i believe in cause and effect, and because the universe is a very large effect that demands a very large cause (ex nihilo, nihilo fit), i believe in big-g God, who created the universe.

yes, that's right. i believe in God, and i believe that God created the universe, but i do not think the theory of intelligent design (id) should be taught as a scientific cosmology, alternative or not:

firstly: i.d. by its construction is not scientific, in that it defines itself to be irrefutable and claims everything as supporting evidence. the body of science is based on the idea of falsifiability.

secondly: science curriculum is not equipped to deal with God, just as religion is not equipped to deal with meson interactions or the properties of neurotransmitters.

thirdly: the discussion of religiously charged topics is well within the jurisdiction of concerned parents. proponents of id hold that alternative theories of origins be given equal time in science classes; if every alternative theory of origins were to be explained in school, students wouldn't have time to learn anything else. i wholeheartedly believe that varying viewpoints should be offered in every field of knowledge, and kids should make up their own minds, but not everything is solely the job of teachers.

furthermore, choosing which religions' cosmologies are taught in governmentally funded schools is precisely equal to respecting a religion. [aside: guess how i feel about separation of church and state. go on, guess. i'll give you three guesses.]


i'm a fan of the split-brain theory. the left hemisphere is pointy: it is good at solving linear problems, for understanding details and deducing. it balances your checkbook. it's algorithmic. the right hemisphere is round: it sees wholes, it intuits, abstracts, inducts. it hopes. it is heuristic. and connecting the two is the corpus callosum, the largest nerve in the human body. it's about as wide as three or four fingers lined up, though it's usually thicker in women than in men.

the point is this: the only way i can make some sense of the universe is by thinking of it with both hemispheres. i parse science with the left side and religion with the right side. between the two is a tenuous connection too thin to allow much cross-communication (in small amounts and only when needed). it's kept me alive and sane so far.


so. what does this make me? rhetorically speaking, of course.

and they said the war on terror (or drugs, or iraq, or dentists) was unwinnable. right.

tonight i became a card-carrying member of the aclu. stereotype me as you will, but i stand up for what i believe in (or at least fund those who do).

(with respect to the preceding entry)

if they mess with us
if we think they might mess with us
if we say they might mess with us
if we think we need a war
we need a war

(fischerspooner)