"People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness

Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country:

"Robin Lloyd writes in LiveScience that scientists can tell us how to lead a happy life, but most people don't pay attention and insist on being miserable instead.

Polls do show that Americans are no happier today than they were 50 years ago, despite the fact that most of us have a better quality of life. 10% percent of adult women 4% of adult men take antidepressants. Researcher David Lykken says 50% of happiness is genetic, based on how much serotonin you have naturally.

Part of this has to do with a branch of quantum physics called Fisher Information, which postulates that we create our own reality...

One reason Olympic athletes compete is that physical activity takes them to a trance-like state that raises their serotonin levels. Musicians like to practice for the same reason.

Psychologist Ed Diener says that people with close friendships are the happiest and that, not surprisingly, happiness consists of giving rather than receiving."

Focus determines outcome

The Lazy Way to Success:

"One of the greatest generators of success that we all possess is our attention. That’s because what we put our attention on grows stronger. Attention is like the sun; it illuminates and stimulates. Also like the sun, attention is not selective. We are the ones who need to choose where to direct it...

The choice is ours. If we put our attention of a problem, the problem will grow stronger. If we put our attention on some possible negative outcome that has yet to occur, we increase the likelihood of that result coming to fruition. It is vastly more intelligent to put our attention on finding a solution.

Using our attention wisely is the essence of self-empowerment. We should only focus our attention on those core values and processes that nourish our lives.

...Fear is one of the greatest enemies to progress. It puts attention on what you do not want. It takes the focus away from the desired goal.

If we think of defeat, that’s what we get. We must just pick something great to do and do it and never think of failure at all, for as we think now, that is what we will get."

Evolution 101

Overheard in the Office: The Voice of the Cubicle - 11AM Beta Testing:

"Director: We simply can't idiot-proof everything. Sometimes the idiots just have to suffer and die.
Co-worker: I think that's called 'evolution'."

The Dilbert Blog: Strange Laws

The Dilbert Blog: Strange Laws:

"There are a lot of laws that don’t make sense to me. For example, if I were king, I’d make attempted suicide punishable by death. That’s a win-win scenario.

...I’m also confused as to why potentially dangerous drugs are illegal. I assume the reasoning is that it will keep people from hurting themselves. The penalty for attempting to hurt yourself is that you are sent to prison where a guy named Chainsaw punches out your front teeth and rents you to the Aryan Brotherhood for parties. After about 15 years of that, you’ll think twice about trying to hurt yourself."

Doug Rushkoff speaks wise.

LA SPIRALE - an eZine for the Digital Mutants !:

"...the idea is that instead of subscribing to a particular narrative (usually written by someone else) we can write the human story, together. This puts people into the current moment, rather than distracting them with false goals of awakening or 'success,' however they might define it.

...I do feel that this core aspect of Judaism - found the original texts and practices - was very influential on me, and did fuel much of my inquisitive spirit. I'm not afraid to ask questions, even if it means questioning the most fundamental assumptions on which my belief systems are built. And this, of course, is the real reason Jews have been so persecuted throughout the ages. Most societies do not consider this urge very productive or healthy. And this sort of constant searching certainly is an obstacle to the maintenance of a state based on a static myth.

...I value any technique that helps a person realize that the way things are put together is quite arbitrary. By creating our own magickal icons, we come to better understand the way a Nike swoosh might work on the psyche, or on the culture. By creating our own value systems, we might come to better understand how money works, or what gives a group the authority to create common currency. By working with language - even mutilating it - we can come to understand some of the biases built into it."

Democrats are political cowards.

CNN.com - Molly Ivins: Not. backing. Hillary. - Jan 20, 2006:

"What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do 'whatever it takes' to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?"

"The Case for Impeachment" -- one could only hope

The Case for Impeachment (Harpers.org):

"The Conyers report doesn't lack for further instances of the administration's misconduct, all of them noted in the press over the last three years—misuse of government funds, violation of the Geneva Conventions, holding without trial and subjecting to torture individuals arbitrarily designated as “enemy combatants,” etc.—but conspiracy to commit fraud would seem reason enough to warrant the President's impeachment. Before reading the report, I wouldn't have expected to find myself thinking that such a course of action was either likely or possible; after reading the report, I don't know why we would run the risk of not impeaching the man. We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal—known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child's tricycle. Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison Leagues?"

Political Communication 101

Kung Fu Monkey: Ain't Redux:

"I'm not talking about 'being all things to all people,' or framing in order to trick people into agreeing with you. My point is simply this -- learning effective message control and disseminaton, or what in the olden days we called 'rhetoric' wasn't too low for Socrates, wasn't too low for Thomas Jefferson, and we should stop turning up our noses at it and calling it 'selling out.'

