News of the Week

Here’s a quick overview of some of the many news stories that occurred this week:

• It was alleged that President Trump told the Russians about possible ISIS attacks on Russian airplanes involving laptops with bombs.  This sparked outrage and calls for impeachment amongst nearly every anti-Trump person in the country because they don’t seem to understand that the President is allowed to tell anyone any secret he damn well pleases and to declassify anything as well.
• Simultaneously, former FBI director Comey decided to say that he has memos that make the President look like he was obstructing investigations into his Russian ties.  Of course, he said under oath that this wasn’t the case, so was he committing perjury then?  Also, I really think it isn’t a good idea to trust the word of a former disgruntled employee.
• A private investigator looking into the Seth Rich murder case said that he had sent data to Wikileaks and that law enforcement at the local and Federal level were ordered to stand down.  He later retracted this statement, but Seth Rich’s murder does sound like an execution and if his first assertion is true, than John Podesta and Hilary Clinton are mafia bosses and not party bosses.
• Everyone is calling for Trump’s impeachment, including libertarian Republican Justin Amash, who apparently doesn’t understand the simple economic nature of the employer-employee, despite being a libertarian.  It also further demonstrates just how stupid and irrelevant libertarianism has become these days.
• A man drove his car into a bunch of people in Times Square in New York City, killing one person and injuring many others.  He had a history of drunk driving, but wasn’t drunk at the time.  I wonder if he has an Islamic name?
• California Governor Jerry Davis called taxpayers “freeloaders” proving that California is run not only by Left-wing communists, but by completely incompetent and stupid ones at that.  Even the Soviets understand the need to properly redistribute resources, for the most part.  Californian politicians are more concerned with transgender surgery than rolling blackouts and droughts.
• Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell committed suicide.  Every late Gen-Xer and early Millennial decided to honor him when he really only had one or two decent songs.
• Roger Ailes passed away as well.  And thus, Fox News will swiftly become more pozzed than ever before.
• Powers Boothe passed away and he will be missed.  He was always an excellent bad guy.  He even starred in Marvel’s Avengers the film and reprised that role for the Agents of SHIELD spin-off show.  That shows a range of humbleness in my opinion.
• Julian Assange has had his rape case in Sweden dropped.  Apparently, it’s not worth pursuing rape charges against a man whose only crime was continuing sex after the condom broke.  It’s a little sleazy and stupid (since men should wear a condom for every one-night stand), but not rape.  I mean, at what point does consent begin and end?  Feminists could never give a straight answer.
• Anthony Weiner has plead guilty to sexting a teenage girl.  He’s falling on the sword for the Clintons, probably in fear for his life.
• And finally, the FCC has voted to end Net Neutrality rules.  Considering it was an illegal act by an overreaching bureaucracy anyway, this comes as a surprise.  Maybe we can also re-obtained control of the international DNS servers while we’re at it.

And that’s about it.  There was a lot more going on this week but I don’t have time to sift through all of it.

Just remember: John Podesta is a child molestor and possible murderer, the Deep State is watching, buy guns.

Proper Planet Colonization

There is a lot of science fiction out there that involves colonizing other planets.  One of the most common techniques of doing so involves people going into some kind of stasis while the ship makes the long trek through empty space in order to reach the destined planet.

The trouble is, most of the time these stories neglect the very real logistics of colonizing another planet, especially in television and movie programs, though some books get this wrong as well.

That being said, I’d like to go over some key requirements that need to happen in order to colonize another world:

