Waiting.....

Cool Clock <-- Click to check it out. Then click Back on your browser to return.

These last few days have been both wonderful and frustrating. Due date is Sunday, I've been believing all along that she'd be early. It sucks to wait through being wrong on your guess.
Next time I post, I should be a Dad. Unless the bugger stays in there for another week!!!!
It's 110 degrees in Redding all week long. I'd stay in there too. At a steady 98.6, it's actually cooler!

Keeping Track of the Whack in Iraq

I've been debating a few folks in an online forum for the past few days about the war in Iraq as well as the shellings in Israel and Lebanon. I thought it'd be just fine to spout a little and wait for some feedback.

Some things I should admit freely, I supported Afghanistan in the hopes of removing the Taliban (some early success but we haven't completed that mission yet), and tracking down and either killing or bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. (so far we've failed) I did not support the invasion of Iraq even though Hussein was clearly in violation of UN Resolutions and had been for some time. I saw him as no threat, and I was unconvinced by Powell's dog and pony show at the UN. It's ironic that among the Bush administration elite, he was the one I had the most respect for, perhaps for being the only one to have experienced battle, perhaps because I never considered him a career politician. Either way, I'm sure he'll look back on that episode of his life and feel regret.

I don't think Bush is a bad guy. Admittedly, I disagree with his ideas on religion, stem cell research, managing the war, and trouncing the Constitution. But I really believe that if you surrounded him with different people, you'd have an altogether different presidency. In short, I think he's a puppet. I don't hold that against him though as many folks do. ""If John Kerry were president, things would be worse!!!" -- I hear this all the time. You can't disprove a hypothetical. Yep, it's a conversation stopper. Seriously, how do you have a discussion with folks like that?

I don't buy the fear argument either. Never have. "They want to kill you Charles, they want to murder you and your family, etc." Blah blah blah. What good is it to live in fear all the time? the minute I start buying that garbage is the moment they have the upper hand. We take US army boots off the Arabian peninsula and tell Israel she's gotta go it alone and Haddji doesn't give a rip about you or me.

I don't care if Bush and his cronies made a bad sales pitch for the invasion of Iraq. I don't really care if it turns out that they knowingly lied. Politicians are not my heroes, I fully expect them to lie. I place blame at the feet of the US citizenry for being too gullible or uninformed to know better. I do get nauseated by the endless post facto arguments for and against this war. We're there. Let's do the job and get out.

I've told many folks this and I still believe it, if democracy takes hold in Iraq and 50 years down the road has a domino effect in middle east, history will be quite kind to Bush. If Islam can liberalize though the intervention of western ideas, the world will be a better place, no question about it. Do I think it has a chance? I'm not holding my breath. We can't kill them all. Correction, we can, we just won't.

I put the dead Iraqi photo up on the top on purpose. Don't like looking at it? Me either. But that's someone's brother, dad, son, friend. There's more where that came from. On both sides.

Arguments for the Existence of God

1. TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT
(1) God exists.
(2) If God exists, then if reason exists then God exists.
(3) Reason exists.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

2. COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(1) If I say something must have a cause, it has a cause.
(2) I say the universe must have a cause.
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

3. ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (I)
(1) I define God to be X.
(2) Since I can conceive of X, X must exist.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

4. ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (II)
(1) God exists.
(2) Since God exists, God must be perfect.
(3) That which is perfect must exist.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

5. MODAL ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(1) God exists.
(2) God, existing, is either necessary or unnecessary.
(3) God is not unnecessary, therefore God must be necessary.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

6. TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(1) Check out that tree. Isn't it pretty?
(2) Therefore, God exists.

7. ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES
(1) My aunt Helen was most likely to die from cancer.
(2) She didn't.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

8. MORAL ARGUMENT
(1) In my younger days I was a cursing, drinking, smoking, gambling, child-molesting, thieving, murdering, bed-wetting bastard.
(2) That all changed once I became religious.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

9. ARGUMENT FROM CREATION
(1) If evolution is false, then creationism is true, and therefore God exists.
(2) Evolution can't be true, since I lack the mental capacity to understand it; moreover, to accept its truth would cause me to be uncomfortable
(3) Therefore, God exists.