My point is not in how to fool rubes into agreeing with you. My point is that often, when communicating our ideas to other people, we do not stop and think of the best way to make clear that we already share the same ideas. I used to mention in passing about how Canada had single-payer health care. Always got a few 'socialism' catcalls from the audience. But as soon as I said 'It's wrong for you to lose your house if your kid gets cancer', you could feel the audience swing, sometimes burst into applause. For that group, at least, a little meme-seed had been planted. I could have gone on about bed/patient ratios and per capita expenses to my heart's content. But that wasn't relevant to my audience.

Learn to Say Ain't isn't about being something you're not, or all things to all people. (and if that's how you read it, you were really just looking for something to disagree with in order to reinforce your own beliefs. Sorry.) what Boats taught me back then is that we all have common ground, and if you want to communicate your idea clearly, you need to start with the common ground of your audience and then get them to meet you halfway. It's about boiling your idea down to what really matters. This is not about lying -- this is about telling the truth in a more effective manner."

Bottom Line: Nobody's happy you guys were idiots.

d r i f t g l a s s: We’re All Liberals Now.:

"...it is at times like these that this little exchange from “Broadcast News” comes unbidden to mind:

Paul Moore: It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room.

Jane Craig: No. It's awful.

That, at bottom, is what stupid people, drunks and Fundies never grasp: That it is in no way delightful to be the one who sees the disaster hulking out of the darkness.

The analysts who were screaming into the fucktard void of the Bush White House that they needed to wake up and pay attention to al Qaeda and Bin Laden before 9/11 aren’t glad they were right.

The scientists who have been warning us of Global Warming and have been blown off for years as tree-huggy egg-heads because the facts were inconvenient to the Oil Junta that runs America aren’t pleased that the ice caps are melting.

Those who were begging for help before and after Katrina as the Bicycle Chief rode in circles and Heckofajob Brownie worried about the roll of his cuffs aren’t doing smug happy-dances about the death of New Orleans.

The list just goes on and on and on, but the song remains the same. Stupid, venal people amply warned that they were driving us all off yet another cliff.

Stupid, venal people shrieking that everyone else is a traitor and that they didn’t need no smarty-pants liberals telling ‘em how to drive.

Squealing, “Hey, we won, so shut the fuck up.”

Then wheeeeee! Off the cliff we go-go-go…

Then the Bad Thing happens.

Then…crickets and tumbleweed and an airless, freaked-out silence from the Right like unto a mime having a panic attack lying face down in the dust on the dark side of the Moon.

Followed by a spongy, squishy sound made by millions of baffled brows beetling in that damp confusion that the s-l-o-w children get when confronted -- yet again -- with overwhelming evidence of the consequences of their reckless, arrogant moronity.

Followed by a return to their default, factory setting of running in hysterical circles and wildly blaming Evil Liberals or the French or Bill Clinton or feminists or queers for the blood on their own hands and the dead on their own watch.

“We didn’t knooooow!” they wail, as we roll in wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of evidence that they damned well did know.

“No one could have predicted...,” they whine, as we chopper in ton after ton of proof that Iraq/Katrina/9-11/Global Warming/North Korea/Iran/Every-other-fucking-thing were all quite predictable, and had been foreseen, but their Dear Leader had simply chosen to ignore the inconvenient mile-high, DayGlo warning signs on his way to and from vacation.

‘Cause they won, which means 2+2 no longer equals four Mr. Fancypants liberal.

So they’ll sprint in diminishing circles until the Limbaugh Chip in their tiny heads is reseated by a licensed GOP thrall tech, and which point they’ll blink owlishly for a moment or two, and have that Very Special Republican “Memento” Moment when they forget every single thing that has actually happened in the last thirty years and go right back to being furious at Liberals…for…something.

At which point they take what’s left of the country and hand it right back to the same boobs and hucksters and sociopaths that wrecking it in the first place, and tell everybody to Shut The Hell Up, ‘cause nobody wants to hear from no God Damned negative, critical know-it-all’s yappin' about who did what to who and who drove whose country into oblivion.

It is the same pathetic, shirker's anthem sung by every irresponsible drunk I have ever known."

This just sounds like my worst nightmare come true.

'Pizza pope' builds a Catholic heaven - Sunday Times - Times Online:

"A former marine who was raised by nuns and made a fortune selling pizza has embarked on a £230m plan to build the first town in America to be run according to strict Catholic principles.

Abortions, pornography and contraceptives will be banned in the new Florida town of Ave Maria, which has begun to take shape on former vegetable farms 90 miles northwest of Miami.

Tom Monaghan, the founder of the Domino’s Pizza chain, has stirred protests from civil rights activists by declaring that Ave Maria’s pharmacies will not be allowed to sell condoms or birth control pills. The town’s cable television network will carry no X-rated channels.