• Firstly, the crew cannot be LGBT in any way.  In fact, the less sexually deviant, the better because the point is to populate the planet with children, which most sexual deviancy precludes.  Even pick-up artists should probably be left out.  Really, you should only have married couples with men who have verifiable skills in key areas.  The primary purpose of women on this trip is to have many babies, though they can contribute in other capacities, but child-rearing is their primary one.
• The crew must have workers with the following skills: engineering (all kinds), farming, carpentry, security, hunting, medicine, and architecture.  You will also need a large group of unskilled workers who can do a lot of grunt work without needing to understand why they are doing it.  Most of these skill are geared toward building and maintaining the initial settlement, as well as expanding outward.  The initial generation will probably not be able to do much other than simply survive, so you leave the exploration to future generations.
• The entire crew should probably be of the same race.  This helps to ensure that there is more unity amongst the colonizer as well as a kind of tribal loyalty.  Because the last thing you need is a race war on a planet where your very survival is needed.  And while a race war is probably the most extreme situation, there are other things that happen, like racial isolation, colony break-ups, etc. which could contribute to the failure of the mission.
• The entire crew and colonists should have the same religion.  Pretty much for the same reason that they should be of the same race.  They should also be of the same sect as well to help promote religious cohesion.
• Besides the crew, you will need at least five years worth of food and water stored up.  While the ultimate goal of the crew is to be self-sustaining, they are going to a world that might be barely habitable, so there’s a good chance they won’t have enough food.
• Raw materials for building should also be stored and taken with them as well.  More than likely, it will take time to acquire building materials on the planet and you really don’t want to set down on a place and live in a grass hut with hostile lifeforms who don’t know what humans are.  They would also need materials for building some kind of power-generation.
• Lots of seeds from a variety of plants should be taken as well.  Wheat, barley, corn, various fruit trees and bushes, as well as many other flora should be stocked up.  There is no way to know for sure what kind of food will be available on that planet and you’ll need seed crop to be sustainable within that five year window.  Materials to build sufficient irrigation and crop protection should be brought as well.
• Tons of livestock should be brought along as well.  Domestication takes generations and the wildlife on the planet may prove impossible to tame.  Therefore, you’ll need several times the number of farm animals than the colonists.
• Pets should probably be taken as well, especially dogs.  Dogs would provide a very good way to defend against hostile lifeforms since they tend to have heightened senses.  Also, they do make good companions.
• Since animals along with people are being sent, it goes without saying that plenty of food for them should be brought as well.
• A vast library of books, both digital and hardcopies, should be sent with them.  The purpose of this to help educate the children but also to provide references for the skilled workers since no one person can remember everything about their skillset.
• Huge amounts of medical supplies should be taken as well.  The ability to create new medicines as well as research tools should be taken as well.  Pathogens are the most dangerous of all lifeforms and the planet may have serious diseases which the colonists have no proper defense against.
• Weaponry of all kinds should be taken.  Every colonists should be well trained in the use of firearms and basic combat techniques.  There is a good chance those skills will come in handy when encountering more complex lifeforms.
• All lifeforms encountered should be considered hostile, no matter how docile they appear.  All plant-life, if any, should be considered poisonous and should not be handled without proper protection.  Until the threat of such lifeforms can be properly assessed and documented, it is better to make the assumption.

I know that this leaves a less than sexy background setting for a story, but this is the reality of colonizing another world.  And so often the science fiction stories I read get this all wrong.  I’ve read stories where the colonists engage in sexual promiscuity, which does not create a stable family unit, where just the people are sent over, where inadequate supplies are sent over, etc.

That is something that frustrates me.  I mean, if you’re going to have a science fiction story revolving around planet colonization, at least hint that there is more than just people and food rations on the ship.

On Modding Skyrim

I’ve been playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim pretty much since its release.  I’ve been modding Skyrim for almost as long now too.  Over the years, I’ve had good mod experiences and bad mod experiences, as many PC gamers probably have had as well.

Now that Skyrim’s Special Edition was released recently, it opened up the ability to mod the game on console systems, mainly for Xbox One and PS4, though the Nintendo Switch will have Skyrim SE as well, although I don’t know the status of modding for that one.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer some guidelines for Skyrim modding based on my own experiences.  Note that all of these recommendations and observations are based on my own experience.  My hope is to impart that experience to you, not to create a set of hard rules for modding Skyrim.

On Mod Additions, Deletions, or Updates

The first guideline, which is really a rule, is that you must never, ever remove a mod from your mod list in Skyrim for an existing playthrough.  There are small exceptions to this, but 99.9% of the time, your mod list is locked in and the game engine is incapable of dealing with the removal of a mod.

So before you start adding in all kinds of crazy mods, keep this simple fact in mind: removing mods from Skyrim breaks your character saves in the long run.  This is not the only thing which breaks character saves, but it is the big one.

