Banned

As far as England publishing a list of banned individuals, I'm not really sure what to say. It's their country, let them do as they wish. Now, for who should be banned from the United States. I think anyone who intends to do harm to American citizens should not be permitted within our borders. This used to be common sense, but it's hard to say now. On the flip side of the coin, any hard working, intelligent, and determined individual who wants to improve his or her life by coming to America should be permitted. It's about as simple as that for me.

"Hate Crimes"

Life is all about making choices. Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives chose to protect pedophiles under hate crime laws, but refused to afford military veterans the same courtesy. That alone should be enough to enrage all citizens of this Nation.

Pedophiles made a choice. They chose to wreck lives, families, and communities by enacting their demented sexual fantasies on innocent children. They chose to destroy innocence by trying to please themselves with their twisted, evil acts.

Veterans also made a choice. At some point during their lives, they decided that the beautiful things most of us take for granted were worth protecting. They chose to sacrifice some of their own freedoms to protect the people, places, and country they love. Are they perfect? Of course not. Have they made bad decisions? Yes, we all have. But they chose to fight for the preservation of innocence, not to satisfy their own perversion of it.

And now, from a legal standpoint, it is better to discriminate against a child molester than against a soldier. Someone who assaults a military veteran is subject to no unusual penalties, but someone who assaults a pedophile is now legally equal to a Klansman or a Neo-Nazi.

The destruction of innocence is evil. So now, we can either choose to preserve it, or give protection to those who shatter it.

The World

I really cannot stand lazy people. I would like to live in a world where stupidity, ignorance, and laziness are, if not tolerated, at least not rewarded. I realize this is probably a lost cause, but if we fail, we will fail because we don't care.

"I Do Not Think We Will Need More Than 11 Days to Wipe Israel Out Of Existence" -General Ataollah Salehi

Drinking Age

I have no problems with drinking alcohol. I know that sometimes it can serve as a good accompaniment to a meal or other social situation. I know that it can be enjoyable to drink, but like anything, it must be taken in moderation. If used without responsibility and maturity, it can take devastating tolls on people, families, children, and society.

I don't drink alcohol, but that fact alone won't change anything. I understand that some people need to create cognitive illusions using depressants and hallucinogens excessively to live with themselves. As for the drinking age, I don't think lowering it will help or hurt much of anything. The unfortunate truth is quite a few kids eighteen and younger consume alcohol. These kids are incredibly immature to drink in the first place, and are incapable of knowing when to quit. This, perhaps more than anything, is the saddest issue of any. While there are exceptions, most people who start don't know how or when to stop. This applies not only to people who are eighteen, but to people who are twenty-eight, thirty-eight, and much older. They fail to recognize what they are doing to their bodies, their minds, and their lives. If you cannot be happy with who you are when you're sober, chances are you're not going to be much happier when you're intoxicated.

My weekend might actually happen this time. I can't wait, either. This has been the craziest day...enough said.

The Hundred Days Campaign

I listened to the President speak last night during his "100 Days" press conference. Aside from the Napoleonic allusion of the Hundred Days, I was mostly uninterested in Mr. Obama's "eloquence." The man I heard speaking last night spoke not as a United States President, but as an incredibly arrogant, self-proclaimed guru of solutions. Specifically, he stated it was his job to ensure that America maintained a "viable auto industry." I'm sorry, Mr. President, but that is not your job. First of all, the American auto industry is obviously not competitive with foreign companies; otherwise the current situation would not exist. It is the auto industry's job to keep itself viable in a globalized market, not the U.S. government. There is nothing the government can do aside from prolong it's demise with vain financial "rescue" programs. Capitalism would naturally force the revision of auto markets, with no "help" from outside sources. If a market fails once, it will fail again.

Equally disturbing was the Chairman's ineptitude in speaking about the people who have become auxiliary to a political agenda, the U.S. Servicemen. Commonly referred to simply as "troops", the people of the U.S. military have become dehumanized not by a chain of command or by bureaucracy, but by media and candidates looking for support. It was appalling to hear the "Commander-in-Chief" stumble over words as he tried to describe his "appreciation of U.S. Soldiers, Airman, Sailors, and Marines. The man is a fraud.

Things aside from school...

