Azalin

this is only the second post of mine in the last 8 or 9 years....instead of remaining active, I like to come by here and read the back & forth between everyone, especially while taking my lunch break. I must say that this is the first time in quite a long time that I felt compelled to say much of anything, but I just had to jump in here and tell you how much I enjoy reading your posts. they are easily one of the highlights of this forum. please, do not stop....you are proving to me that PP&P can be even greater than I had hoped. bravo, sir

at least there are people whose vote can't be bought, who display a clear understanding of the shortcomings of their candidate's opponent. http://youtu.be/zQoc-1roqxY

long time, no posts everyone. I have almost zero time to join in the fun over here anymore, and the internet policy and firewall at work have long ago muzzled my work-a-day rants. I'm going to do my best to set aside what time I can to be more sociable, if for no other reason that I actually miss a lot of you guys ( no PC correction necessary....that's 'you guys' in the same way that Texans use ' y'all ' .....I am from Buffalo after all). I'll just toss out one bomb at a time, so this post will cover a few tidbits on global warming. first of all, people like Al Gore like to use the word 'concensus' when speaking of the beliefs of a segment of the scientific community. I would point out that there is a concensus of scientists that believe that humans have evolved from apes. maybe we did, maybe not.....the theory of evolution is just that- a theory. once it becomes 'Darwin's Law' the concensus becomes fact, not before. my problem is that there are a lot of things that are continually overlooked or just plain ignored, such as: earth's polar ice caps are shrinking, but they're doing so at the same rate as the polar ice caps on mars. unless there are martians running fossil-fueled power plants and driving SUVs, I would suggest that we hold off a bit and not jump to any conclusions about such activities here on earth. polar bears are not drowning. they can (and do) swim for many miles in arctic waters, up to 100 miles or so. polar ice caps melting will have little to no effect on rising ocean levels. water is the only substance on earth that expands as it solidifies (freezes). that's why you see people putting floats in their swimming pools over the winter months. if they didn't, the ice would break open the sides of the swimming pool. consequently, when ice melts back into a liquid state it loses volume. try this experiment some time: fill a glass full of ice and then pour water into it. pour the water gently all the way to the top of the glass, so that a portion of the ice raises above the glass. then just allow the ice to melt. no water will overflow as the ice melts, because as it liquifies, it loses volume. ice bergs do the same thing.....so will the north pole. ocean levels will rise somewhat, but only due to melting snow and ice found closer to sea level. high altitude snowcaps will need a hell of a lot more of a temperature increase than a few degrees over two hundred years to even turn slushy. there may be some legitimacy to the 'rising oceans' scenario, but not to the extent that is currently being panicked over. CFCs are heavier than air. they will not effect atmospheric ozone, becaue they can't get high enough in the atmosphere to reach the ozone. there is no 'ozone layer'. why is this crap being taught? there is ozone in our atmosphere.....a lot of it. you'll find it primarily from a height of approximately 4km above sea level extending upward to around 40km. ozone is made by the sun. the ultraviolet rays split molecular oxygen (O2) into atomic oxygen (O). each individual 'O' then bonds itself to another oxygen molecule to form ozone (O3). as long as we have both oxygen and the sun, we'll have a healthy ozone-making machine. there has been an increase of around 11% in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the last decade or so. that's 11% of what was already there, not 11% of the atmosphere itself. some may well be due to humanity, some is definitely due to the increased volcanic activity in recent years. the total CO2 content is still a tiny (very tiny) portion of the total atmospheric content. the biggest greenhouse gas by far (accounting for over 90% of all greenhouse gas) is water vaopr. want to do something about reducing the CO2? get off of people's backs for what they drive and put some plants out on your patio....they're 24-hour-a-day CO2 to O2 conversion machines. if everyone was to do that there'd be a significant and positive effect on the atmosphere. most oxygen does not come from 'rain forests' (remember when we called them jungles? 'rain forest sounds so much more delicate, don't you think?). the bulk of our oxygen comes from oceanic algea. keep the oceans clean. I'll have to continue this at a later time, hopefully soon. it's good to stop by and rattle the cage a little bit, and I hope everyone here is doing okay. be good, have fun, and screw socialism.

well said......I've never understood why anyone would find the notion of a same sex relationship to be attractive, but that aside, I share your view. I couldn't have stated it any better myself.

they probably passed on the goats because they were scared that their sheep would become jealous.

