Freedom: Now More Than Just A Word--Only $19.95 plus s+h

It is often asked, "What is this thing called 'freedom'?" Freedom to me means being able to do whatever I want with impunity as long as I do no harm to others.

Presidential Candidate Ron Paul says tyranny is ancient, and that by comparison America and its ideals are brand new. I am deeply troubled by the authoritarian direction in which my country seems headed. I deeply fear that the very ideals of freedom and liberty our country was founded on will be used and abused by those, too pessimistic of the soul of humanity to persevere, to institute a totalitarianism even the Nazis would shudder to think of, a depotism those who fancy dictatorship in 'less free' countries would never dream of. Those familiar with Alex Jones's work know what I'm talking about.

This is why I play my little role as a cog in the wheel of righteousness (as opposed to 'self-righteousness') by doing what I can for my second family at Seattle Hempfest. I don't think I could ever be a part of a group that loves me as unconditionally as these folks do. Though a lazy stoner never doing as much for the cause as I wish I could, I will be down at Myrtle Edwards Park this weekend (18-19-AUG-2007) to do what I can to turn the tide. Please join me between 10am and 7pm on those days.

P.S. Alex Jones, please be nice to Michael, he plays the "Bush is an idiot" card because no one would take his films seriously, he never talks about the "hardcore 9/11 issues" because it would be easier for news outlets like the Nazi-sympathizers at Fox to portray him as at the fringes of the political spectrum. That "wouldn't be American" as he has explained plainly to you. He wants the mainstream like you do. Kiss n' make up for fuck's sake.

Poor UI Design of the Week Award Goes to Microsoft

Upon recently starting my MSN Spaces account I was happy that I could, in an automated fashion, not only add the covers of my favorite CDs and DVDs to my profile, but I could also have my Amazon.com Associates ID pulled in with those hyperlinked images, earning me money if anyone buys through those links.

The problem comes when trying to maintain the specific sequential order of a media list while adding entries to the middle of the list. Adding an entry puts it automatically at the top of the list. It is an unbelievable hassle to get that entry in its proper place further down while maintaining the list's order, you would have to experience this typical Microsoft bungling to understand it.

While I still recommend MSN Spaces as a small, ancillary component of your online presence only because it is from Microsoft and you need multiple social networking accounts to establish as many contacts as you can, this problem with ordering media combined with only a few content options for my public area make MSN Spaces even worse than MySpace. Facebook is still the best, even though MySpace is more popular.

My Favorite Tracks from The Mollusk by Ween:

• 7 - It's Gonna Be (Alright)
• 5 - Mutilated Lips
• 4 - I'll Be Your Jonny on the Spot
• 13 - Ocean Man
• 1 - I'm Dancing in the Show Tonite

I started a blog because I feel like I have a lot to say, and a lot to share, with the world. I don't really know how to start a blog, so I hope you'll bear with me. I hope you think what I say is interesting.

In my life I hope to accomplish lots of things, but my greatest wish is that when God decides it's my time, I leave this world a little better than it was when I got here. I know it's a cliche. But I hope, by the grace of God or Buddha or whatever, that the world experiences a net gain from my visit here.

To that end, I am starting many websites that I think (and hope) will be of interest to people, and connecting those websites together a la Google or Windows Live. I can't tell you very much more about these sites until they come into existence lest my ideas get stolen.

I will also start a non-profit which my business will donate to for tax minimization purposes. The not-for-profit will be one-tenth wholistic homeless outreach and nine-tenths a private space program.

The non-profit will send people out to the streets to find people who need real, life-changing help. Every social service organization that I've ever seen wants to help people enough so they can say they're doing something, but they don't want to help so much that no one needs their help anymore and they can't justify their next round of funding.

My organization will be different. What I mean by 'wholistic' is that we will identify people we can help, and we will try to take care of all their needs. If someone is living on the streets because they are not skilled enough to earn the money required for living, they need training. In order to successfully complete training they need a stable, safe place to live. In order to study they need to not have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. They will study better if they are healthy. They will focus on their goal of a better life if their psychological needs are being met.

So the homeless outreach part will feed employees to my business and to its space program division, whose goal will be to make space travel available to all who want to go, no matter what socioeconomic status. I firmly believe that if we do find sites on the the Moon, Mars, and other rocky bodies where we can settle and begin seriously building metropolitan infrastructure, they will come, like the old saying goes.

I believe that by finding better ways to solve the problems of spaceflight, especially in regards to figuring out how to use scarce resources more efficiently, those solutions will be brought back to Earth to both save our environment and accommodate our huge population.

I hope I live long enough to see the first human baby born somewhere other than Earth—in orbit, on the Moon, or Mars—for then I will be able to die a happy man knowing that the immortality of my species is pretty much in the bag.

Thank you for reading my blog, I hope you enjoy the ride.