10. ARGUMENT FROM INTELLIGENCE
(1) Look, there's really no point in me trying to explain the whole thing to you stupid atheists -- it's too complicated for you to understand. God exists whether you like it or not.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

11. ARGUMENT FROM INTIMIDATION
(1) See this bonfire?
(2) Therefore, God exists.

12. DORE'S ARGUMENT
(1) I forgot to take my meds.
(2) Therefore, I AM CHRIST!!
(3) Therefore, God exists.

13. ARGUMENT FROM GUITAR MASTERY
(1) Eric Clapton is God.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

14. ARGUMENT FROM AMERICAN EVANGELISM
(1) Telling people that God exists makes me filthy rich.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

15. ARGUMENT FROM BLINDNESS
(1) God is love.
(2) Love is blind.
(3) Ray Charles is blind.
(4) Therefore, Ray Charles is God.
(5) Therefore, God exists.

16. ARGUMENT FROM SMUGNESS
(1) God exists.
(2) I don't give a crap whether you believe it or not; I have better things to do than to try to convince you morons.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

17. CALVINISTIC ARGUMENT
(1) If God exists, then he will let me watch you be tortured forever.
(2) I rather like that idea.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

18. ARGUMENT FROM UPPERCASE ASSERTION
(1) GOD EXISTS! GET USED TO IT!
(2) Therefore, God exists.

19. ARGUMENT FROM HIDDEN LOGIC (II)
(1) Atheists say that God doesn't exist.
(2) But they only say that because they want to look cool and
intellectual in front of their peers.
(3) They don't fool me!
(4) Therefore, God exists.

20. PEACOCK'S ARGUMENT FROM LIMITED VOCABULARY
1) You use lots of big words.
2) Therefore, I cannot possibly be expected to understand your refutation of my position.
3) Therefore, God exists.

21. ARGUMENT FROM DIVINE ECONOMICS
1) Protestant Christian nations are rich.
2) Therefore, God exists.

22 .ARGUMENT FROM TEEN/TWENTYISH CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT
1) God is so totally awesome, dude, and if you would pretend that Creed and POD were good bands, you would realize that.
2) Also, our Youth Group leader Skip once, like, cured a broken leg using only the power of the almighty Lord.
3) Therefore, God exists.

23. ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN
1) If there is a designer, then God must exist.
2) If I find a watch in a forest, there must be a designer
3) *throws watch into forest*
4) Therefore, God exists.

24. ARGUMENT FROM FUTURITY
1) I will prove the existence of God in the following argument.
2) Therefore, God exists.

25. ARGUMENT FROM PREFERRED ANCESTRY
1) I don't want to be related to monkeys.
2) Therefore, God exists.

26. ARGUMENT FROM PERSECUTION (II) / ARGUMENT FROM IDIOCY (I)
1) Jesus said that people would make fun of Christians.
2) I am an idiot.
3) People often point that out.
4) Therefore, God exists.

27. ARGUMENT FROM BIGOTRY (FRED PHELPS'S ARGUMENT)
1) The Bible says that anal sex is yucky.
2) I agree.
3) Plus, some gay people died of AIDS.
4) Therefore, God exists.

Dementia Pugilistica - My Top 5 P4P

Richard Brautigan and Lisa Fulk

My buddy Lisa has probably just squeezed little Elijah Fulk out into the world as I write this. Welcome Elijah.

Here's to a healthy baby and a quick recovery. Cheers!


About a hundred years ago, Lisa introduced me to the writings of Richard Brautigan. He's sometimes referred to as the last of the Beats. I think he has his own style and it stands solidly on it's own merit thank you very much. Revenge of the Lawn is a great read although his most popular work might be Trout Fishing in America. Check them out if you're looking for a great summer read. Here are two of his poems that I enjoy:


KARMA REPAIR KIT: ITEMS 1-4

1. Get enough food to eat, And eat it.

2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet, and sleep there.

3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself, and listen to it.

4.

---------------

Here's the other:

---------------

THE BEAUTIFUL POEM

I go to bed in Los Angeles

thinking about you.