I remember where at one time they were also offering to pay the equivilent in goats as a reward, but that was back before they upped the ante to 25 mil.

the UN has pretty much turned into an organization devoted to filling the void of opposition that was left when the USSR crumbled. what does it matter who heads it? don't get me wrong......I voted for his resignation. he should go, and take the whole UN with him. let them meet somewhere else if they're going to devote themselves to opposing the US at every turn while using policy decisions to line their and their family members' pockets.

gee.....why bother to teach a little personal responsibility when society and peer pressure are such perfect scapegoats? you must be one of those that like to rock the boat. you trouble maker, you

maybe they'll always be a step ahead of us. I still wouldn't let that stop me from doing my best to teach them what I believe to be right. I have no children, so it's all very easy for me to say, but I strongly suspect that I'd rather be the primary source of my childrens' sex education instead of leaving it to be taught exclusively by some teacher that I didn't know. I always respected my teachers, but I always felt that my parents were wiser.

I've discussed it with people because I should have been a father years ago, and I regret very deeply what we did. I want to know if I'm the only one who feels that way. so far, I'm not.

I agree wholeheartedly. SP is the ONLY show I make it a point to watch. every episode that's not part of the 5 DVD box sets I have on VHS. their timing was just as good back when the Elian Gonzales-Janet Reno storming of the house happened. three days after Elian was snatched by the feds, SP aired the episode with the Romanian Quintuplets. Janet Reno stormed Stan's house dressed as the Easter Bunny carrying eggs full of tear gas. it may be a direct indication of just how twisted my sense of humor is, but SP is, for my taste, the funniest TV show since Monty Python's Flying Circus.

ingnoring abstinence as part of a sex education curriculum on the basis that some will have sex anyway is like not teaching math to them since not all will grow up to be engineers. a well-rounded sex education course will include all the usual reproductive biology, but there's nothing wrong with showing children the myriad ways that their lives will be nearly ruined by becoming teenage parents. it also wouldn't hurt to stress that a woman's right to choose actually begins with their decision to keep their panties on. if they choose to ignore that advice, then there's no one to blame but themselves. when teens ingulge in 'adult' activities, they need to realize that such activities usually carry 'adult' consequences.

it all comes down to one thing: at what point does an individual recognize a fetus as a baby? those who consider a fetus at any stage of development within the first two trimesters to be an 'unviable tissue mass' more easily accept the legality of abortion. those who believe that a fetus is actually a baby at any stage of development following the fertilization of the egg consider abortion to be an act of murder. it's worth it to take the politics out of it and do a little soul searching on this particular issue. I know plenty of people who could have been parents and decided not to go through with it. I have yet to hear a single one of them say that they think they did the right thing. maybe others here do know such people, but I don't.

thanks....that's nice of you to say. I've never really considered economy as an early motivation for marriage, but you may well be right. my guess would have been that marriage originally came about due to the desire to not share a mate with anyone else. back in the year 160,000 BC it would have been an effective ploy to make a cave-lady believe that if she wasn't faithful to Grogg, the god of mastadons and lightning would become angry in a fearsomely manifest fashion. you never know....

you know, we really don't seem to disagree very much, at least on principle. we both resent intrusion, especially from groups, people, or politicians that tend to oppose our own personal beliefs. I can't fault anyone for being like that. your example that I quote is especially interesting to me for several reasons. I hold nothing against gay people at all, in fact my own personal belief is that their preferences are their own business, just as mine are to me. I've thought about this specific issue a great deal since GW has proposed a constitutional ammendment to define marriage as strictly being between a man and a woman. I have never heard a proposed constitutional ammendment that I like, and I truly do not like this one that's meant to define marriage. that being said, let me spell out what I've been considering on this. marriage goes way, way back....much further into the past (obviously) than the founding of our nation and the authoring of the constitution, and it's roots are in religion. without getting too detailed about all the various types of marriage ceremonies throughout the ages, a modern American 'church wedding' is still based on taking vows before God. the state issues marriage liscences, making the union legal. still, in many people's (including mine) minds, marriage is based in religion. many of these religions do not recognize gay unions as even being thinkable....let alone tolerable. in this, it comes down to a very real conflict between church & state. who wins? they're supposed to be exclusive of eachother, so why do we even have both church and state involved in such a personal issue? to my mind, we shouldn't. I'm actually a bit surprised that this has never before been viewed as an imposition of state into personal religious affairs. the proposed ammendment is looked at by many as an interference into the writing of the constitution. on the surface, I might agree with that. there's one big problem though, and it's another element that I'm surprised that I hear coming from nobody else. the constitution very clearly outlines the seperation of powers and the system of checks and balances. the courts role is to make rulings based on the constitutionality of new legislation. when they make rulings that go beyond that role, they are in effect writing legislation of their own.....a violation of the seperation of powers. if the courts are going to meddle with something that has it's roots so deeply steeped in religion, and do their meddling by skirting the checks and balances that exist in the constitution, then I see no real problem with a constitutional ammendment being proposed to stop them. the courts can easily rule that gay couples can have a legal civil union with all the same benefits that traditionally married couples have, but they don't seem to want to do that. they appear to want to actually change.....or at least modify....the definition of marriage. they're robbing Peter to pander to Paul, and what they're trying to rob is something that has a very long history of being associated with religious practice, beliefs, and values......not to mention tampering with the affairs of church. if it were the other way around, people would be screaming 'injustice!' from all the major broadcast networks.

