Brent’s Thoughts

Original thread from my old forum

dictionary.com wrote:

Terrorism :
The act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; a mode of government by terror or intimidation. –Jefferson.
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
n : the systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments

Wow now that is a real eye opener to me. First let me start my original post and then let me move on to the part that was amazing to me.

The terror alert levels. If you actually believe them and follow their guidelines, and if you review the news for the last couple days does anyone think that the terrorists haven’t done their job? Has the government/our society not been intimidated by the terrorists? We have developed whole departments to give us warnings about terrorism. Doesn’t that sound just a little like we have been intimidated by them? Doesn’t warning people not to use airplanes and to stay home for the holidays sound a little like intimidation? How about the fact that we pay armed guards to watch over us? Is that intimidation? If none of these are intimidation, then what exactly is? What are we winning by posting these stupid alerts and then idiotic rules which seem to have no bearing on terror of any kind?

The revelation that I had while looking up the definition is related to this one in particular:
dictionary.com wrote:

Terrorism :
The act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; a mode of government by terror or intimidation. –Jefferson.

This definition of terror made me stop and think for a minute. Especially, the last part: a mode of government by terror or intimidation. Wow. Looking at it isn’t that almost exactly what our government is using on us? Are they not controling the populace of the US by making us afraid? Are they not terrorizing us with their alert, colors and statements? Are they not intimidating us into following their policy, by scaring us with fearful stories?

Perhaps this is the thing that we should really be scared of?

Well Xmas is over, time to tell the tales. Pauline and I headed over to the farm for Xmas Eve and exchanged our gifts over there. I really went for the moon with only one expensive gift that I wasn’t sure if she would like. It turned out that I hit it pretty dead on. I got her a portable Mp3 player that has an FM radio built into it as well. She seems to really like it and has spent a lot of time listening to the stuff I put on it.

My parents got her a lot of stuff like clothes and PJs and stuff like that. We got my parents a lot of towels that match the new bathroom and my mom her standard Xmas fair of lotion that she always wants.

We got Stacey a puzzle that she seemed to really like and a thing to work them on that lets you roll them up and store them between working on them. I also picked her up some Oscar the Grouch Slippers that I think you liked.

Pauline headed over to her parents house Xmas morning to spend time with them and I stayed over at the farm for the rest of the week. We ended up cutting up some wood with the new chainsaw that dad got and just chilling being a family. Stacey shot some video with my camera, that I am going to have to edit to death, but I hope to get some of that up here soon. Hopefully, I won’t piss Maxx off and overrun my storage/bandwidth limits that he has set in his head.

Original thread from my old forums

Wow.

I\’m not sure where to go with this really. I guess I will start by saying….

OMG THIS MOVIE FREAKING ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I think this is a good start.

If you haven\’t seen it yet, then here is what you need to do:

PUT DOWN THE FREAKING MOUSE AND GET TO THE NEAREST MOVIE THEATER THAT IS SHOWING IT!!!! RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!

ahem…. sorry. If you can\’t tell I am a little hyped up over it. I am serious though. This is, if not the best, easily in the top three movies that I have seen in my life. (Well not counting all those home movies of me, of course.)

There are parts where I wanted to stand up and cheer. There were parts where I wanted to cry. And there were definately parts where I wished I had a sword.

I was a little worried for this one, after The Two Towers, because Jackson had changed the story so much, but this one reads almost like an abridged copy of the book. There are several sub-stories that get glossed over, but I understand why. It would have taken a five hour movie to get them all in. The movie also mirrors the books in that at the end of it and them, I always feel a little sad. Jackson kept that true, by just not ending it at the happy time, but showing a little bit of the things that happen afterward. Though he did cut out some parts of the story that I wish had been left in, such as the fight for the Shire and the fact that Sam eventually crosses over the sea as well.

All and all the movies stand on their own as one of the ultimate epics and they stand pretty well as a visualization of the books, which I think are pretty much the ultimate epic. I know that the hobbit is on the table as being done, I wonder if the Simarilion is being thought of as well?

Original thread from my old forums

WOW!! I don’t know what A&E did with their censors, but they pretty much must have paid them off.