Installing a new mod into an existing playthrough can also be dangerous, but much less so.  Unless the mod author explicitly states that you have to start a new game, which is rare, adding a new mod in the middle of your playthrough is okay.

Updating existing mods is also okay and less dangerous on an existing playthrough.  Some updates, though, are basically like removing and adding a new mod.  Sometimes mod authors do a full overhaul of their mods, changing the scripts, data, etc., and this effectively means it’s a new mod.  But generally, updating a mod is harmless and usually done so to fix bugs.

If you are adding a new mod or updating existing ones, then you should do it when your character is in a safe place, like a player home (Breezewood is my go to location).  This ensures that any changes made are correctly handled on the outside and that you have a good save point in case you screwed up something.

Please note that all of the above guidelines can be ignored when you have a mod package which does not have an ESM or ESP file.  If your mod package does not contain any of those file types, it is perfectly okay to add, update, or remove the mod and it will have little to no impact on your game.  Usually, those mod packages deal with the meshes and textures of the game.

Catagorize Your Mods To Avoid Conflicts

One of the biggest problems for Skyrim modding is that many mods will conflict with other mods.  Mod conflicts usually are the reason for many of your problems in a Skyrim playthrough.  Sometimes it’s as harmless as objects overlapping.  Other times, it can cause game crashes.

The trouble with these kind of errors is that they are hard to diagnose and report to the mod author.  Usually, a player has their own unique mod list and even when that is made apparent, it is difficult to pinpoint.

To avoid these issues, you need to make sure that you have only one mod which covers a certain aspect of the gameplay.  For example, if you want a mod that improves horses, you should only use one of those mods.  Or make sure that one set of features doesn’t overlap with another set of features in another mod.  If there is an overlap, then you are probably going to cause a conflict, which will break your game.

Many mod authors are really good about listing compatibility issues with their mods.  What the good ones tend to do is list other related mods and indicate if they are supported by the one they have created.  In general, if the mod you are checking for compatibility isn’t listed or mentioned, I would assume it’s not compatible.

Note that mods which add items that are in leveled lists usually don’t have problems integrating with each other, especially with the right tools.  So you have multiple weapon mods or spell mods together in the same mod list.

Often times, you’ll find that mod authors will write compatibility patches to work with other mods.  Use these to resolve mod conflicts.  As an example, I like to use the Elemental Destruction mod that adds in spells for Earth, Water, and Wind elements.  I also use Ordinator, which overhauls the perk system.  Since the Elemental Destruction needs to create new perks, it will conflict with Ordinator.  There is, however, a compatibility patch which resolves this problem and I install that patch as well.

I’d say about a third of my plugins (ESP or ESM files) are compatibility patches.  This may not be case for you, but I’d be willing to bet that most heavily modded playthroughs have a similar percentage.

In general though, try and keep one mod per category.  Have one that modifies vampire playthroughs.  One that changes werewolf playthroughs.  One that overhauls the perk system.  One that modifies shouts.  One that modifies follower mechanics to make followers more viable.  One that modifies horse mounts.  One that adds new creatures.  You get the idea.

Always Have a Core Mod Line-Up

While a lot of Skyrim mods are great additions, make sure you have a set of core, must-have mods and try to keep that list short.  For console players, this is irrelevant as you cannot create mod profiles, but for PC users this is fundamental.  Both Mod Organizer and Nexus Mod Manager allow you to create mod profiles, which gives you flexibility in your playthroughs of various characters.

Your core mod list should not include mods which would be useless to other characters you are playing as.  For example, if your character playthrough is never going to become a vampire, then don’t install a vampire overhaul.  You’re just wasting space and adding unnecessary scripts into your game.

I’d recommend that your core mods include the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch (fixes hundreds of bugs), The Choice is Yours (eliminates quests you won’t do), and Static Mesh Improvement Mod (makes 3D great again).

Mods by authors Arthmoor, EnaiSiaion, and kryptopyr I highly recommend, save Open Cities as that one has too many conflicts.

Perfect is the Enemy of Good

Finally, I recommend that you play the game.  Don’t get bogged down in your mods, don’t fret over new mods which look better than what you’re playing with, and don’t worry about adding in too many features.