from the American perspective, facism is totalitarianism. nothing is greater anathema to American democracy/republicanism than facism, as you apparently agree with in your accurate assessment of what facism curtails with respect to freedoms. in addition, I wholeheartedly agree that considering the political climate of the world in those days, America's founders were a rather (I'd go so far as to say extremely) liberal bunch. it was completely unheard of to set up a nation where people could be independent in their method and choice of worship, occupation, and general way of life, while making the central authority not only answerable to, but drawing it's political might from, it's citizens. where we are going to disagree is with the notion that the founders were working within some type of bounaries between facism and socialism. for one, you can have socialism and facism married to create one govenmental set of rules....both Germany and Italy of WWII are examples of this. Hitler was a socialist, but he differed from the Soviet brand of communist socialism in that he didn't assume outright control of industry like the Soviets did. he preached duty and service to 'The Fatherland', implying to all that all that everyone did, they did in the name of and for the benifit of, Germany. another big difference between Germany's national socialism and the Soviet brand was that Hitler played really big on the notion that God was looking with favor on his nation. he allowed the continuance of the church due to both his personal belief that he was chosen to lead by divine providence, as well as having the spiritual leaders of the state support him. all praise for God and a unified Europe aside, Germany was still a socialist nation in the days of WWII, despite the 'right wing' nature of Hitler's absolute authority. I mention all that because I believe that Americans nowadays easily mistake what we might call 'right wing' and 'left wing' in America with what is 'right wing' and 'left wing' with respect to various forms of government around the world and throughout history. stated in the simplest terms, the general use of the term 'right wing' implies absolute state authority and left wing implies absolue power from /to the masses. in America....a nation built on extraordinarily liberal principles....the term 'right wing' implies a strict devotion to the literal interpretation of the constitution with the federal government taking a secondary role of authority to both the individual and the fifty states that comprise the nation. that is a very strict definition.....note that it does not include any of the 'forced morality' that we see from certain elements of the American right. in modern America, the term 'left wing' implies the belief that the central authority has supreme power, and that the federal government is the protector of our civil liberties....at least that's what the modern American left's philosophy appears to represent to me. I'm not trying to cloud the issue with these various definitions of right and left. it's just that I often see a marked difference between what a so-called leftist state (ie Soviet Russia) and my leftist buddies here in the states. absolute authority, totalitarianism, and far-right states are also completely different in nature frrom what is termed a right-wing American. in truth, a conservative, right-wing American holds ideals that are only less liberal than the philosophy held by anarchists. a conservative American is a very liberal person when you compare their political beliefs with those of people from any other nation. no disrespect intended, but I do not believe that this nation's founders built this country on ideas culled from a 'gray area' of any kind. I thnk the values that our constitution are built upon are very distinct and definitive. if the foundation of our nation was built on something so nebulous, it would have fallen apart long ago.

whatever their punishment, it should more accurately reflect that fact that if the poor little child survives the assault, their life is ruined. statutory rape is one thing (honestly, your honor.....she swore that she was 18) but pedophilia is quite another. forced sex with a pre-pubescent child is something that I could condemn the perpetrator to death for doing.