I wish I was in Cambodia right now. The humidity is good for cardio-respiratory health and regeneration. I would hang out with the exiled Shaolin monks in their monasteries and hunt wild jungle creatures with a bamboo spear. I would drink lots of tea and harvest rice to eat with the wild jungle creatures that I killed with a bamboo spear.

Happiness and Irration.

I am pretty happy right now. Things are going really well, and I can't complain about much of anything. I am finished with English 102 and designing my final house in Architectural. I also have a pretty awesome sunburn from the Cincinnati baseball trip. I am not really irritated at much, just the usual arrogance and ignorance of most people. But I learned a long time ago it's no use being miserable, so I'm happy.

Wood County BOE

I have no problem with the so called "Bible Studies" class that was recently approved in Wood County. The removal of character building from our public schools has, in my opinion, led to the greatest failure of education in the United States. Students in public schools are not given proper instruction, and are often too immature to learn. They lack any sense of responsibility, self discipline, respect or motivation. In short, education cannot be "given," it must be earned. The Bible, regardless of its religous value, teaches principles that are essential to getting the most out of life. Therefore, I have no problem with teaching Biblical principles in public schools.

Not much happening right now. I've been pretty busy working on Team Mudbut's game and writing for English 102. Otherwise I'm just biding my time and relaxing.

Frank Lloyd Wright Quiz

I finished the first edition of my Architectural quiz yesterday. My quiz is on the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Below is the link:

Drafting Game Gallery

Some interesting news:

http://taxdayteaparty.com/teaparty/west-virginia/

Fire Tornado

I am a little over halfway done with my Frank Lloyd Wright quiz for architectural drafting. Otherwise there is not much going on.

Political Upheaval

I am extremely disappointed in the government leadership of our country. I feel we are moving in a direction that the United States should not be heading. Fiscal irresponsibility, moral compromise, social liberalization, and military reduction are just a few of the issues I see in the United States.

Mudbut

This weekend I helped with a Little League baseball camp at Spring Valley. I practiced baseball afterward, then slept the rest of the day. On Sunday I went to church, played Zombie Baseball, Unreal Tournament, and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Architecture

We have started a quiz game project in Architectural Drafting. I am doing a quiz on Frank Lloyd Wright in Flash Actionscript 2.0. We also have our Work keys test tomorrow.

Weekend

We had a baseball scrimmage scheduled for Saturday, however, it was canceled due to rain. We practiced in the gym instead. After practice, I worked on homework for a while and tried to get some rest. I played Unreal Tournament and worked on some game design stuff. Sunday I worked on my English 102 paper and rested for a while.

House 4

Over the last week in architectural drafting, I have been designing a 2200 square feet two story house. The public areas are all on the first floor, with the kitchen adjoined to the dining room by a cased opening. The foyer opens into the living room and there is a second entrance on the side. All the bedrooms and the family room are on the second floor.

President Obama recently announced his spending plan, the largest in American history. Economists predict it will raise the national deficit by 0.8 trillion, to a total 1.8 trillion dollars. Brilliant.

I will blog more this weekend.

I have begun following several blogs through an application on blogger.com.

Unreal Tournament 2004 is one of the best computer games ever.

According to our civics book, the primary goals of American foreign policy are insuring national security, maintaining international trade, promoting world peace and democracy around the world.

We finished presenting our game two weeks ago.

Architecture

First Blog der da der

No School

We have lost an entire week of school due to global warming. I have been without electricity since Tuesday; it came back online late this afternoon. We have had nearly 6" of snow and single digit temperatures because the atmosphere is full of human-made carbon dioxide. The polar bears don't have any ice to surf on. The ice caps are melting. The global climate has increased by over 1.5 degrees Celsius since 1900. Only Al Gore can save us now.

We've been snowed out of school for the past two days. Our game is finished except for a few bugs that neither Mr. Reed nor I have quite figured out yet.

Recent developments

I thought I'd take this time to recount a few developments in the progression of our quiz. Firstly, we finished the quiz proper, and have worked out most of the bugs and programming errors. We have tried, without success, to add a score tracking function to the quiz. I have learned how to add a simple score functionality to flash animations, but that has little relevance to our current situation. I'll report any new developments as they occur.

Our game is awesome.