One of the problems I have is that I want to make Skyrim into more of an RPG.  Previous Elder Scrolls games had many more features, you see, and this game lacks a lot of that functionality.

I’ve heard a lot of hardcore players complain about this.  I have witnessed firsthand the numerous features that were in Daggerfall.  From banking to court trials to complex character creations, that game had a lot to offer and Skyrim has maybe 30% of its features.  I understand the frustration but, as a professional software developer, I also understand the need to get a mostly working product to market.

Mod authors have added many of the more popular lost features back into the game, but Skyrim will never has as many features as Daggerfall did, no matter how many mods you cram in there.

The point is to just simply get the mods which make a really good game even better and run with it.  Spend no more than a few hours modding Skyrim and then play the game.

Final Notes

As a PC gamer, I use a lot of tools to mod Skyrim.  Mainly I use Mod Organizer, because it allows me to address many different mod conflicts which other tools lack, and because I can create many character profiles without having to uninstall mods.  This allows me to seamlessly switch between playthroughs.

I also use LOOT to sort my mods.  It generally does a good job, although sometimes the load order isn’t what it should be.

I use Wrye Bash to create a bashed patch.  This is critical, in my opinion, as it resolves a lot of potential conflicts.

I also use xEdit (for Skyrim SE, it’s called “SSEEdit”) for cleaning plugin files and creating a merge patch.  The merge patch provides some fixes to conflicts which Wrye Bash misses.  This is for advanced users though and I don’t reconmmend it for beginners.  Besides, if you keep your mod list low, you don’t need to do that anyway.

So that about covers my basic guidelines for Skyrim modding.  With these guidelines in mind, go out and make Skyrim great again.

The Things I Want

I want a world where debt is considered a vice.

I want a place I can truly call home.  A man’s house is his castle.

I want to be able to afford a home without going into debt for decades of my life.

I want more free time to do things I would rather do.

I want to be surrounded by people who respect me and love me (not in the sodomite sense).

I want to live a life that glorifies God.

I want to rise above the stupid decisions those around me make.

I want two years of income saved up so I don’t have to concern myself with employment.

I want a less argumentative wife.

I want to see the tearing down of the Occult Elite in my lifetime.

I want to fight against evil.

I want to shift the culture back toward God and His Son.

I want to prove that one can life a prosperous life and still be pious and upright.

I want to comfort Job.

I want better health.

I want to see the technology Transcendence so I can pull the plug on the wicked who would presume to be gods.

I want to hear God say, “Well done”.

Something a Little Different

Great white shark breaks through cage, panics, and escapes out the top with the diver inside.

The No-Kill Rule

As a nominal fan of superheroes, I have always wondered and marveled at how so many of them have this “no-kill” rule when fighting criminals and megalomaniacs.  I mean, it’s not just a few but pretty much every mainstream superhero has this rule from Captain America to Superman to Batman to Spiderman.

And when a hero has no qualms about killing his foes in combat (like Wolverine) he’s considered an “anti-hero”.  In other words, a good guy who kills bad guys.

Look, I know that superheroes are supposed to be something we are to look up to, but these guys get into situations where if they dropped their no-kill rule, they would actually end up saving a lot more innocent lives.

Take the Joker for instance.  He is the exact opposite of Batman in that he constantly commits murder, theft, and other heinous crimes for the fun of it.  And yet, every time Batman doesn’t kill him because of the sacred no-kill rule.  In the real world, if Batman killed the Joker during a confrontation, he would be hailed as a hero and given a statue.  Because if the Joker existed in the real world, nobody would care much for the justice system in dealing with that barbarian.

Instead, he allows the Joker to live on, where he murders children, families, and scores of innocent people because he wants to.  And Batman doesn’t want to kill him because then he’d be “just like him” or some such nonsense.  Because after killing an unrepentant murderous psychopath like the Joker,  Batman would totally start running around in clown make-up.

While I can see the stronger, larger than life superheroes like Thor or Superman holding back because they are essentially gods among men and, by and large, can afford to hold back, other characters don’t have that luxury.  I know that Green Arrow tries to avoid it but doesn’t care if he ends up having to kill someone in a fight.