I have a problem with certain elements of the Patriot Act. even when it's 'justified', I fear that the feds are always too reluctant to relinquish their power after such intrusion is no longer needed. aside from that, my perception is that it isn't this administration that considers dissentors to be unpatriotic, but their unquestioning supporters. the Patriot act needs to be continually questioned & challenged so that it doesn't become permanent, and I truly believe that the people that fight against it are doing a greater deed than is often credited them......even though I usually find that such folks hold views that oppose my own in general. my implication as to which party more closely resembles national socialism was a poke at the left for their incessant efforts to curb capitalism in the name of such things as fairness and the environment.....thus the appearance of the true essence of national socialism: control of the activities of business and industry by the state. the image of the American conservative as a bible-toting, gun rack in-the-pickup-truck, corporate suck-up is as silly as considering all liberals to be commune-living, anti-capitalist, flag-burning, unpatriotic hippies. the epithet 'nazi' is too often hurled at a conservative because of a pre-concieved belief that they are all good old boys that hate anyone different because they fear losing control of the country......a description that fits a group like the KKK. if liberals feel that they want to win out over conservative beliefs, they first need to understand exactly who they are trying to defeat instead of pigeon-holing them all into a category that suits their arguement. a good rule of thumb is to look at this nation's founders: very strong on individual liberties, property rights, religious freedom, and free enterprise with a limited role of government. if somebody views any or all of the founders in a positive light, then they are in effect supporting a conservative philosophy.

exactly my point. nearly every one of my friends here in Austin is liberal, many of them extremely so. I've had the opportunity to discuss this at great lengths over a few rounds at a few of the local beer-joints and have had nearly complete success in making my point. often times, my liberal pals find that we share a lot more with regard to individual liberties and rights than they had previously thought, and that the greatest differences in our personal philosophies are based on idealism in how we would like to see society work. what I've learned is that it's hard to fault somebody for their wanting the world to be better. rose-colored glasses aren't always such a bad thing but you need to know when to take them off for a while.

well, howdy there stranger! I'm afraid that back when coach Williams took over the Bills, there were so many changes to the team that I lost my ability to speculate on the team's advantages & weaknesses. my Bills knowledge has always been based on a fan's familiarity with the team.....I've never had the analytical ability regarding football in general that so many others (including my bro) do. consequently, I faded from the Wall as a participant and took more of a 'lurker' role while spending most of my computer-time here at PP&P. the elections of 2000 made for some seriously interesting topical mattter, but after a while it all took on such a contentious manner that I began tiring of what seemed to be a completely futile conversation. around the same time my musical cohorts & I decided to ramp-up our songwriting & recording afforts. I started writing a lot of stuff that was actually beyond my ability to play, so I started putting in the time practicing as much as possible.....anywhere from three to seven hours a day. things are getting to the point now where some of our project material is starting to come together nicely and I can afford myself a little more time. I was delighted to see what The Wall has grown to become....it's a far cry from those days where the bricks were gone & you were having to deal with that OTHER COMPANY. just stopping by and slapping up a couple of posts has really rekindled the interest I used to have in mouthing off over here, so I'm glad to say that I'm planning to stick around again, even if I can only do so occasionally. it's good to talk to you , guy.....it's a safe bet that the conversation will continue.