Pissing a few moments ago

I looked down

at my penis affectionately.

Knowing it has been

inside you twice today

makes me feel beautiful.

3 A.M. January 15, 1967

The Invisible World. A Weapon?

Humans rally around ideas because they solve some of our problems, because they offer the biological blessings of the illusion of control, and because they are the threads that hold us together in the vast network of a superorganismic mind, weaving scattered individuals into a cooperative entity of awesome power and size. 200 years after the Fall of Rome, a merchant named Mohammed lived in the desert town of Mecca, a bleak and isolated community on a caravan route over which passed camels carrying goods to far-off, elegant cities like Damascus. At age 12, still an apprentice to his uncle, he traveled to Syria to learn the import-export business. At 25, he married a well-to-do woman and became a respected burgher; his ideas were listened to. He has a mid-life crisis at 39. He began to have visions. Sitting in a cave, praying, he claimed that he had been overwhelmed by a blinding light, and the angel Gabriel had grabbed him an a great hug and forced him to recite a message from God. From that day forward, he would function as God's spokesman on Earth. Some hold Mohammed's story as sacrosanct, others believe that perhaps it was fits of epilepsy. His contemporaries might have believed the latter. Indeed, they mocked or ignored him. There is a story of one unbeliever who put a slimy camel fetus down his neck as he was praying. Others tried to kill him. Among those who believed? Close relatives, a good friend, and many slaves.

The uproar caused by city slaves ignoring their duties made Mecca a place of great tension. The community hatched a plot to kill Mohammed but he fled successfully to an isolated town 200 miles away, Medina. There, he found more willing listeners. Within a few years, he came to control much of the city's political structure.

He was not a man of peace. He held power by having opponents assassinated. He then began to attack Meccan caravans and the armed escorts sent to protect them. The Meccans, worried about Mohammed’s new power attacked Medina. The prophet led his followers against the intruders and won. This military success impressed some of the fiercest tribes in the area and soon they signed up for this new religion. A few years later, the prophet took his troops to the Jewish town of Khaibar and conquered it. He and his followers killed all the men and carried off the women and children as slaves.

In 630, eight years after he fled Mecca, He had his vengeance. With an army of 10,000, he marched on the city. The Meccans surrendered without much resistance, they had heard about the fate of the Jewish town. He was then able to convert the town that had so recently dismissed him over to his way of seeing things. The sword stayed out of the sheath after Mecca, wealthy merchants and Bedouin tribes joined the army and off they went to conquer the world. During the next hundred years, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia (all magnificent ancient civilizations) as well as Northern Africa, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, parts of India, Spain, and even some of France fell to the actions of the faithful followers. Amazing.

Within a few generations of the prophet's death, these followers of a street corner ranter, these men from backwater towns and primitive desert tribes, had built an empire of enormous size. The notions of a man who had claimed to meet an angel in a cave would spawn battles whose bloodshed would soak the earth for the next fourteen hundred years...and counting.
Think about that.

The next step.....

I'm going to be a Dad for the first time in the next few weeks. It's a role I'm looking forward to. My wife and I have waited a long time for this and we're starting later than most couples. That's fine with me. I hear so terribly often from couples who started at a younger age how they feel that parenthood robbed them of part of their youth. I don't know how true that is for them but my wife and I have done a fair degree of traveling, fine dining, witnessed plenty of entertainment, in short, I feel like we've gotten our YAYA's out. It's our hope that parenthood can become our focus now. It will. We really have no choice do we?

We're hung up on names. Boy name is pretty much set. Elias Quinn. Girl name is elusive thus far. I like Meira, Adarah, and Matilda. Wife likes, Sera, Summer, and Amber. Any input would be welcome. Time's a runnin' out!

I should give a shout out to my Dad, my bros J and K, Robert Ferris, Dean Germano, John Davis, Bill Misslin, Don Groundwater, Nathan Zeliff, Herc Rowe, and Alex Garcia in no particular order. These are all exemplary fathers. Gentlemen, I may seek advice from you at some point. Fair Warning.

I'll post a link to baby pix when it (don't know the sex) arrives.

--ck