And, of course, there is the Punisher, who openly kills criminals, especially mobsters.  And he’s regarded as a pariah by much of the superhero world, which is a shame because if Spiderman or Daredevil followed his example, New York City would be a lot safer place.

I don’t know, maybe my sense of justice is different from other people.  The fact is, our justice system here in the United States is so messed up that if supervillains from comics were to hit the scene here, they would most certainly do zero time in prison and not because they’d break out.

And then what you do you do?

Fun Friday: The Fall of Nosgoth

Here’s a video from Soul Reaver 2.  Not the best game in the Legacy of Kain series, but it probably has some of the best story elements of all of them.  This video serves as an excellent example:

Fun Friday: Weird Internet Stuff

A slightly unnerving video about some of the crazy stuff that goes on in the Internet:

If you're interested in more, check the YouTube channel Dark5

Fun Friday: The Dragon of Wyrmstooth

Taking a break from my usual stuff and instead posting this trailer for a DLC-sized mod for Skyrim:

I haven’t played through all of the mod, but it is a very solid one with a boss dragon and a whole new island to explore.

I Was Going to Review the Dragon Ball Movie But…

Last night I was going to watch the Dragon Ball movie entitled Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’.  But the sound was all messed up in the theater.  Despite the best efforts of the theater staff, it could not be resolved.

So I got a refund.  And I may pirate the movie.  Or try to see it in theaters on Saturday.  It depends on how I feel about it.

What was frustrating about it was that this was a streaming event and that Funimation wasn’t going to just allow the theater to download the movie and show in individual theaters.  No, because of the way they distributed the film, if something goes wrong, there was very little the theater could do.

So that was annoying.  Especially as I stood in line to get my refund.

Oh well, until improvements can be made to the system, I don’t think this kind of thing will go away.

Without God Ramblings

Though I am in favor of a fully unregulated economic system (which is really an impossibility even without a working government), I am not an anarchist.

The main issue I take with anarchism is that they have a weird set of moral principles that are related to consequentialism and have nothing to do with actual morality.  This is because most anarchists tend to be agnostic or atheist and thus have no moral center to build their philosophy from.

I am not a libertarian.  Libertarianism has become a generic term that sweeps a broad political spectrum.  It is basically the default political ideology if you’re not conservative or progressive these days.  Think government should stay out of socials issues but believe in corporate regulations?  Well, you’re a libertarian.  Think that pot should be legal but guns should not?  Libertarian.

In many cases you could argue that both libertarian and anarchist beliefs systems come from a foundation that doesn’t include a religious moral code.  The non-aggression principle is, after all, half of the second greatest commandment which God gave us through his prophet Moses (Love your neighbor as yourself).

The trouble with these belief systems is that most people are incapable of truly loving their neighbor if they don’t love God first.  The anarchist will see the Jew on the side of the street dying and simply tell him that he should’ve had a gun.

That’s not fair.  I’m sure the would help him.

The problem is, both anarchism and libertarianism tend to think in terms of true equality and thus fail to understand human nature.  Human beings desire to be led by people they perceive as better than them because it is easier to outsource moral responsibility to a higher authority than it is to think for yourself.

And believe me, no amount of effort on your part will help them to think for themselves.  People need a leader of some kind because without one, they tend to lose their car keys.  Or their morning coffee money.

Seriously though, as social creatures, human beings have always required leadership of some kind.  The trouble is, most leaders are simply leaders because they want power, not because they desire to rule over us out of some higher purpose.  Hell, even King David behaved like a mafia boss from time to time.

To truly understand humanity, you have to understand the nature of evil, why it exists, and what it truly is.  Once you understand that, you’ll understand that it is not power that corrupts but the kind of person who desires power to begin with.

And thus we see that all leaders tend to be corrupt from the beginning.  Power just brought out the worst of it.

The point of all this incoherent rambling is that libertarianism and anarchism are Utopian ideologies which lack a true understanding of human nature.  That is why I can’t support them.