The town will be centred around a 100ft tall oratory and the first Catholic university to be built in America for 40 years. The university’s president, Nicholas J Healy, has said future students should “help rebuild the city of God” in a country suffering from “catastrophic cultural collapse”."

I find the best stuff on warrenellis.com

Warrenellis.com » Dan Curtis Johnson On His Plan To Escape Sudden Murder Attempts:

"If, someday, some giant murderous dude has picked me up completely off the ground by my throat and is strangling the life out of me, instead of fighting him I’m just going to get my pants off and start masturbating furiously. Because, if I’m gonna die anyway, that whole Michael Hutchence suffocation-orgasm thing is supposed to be pretty amazing and maybe– just MAYBE– the giant murderous dude will be freaked out enough to let go of me and I can get the hell away.

“With no pants on, sure, but you take what you can get"

I'm actually pleasantly surprised I passed. [Though I wish they'd tell me which one I missed.]

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Well this is just ridiculous.

You know, I don't even smoke, but this is retarded.

Banning cigs while you drive by in a huge, noxious fume emitting vehicle?

Are you kidding me?

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Australia mulls car smoking ban:

"Authorities in Australia's most populous state, New South Wales, are to consider banning smoking in cars."

Moving to the Beat of a Midlife Funk

You gotta check out the vid at the article.

Moving to the Beat of a Midlife Funk:

"Four middle-aged, white guys find a new way to handle a mid-life funk -- form a hip-hop dance troupe."

This is gonna be geeky greatness.

Comic Book Resources - CBR News - The Comic Wire:

"“Batman” and “Detective Comics” will have an 8-issue arc written by James Robinson, after which “Batman” will be written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Andy Kubert, and “Detective Comics” by acclaimed TV writer Paul Dini and drawn by Rags Morales."

"But they're better off without Saddam, no matter what!"

No.

Independent Online Edition > Middle East:

"Hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to death or summarily executed every month in Baghdad alone by death squads working from the Ministry of the Interior, the United Nations' outgoing human rights chief in Iraq has revealed.

John Pace, who left Baghdad two weeks ago, told The Independent on Sunday that up to three-quarters of the corpses stacked in the city's mortuary show evidence of gunshot wounds to the head or injuries caused by drill-bits or burning cigarettes. Much of the killing, he said, was carried out by Shia Muslim groups under the control of the Ministry of the Interior.

Much of the statistical information provided to Mr Pace and his team comes from the Baghdad Medico-Legal Institute, which is located next to the city's mortuary. He said figures show that last July the morgue alone received 1,100 bodies, about 900 of which bore evidence of torture or summary execution. The pattern prevailed throughout the year until December, when the number dropped to 780 bodies, about 400 of which had gunshot or torture wounds."

The International Fight League

A Mixed Martial Arts league co-founded my Gareb Shamus, publisher of Wizard, Toyfare and other comic-geek related fields...

My two worlds are colliding.

It's madness.

[But should be interesting.]

MMAFighting.com - The International Fight League...for the sport of Mixed Martial Arts:

"Sometime in April 2006, the first four IFL fight teams will be unveiled at the organization’s inaugural event. Each team will consist of five fighters, one from each weight division represented in the league (lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight) and one coach.

On the first night of action, one team will vie against another, with ten fights taking place between two separate brackets. Each fight consists of 3/3 minute rounds and takes place back-to-back for non-stop action. The two winning teams (those that grasp at least 3 of their 5 fights) will square off six-eight weeks later and the first IFL championship team will be decided. Individual winners whose teams did not advance may also be invited back to compete in individual fights."

Pride Results

Dig on Coleman, Nogueira, Kosaka and Overeem. Overeem over Kharitonov I didn't expect, but I like him, maybe he'll be a stronger HVY than a MDW.

Between Rounds:

"# Mark Hunt defeats Yosuke Nishijima by third-round TKO (1:18)
# Mark Coleman defeats Mauricio “Shogun” Rua by first-round referee stoppage due to suspected broken arm (0:49)
# Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira defeats Kiyoshi Tamura by first-round submission (arm bar, 2:24)
# Josh Barnett defeats Kazuhiro Nakamura by first-round submission (rear naked choke, 8:10)
# Alistair Overeem defeats Sergei Kharitonov by first-round TKO (5:13)
# Tsuyoshi Kosaka defeats Mario Sperry by first-round TKO (1:20)
# Fabricio Werdum defeats Jon Olav Einemo by unanimous decision
# Quentin “Rampage” Jackson defeats Dong Sik Yoon by unanimous decision
# Roman Zentsov defeats Pedro Rizzo by first-round knockout (0:25) "

"It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me."