why on earth do so many people continue to equate American conservatism with Naziism? over and over.....whenever the name calling starts.....conservatives are accused of being, or at least compared to, nazis. what kind of history books are these people reading? do they actually believe that swill, or is it just tasteless taunting? consider for a moment what the nazis were. the word 'nazi' is an acronym for the now-defunct German party known the 'national socialist german workers party'. the fundamentals of national socialism is supreme power by the state, allowing business and industry to operate only as a 'partner' with the government. business was regulated and controlled by the state.....there was no such thing as 'free enterprise'. American conservatism is 100% different....in fact, conservative monetary policy is such that it fights against most, if not all of, the regulations we have on business here already. which American philosphy most closely reflects the ideals of national socialism? it's not the conservatives. perhaps the term 'nazi' is hurled at conservatives because they stand strongly against entitlements. the accusation is often made that such a belief is detrimental to various minority communities....that things are bad enough in the inner cities as it is, and that cutting back on the availability of such entitlements as welfare is to turn our backs on the needy. the big problem with that whole arguement is that as it's often pointed out by those that support a strong welfare state, there are more white Americans on welfare than any other ethnic/racial group in the nation. that pretty much nukes the accusations of any racial insensitivity against conservatives with regard to entitlements. by contrast, proponents of the welfare state count the success of welfare largely on how many people are able to acquire it and stay on it as a guaranteed entitlement from the state......and they always run into the hoods and barrios to drum up support for their attempts to strengthen entitlements. how much more racist can you get? a conservative measures the success of an entitlement by how many people are able to grow out of the need for such stipends from the state. that doesn't sound too terribly racist to me, so I fail to make a connection between conservatives and nazis on this issue as well. could opponents of American conservatism be referring to our military strength and our willingness to use it? if so, they couldn't be more wrong. nazi Germany was an imperialist state....nobody seems to call them that anymore, but that's exactly what they were. imperialism is when a country invades another and literally absorbs that state into the 'empire'......Austria, Poland, Vichy France, etc. if America was an imperialist nation, besides our 50 states we'd also have, Mexico, Spain, England, Germany, Iraq, Kuwait, and every other nation we've been at war with represented on our flag with their very own star. we don't.....we're not imperialists. no valid nazi comparison there either. looking at it from another angle, the essence of the national socialism philosophy is one where the state itself is the supreme authority. the state dispenses rights to the constituency as well as restrictions. private property and personal privacy are always trumped by the state. what too many people fail to realize is that our constitution and first ten ammendments do not spell out what rights we as Americans are entitled to. what that document enumerates are all the areas that the government SHALL NOT EVER BE ABLE TO INFRINGE UPON. while the constitution doesn't credit a divine entity with the fundamental rights of our citizenry, the Declaration of Independence does: .....the seperate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God..... as well as the classic: .....We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the Persuit of Happiness- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...... this is the very essence of American conservatism, all wrapped up in the phrase 'from the consent of the governed'. it's important to understand that the rights guaranteed in the constitution are not meant to apply to private property....the state is supposed to have no jurisdiction there as long as no laws are being violated. these guaranteed rights are supposed to apply to public life....a fundamentally liberal philosophy. complete freedom of expression, whether unpopular, tasteless, religious, or whatever, is supposed to be our guaranteed right, uninfringable by federal, state, or local authority. a lot of American conservatives are guilty of attempting to supress such expression (a good example are those that wish to silence people like Ward Churchill or Howard Stern), but an equal amount of liberals are just as guilty (like with no public displays of religion and trumping private property rights in order to preserve an endangered moth). one side is at least as bad as the other in this regard, so can anyone claim to be less nazi-esque in their desire to impose upon the rest of the population? both examples look fairly equal in that regard from where I sit. which predominant American political philosophy most closely resembles naziism? well, which party/ideal more often looks to Washington and/or government for support, providence, laws, and standards? aside from a handful of people who are strict moralists with regard to public displays of indecency, it's not the conservatives. such comparisons are laughable and are a sign of a very tiny mind.

you may wish to try this site.....it looks pretty simple to use and fairly extensive in it's scope. http://hatbox.lib.virginia.edu/gtrchord/gtrchord I'll glady send you some tips if you'd like.....just PM me and I'll give you my email.

so you wasted even more time replying? hahahahahahaha!

I must have given a misimpression......I'm quite the right-winger, but I lack the pure partisanship that many enthusiasts embrace. as for the music, it's loud, mostly fast, a little bit dark, and very heavy on the guitars.

I come back after what.....two years at least.....and things are as strident as ever over here, especially the voices from the left. I wondered about that for a minute and then I remembered.....last time I was here there was actually a slight presence of ranking democrats scattered around Washington. gee....those rascally republicans must have found a way to brainwash a few million more Americans during the first Bush term. how else can we explain their losing seats in both houses of Congress again...as well as the reelection of a president who's critics couldn't find a kind word about him if it was written on a note and stapled to their faces? could it be that Americans are showing that they can make decisions based on reality and not on idealism? oh, say it isn't so. okay...that was a little of my classic sarcasm. I'm sure it hasn't been missed. I remember back when the board was young and we had former pres Clinton in office. what I don't remember is the note of hysterical panic in posts from the right.....sure, there was plenty of criticism for Clinton, but the outright hatred was minimal by comparison to the few posts I read before I logged-in. the main reason I stopped posting here was actually twofold: less & less time in my personal life due to increasing music & recording activity, and also the fact that I was bored sick with trying to discuss anything of political import with people who'd rather rip off one of their own nadgers than actually cede an occasional point to anyone of another political stripe ( without a doubt a form of biggotry). although I don't approve of a number of actions taken by the current administration, I vastly prefer their policy over anything that was presented in opposition during either of the last two elections. it would seem that the majority of Americans feel the same way. Hillary sees it.....look at her mad scramble to the center as of late. who are the current active Icons of the left? Kennedy & Pelosi....how less inluential & relevant can you get? I'll have to remember to stop by here whenever a new proposal or piece of legislation is put forward by Bush/the republicans. the shrillness in the howls of opposition will serve as a pretty good guage as to the potential effectiveness of such offerings from the right. by my experience, the louder the screams from the opposition, the better the policy put forth by this administration. .....and to all my old friends.....both those who agree with me and those who I've just annoyed.....best wishes in all you do. a special aside to KRC: it looks like a finished CD will be in your not-so-distant future. I'll stop back when I can. \00/