It Never Was and Never Shall Be

Here’s my campaign platform, if I were to run for President:

• I will veto every bill that is passed by Congress.  Only super-majority bills will become law under my administration.
• I will refuse to appoint heads of state for useless agencies such Health and Human Services, Energy, or Education.  Instead I will fire the whole lot of them and sell their assets to pay down the national debt.
• All members of the Federal Reserve will be arrested for fraud and tried as such.
• All foreign military bases will be closed down.  Their contents will be sold and their weapons will be stored in the Whitehouse for safe keeping.
• The borders will be shut down.  All visas will be denied.  Any American who wishes to travel across borders will be free to do so and will not be denied re-entry.  The military will be placed on the borders with shoot to kill orders.
• All drugs will be legalized by the abolishment of all drug enforcement.
• No military offense will take place without either a declaration of war or a letter of marque and reprisal from Congress.
• All allegations of fraud in Wall Street will be investigated to the fullest extent of the law.
• All forms of taxation will be abolished save a national sales tax and tariffs on all imports.
• Food technologies will be further investigated by independent organizations and any problems found will result in criminal charges to those responsible.
• The heads of all law enforcement agencies will be forced to resign.  In their place will be competent men who don’t play games.
• Any government officials who have close ties to the industry they are regulating will be summarily fired.
• All intelligence agencies will be abolished.
• All Federal Law enforcement agencies, save the U.S. Marshals, will be eliminated.  The U.S. Marshals will be there to see to it that criminals are properly transported across state lines.
• The safety of the American people will be the responsibility of the individual.  Therefore they will be allowed to own any kind of gun, explosive, or any other weapon they wish to own.  No Federal agent will stop them.
• Any politician caught getting campaign money from foreign sources or multi-national corporations will be tried for treason.
• Any attack on our border patrol along the Mexican border will be regarded as an act of war by Mexico and be treated as such.
• The budget will be balanced.  Even if the projected revenues do not meet the initial budgetary requirements.
• The national debt holdings by the various Federal agencies and the Federal Reserve will be eliminated.
• A competing currency, backed by gold, will be introduced.

None of these promises are perfect and will not bring about any kind of Utopia.  They are just polite suggestions.

Halloween Is Skary

Here’s some wonderful videos from Katy Towell (Children R Skary):

Dumbing It Down For You

Since most people despise logic and rational discourse, I think I’m going to dumb it down for you all.  Keep in mind that all of this is provable:

• If you favor gun control, then you support rape.
• If you favor the war on drugs, then you support the forced sodomizing of drug users.
• If you favor the war on terror, then you support burning children alive.
• If you favor economic sanctions against countries who don’t like ours, then you support starving children.
• If you favor the police actions in Boston in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing, then you do not support the Constitution.
• If you favor Federal regulations, then you are not a capitalist.
• If you favor Defense Contractors, then you are not a capitalist.
• If you favor the CIA, then you favor drug smuggling.
• If you favor the war in Afghanistan, then you favor heroin use.
• If you favor immigration, then you favor the destruction of the American ideal as the Founding Fathers envisioned it.
• If you favor gay marriage, then you are a Statist.
• If you favor restricted marriage licenses, then you are a Statist.
• If you favor personal property taxes, then you favor centralized, Soviet-style planned communities.
• If you favor higher education, then you hate young people.
• If you favor abortion, then you hate black people.
• If you favor the UN, then you support child rape.
• If you favor more women in the workplace, then you support lower wages.
• If you favor minimum wage laws, then you hate young people.
• If you favor the Republicans, then you support corporatism.
• If you favor the Democrats, then you support corporatism.
• If you favor the Libertarian Party, then you are a Statist.
• If you favor any other third party, then you are a collectivist.
• If you favor the Federal Reserve, then you hate the free market.
• If you think the banking system in America is representative of the free market, then you are a moron.

More Questions for Presidential Candidates

More questions for the Presidential candidates:

• Will you support Congressional action to raise the debt ceiling or will you veto such legislation?
• Is unemployment a problem or is it a symptom of a much larger problem?  Explain.
• What are the effects of labor regulations with regard to unemployment?
• What is the difference between the economic systems of capitalism, corporatism, fascism, and Socialism?
• Do treaties signed with foreign nations trump the United States Constitution?
• Are you for limited, constitutional government? Define what limited, constitutional government is to you.
• Given that the Consumer Price Index excludes food and fuel prices, do you believe that it is an accurate measure of price inflation?
• Does the FDA fulfill a necessary role in the market? Explain.
• Does the EPA fulfill a necessary role in the market? Explain.
• What do you believe interstate commerce means?
• Should an amendment be passed to extend Letters of Marque and Reprisal to non-pirate groups?
• Before engaging in a military offensive, should the President require Congressional approval in the form of a formal declaration of war or a Letter of Marque and Reprisal?
• When is the President permitted to engage in aggressive military actions?
• What is the purpose of the ATF?
• There are over 10,000 laws on the Federal books.  Do you believe that this is too many, not enough, or just right?  Explain.
• Every day there are no-knock SWAT raids on Americans.  Do you find these raids to be constitutional?  Explain.
• Is the War on Drugs a Constitutional program?  Explain.
• Given that the Federal government has over 14 trillion in debt, is the Federal government bankrupt?
• What is your plan for reducing the national debt?
• Should the Federal Reserve keep interest rates low or raise them and why?
• Should private citizens be allowed to create a competing currency with the United States Dollar?
• Will you issue an executive order to undo President Nixon’s “temporary” abandonment of the Gold Standard?
• What will you do to get rid of the various redundant agencies within the Federal government?
• Do you believe that the United States Federal government is in dire need of austerity measures?
• Should all foreign aid be continued, some of it be continued, or all of it eliminated from the Federal budget?
• Should aid to non-profit groups such as Planned Parenthood be continued?
• Should the Federal government be in the business of playing favorites with corporations as they clearly do now?
• What is the best definition of the free-market you can give?
• Does God talk to you?

Well, that was fun.  Too bad none of these will ever get asked on a national debate.

Do You Suffer From PDS?

Are you a conservative?  Do you suffer from Paul Derangement Syndrome or PDS?  If you are not sure, here are following list of the symptoms:

• Do often refer to Ron Paul supporters as “Paulbots” or “Ronulons”?  Do you refer to Ron Paul himself as “RuPaul”?
• Do you like to say that Ron Paul blames the United States for 9/11, even though he has referred specifically to the foreign policy of the United States government?
• Do you say he is an anarchist because of his associations with Lew Rockwell and because many of his ideas came from Ludwig Von Mises and Murray Rothbard?
• Do you say he is a racist because of the articles published in his name while overlooking that he has admitted his own failure in properly editing the magazines in question?
• Do you constantly say he cannot win despite polling data that tends to argue otherwise?
• Do you state that you will not vote for him, even if that means another four years of President Obama?
• Do you bash his followers and demand that Ron Paul denounce them even though they are spread across the entirety of the Internet?
• Do believe he is out to destroy the Republican party, even though you are disgusted with the current Republican party’s actions with Obamacare and the debt ceiling?
• Do you agree with Ron Paul 90% of the time, but would rather vote for someone who you agree with 75% of the time?

If you are a conservative and suffer from any one of the above symptoms, then you may be a PDS sufferer.  Unfortunately, there is no treatment for such a problem, not even a swift kick to the head, as your resentment and hatred runs too deep.  The best cure you can hope for is to fake reasonable arguments with Paul supporters online and eventually you may find yourself making well-reasoned arguments against him, rather than knee-jerk, reactionary insults.

PDS is not to be confused with RWDS or Right Wing Derangement Syndrome, which is a common affliction of Left-wing Statists.

Questions for the Republican Candidates

Since there are many pompous jerks out there who believe that they have the right questions to ask all Republican presidential contenders, this pompous jerk has a few of his own:

1. Given that the combined total expenses of the military, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid match the total amount of tax revenue, do you think those spending initiatives should be off the table when reforming Federal spending?  Explain why or why not.
2. Since 2008, the Federal government has engaged in several stimulus initiatives designed to create economic growth.  Do believe that these initiatives have helped, hurt, or done nothing to nurture economic growth?
3. The Department of Defense has lost over 1 trillion in tax dollars over the past decade.  What do you plan on doing to reform this agency so that taxpayers’ money is not wasted?
4. In general, what is your plan for dealing with departments and agencies who have lost money or have money that is unaccounted for?
5. Have you taken any college courses on economics?
6. Have you read any books on economics independent of your scholastic activities?
7. Describe the role of the Federal Reserve in our current monetary system.
8. Of all the Founding Fathers, who do you most identity with and why?
9. If elected, how you would go about creating a balanced budget within your term in office?
10. What is the objective of the Iraq War?
11. What is the objective of the Afghanistan War?
12. What is the objective of the Libya War?
13. In general, what is the objective of the War on Terror?
14. Considering that the War on Drugs has, by and large, not made many changes in the overall drug use of our youth, are there any changes you wish to make to this program?  Describe these changes.
15. How is the Gross Domestic Product calculated?
16. Are you a person of faith and how has that faith, or lack thereof, shaped your political beliefs?
17. If a heterosexual couple gets married in a standard church ceremony but does not apply for a state-issued marriage license, are they living in sin as defined by the Bible?
18. Should departments who have failed in their stated objectives be publically audited?
19. Do states have a right to nullify Federal laws which are unconstitutional?  Do they need validation from the court system?
20. Do states have a right to secede from the United States?
21. Are there any amendments in the United States Constitution which you would like to see repealed?
22. Should our tax code be reformed?  If you think it should, how would you reform it?  If you think it is fine the way it is, state your reasons for believing so.
23. The United States currently ranks lower than expected when it comes to education.  What kind of reforms would you make to the system in order to raise the education standards here in America?
24. When is the President allowed to authorize the use of military force?
25. Before becoming a politician, what was your primary profession?
26. What is your view of personal financial debt?
27. Historically, massive immigration has often lead to massive shifts in culture and beliefs.  Given this historically verifiable fact, what is your stance on immigration and what do you plan on doing about it while it office?
28. Are you pro-life or pro-choice when it comes to abortion?  If you are pro-life, what actions would you take with regard to our current abortion policies?
29. How would you interpret the Tenth Amendment into public policy at a national level?
30. If a Federal court issues a ruling that is unconstitutional, does the executive branch have an obligation to implement it anyway?  Likewise, if Congress passes an unconstitutional law, does the executive branch have the obligation to implement it?

That is all the questions I can think of for now.  Perhaps there will be more later.

Lovecraft Friday

I think I would periodically showcase some videos from H.P. Lovecraft that other people have put together.  The first one I’m going to showcase is one of his first stories, “Dagon”:

H.P. Lovecraft’s “Dagon”

And by the Way, It’s Your Fault We’re Doomed

The future of this nation sucks.  The outlook is grim.  And yet, nobody can really agree on why it is.

You have the group who thinks that if the government does not raise the debt ceiling, they will bump their collective heads, pass out, and leave that guy to push the nuclear launch sequence.

You have the group who think that if the government does raise the debt ceiling, then the chandelier will be too high for this guy to really appreciate it.

I do not know what will happen, but either way I think there are no good options, which were given to us by the government in the first place.  Perhaps there is a third option, but I just do not see any good ones.  Maybe I lack imagination or a knack for solving large-scale problems.

I think we all just need to do nothing.  That’s right.  We should all do nothing with regards to this debt ceiling problem and figure out if it really is a problem.  As far as I can tell, this crisis was manufactured by a bunch of pompous assholes who have no vested interest in helping you.

That’s because you suck.  How many friends do you have on Facebook?  How many really care about what your stupid dog did yesterday?

No Facebook?  OK, let’s try Twitter.  Are you more concerned with tweeting about your random, meaningless thoughts than about anything of substance?

Seriously, it was all your fault that we are in this predicament.  If you had voted for Ron Paul or me in 2008 instead of John McCain, maybe Barack Obama would have not been President.  Instead, you choose the worst possible candidate among a slew of bad candidates because you wanted your precious war.  Or because you think in terms of black and white.

Is there really ever a true black and white decision in your life?  I have plenty of options with everything I do and I never see anything remotely resembling a binary choice.

And yet, somehow, our leaders have deemed it necessary to present us with a choice that they will make for us in a way that will benefit only them.

Americans of most political strides are suckers.  Neither Democrat nor Republican has any interest in helping you.  Or your mom.

Life sucks and then you die.

But relax.  There are plenty of things to enjoy on YouTube:

No Japanese Girls in this Video, You Pervert

Government Man video clip

This is Government Man, come from the Government. The Government sent him.

In case you all were wondering where I got the concept of Government Man from.