There were only two things that they didn’t show on this show. Completely naked uncovered live genitala and people having sex. Pretty much everything else was shown.

Chicks walking around with only paint on: Check, Check, Check, Check
Painted Nipples: Check
Naked Picture of Marilyn Monroe: Check
Naked Pictures of other Playmates: Check
Painted Shaved Vagina: Check
Two chicks making out in Grotto: Check
Naked Butts: Check

They pretty much showed everything here. They show the girls getting painted, they should naked chicks swimming in the pool, all kinds a stuff. And this was regular non-pay extra cable channels here.

And it was only 8:00 when it came on. I really don’t understand how they could have shown this, but hey I’m not complaining.

It actually was a great show. Lots of cool info about Hef and the magazine and stuff. Such a constrast to the video game awards that were on the other day. Wow they just sucked. They tried to be cool and just came off as fake and put on. David Spade was stiff and not very funny. You would think someone like him would actually play video games and be cool with them, but I don’t think he was really into it much.

Original post on my old forums

I recently was asked to proof read an associates paper regarding the preservation of wildlife around the world and was shocked by some of the ideas and/or laws regarding this important topic so I thought I would share…
Apparently, a proposal from the director of fish and wildlife services was submitted Aug 15th of this year to allow hunters, circuses, and the pet industry to kill, capture, and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries. Many people supporting this proposal claim that funds brought in from expensive permits, tropies and live animal aquisition could help to pay for conservation efforts for the remaining animals in their habitat.
Am I insane or is this completely STUPID?
First of all, the obvious: if they are on the brink of extinction, then how many animals (if any) will be left to benefit from this “conservation action”?
Second, my associate pointed out in his paper that there were no regulations dictating how the money from the permits, animal aquisition, etc had to be spent. I believe that is silly to think that these poor countries (he mentioned several in the paper) would spend the money on animal conservation (and I am not necessarily advocating that they should if they have people that are hurting)

This post in no way compares to reading the actual paper and the information that is contained within. If anyone is interested in knowing more, let me know and I will see about getting a copy of his paper to post. I find it facinating.

This morning I was driving into work and of course I was listening to the radio and thinking about how much the last song they played sucked, when they started a give-a-way. The DJ read a song in something of a lyrical fashion and you were supposed to tell him what the song was. Well the first line was:

“It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down.”

I had my phone out and was dialing before he got past sun. I knew what it was instantly. I mean I had only sung the song in my head a thousand times while swimming the 500 Freestyle.

I was the first caller and had the right answer right away. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Running Down a Dream

I could quote you the whole song if you wanted, but I’ll save you the trouble of having to read it.

I won a pair of tickets to Horse Cave Theatre, which is good since Pauline was going to make me buy them anyway and two tickets to the corvette museum. I got to pick the tickets up next time I am in BG.

Original thread from my old forum

First take the time to read this:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/30/ING8L39SIP1.DTL

Then understand that as far as I can tell everything this guy is saying is 100% correct.

Well I stepped away from this and didn’t ever post about it. Luckly P reminded me.

Do I think too much money is being dumped into schools for Computers?
Yes

Do I think too much money is being dumped into schools for Technology?
Probably not.

What is the difference?
Well it can be a subtle difference. I think we are spending too much money on Computers themselves. To much on MS licenses, too much on the software to run on it, too much on the administrative end as far as crazy programs designed to read data and aggregate it into meaningless numbers for administrators.

I don’t, on the other hand, think we spend enough money on things to help teachers teach the kids. I don’t mean software to let teachers sit kids in front of a monitor while they go off and talk. I mean things to help teachers make kids understand. We live in a new type of society as far as kids go. A large amount of the kids today don’t get the parenting that most of the adults now days did. See the rant’s here as an example and there are others on here. Instead they spend a lot more time with people they haven’t ever met, or in rapid fire conversations with lots of people. I think as a result they end up being less able to absorb information in a lecture style setting. Does that excuse them from having to learn like that? No, but we should be attempting to use new means to enhance teaching. There are lots of other methods than a teacher standing in front of a room with a blackboard and kids sitting out in the room. There are methods that involve the kids in the learning process. I am trying to use those more and more in the class that I teach and it seems to be going good.

Dumping more and more computers into schools doesn’t really help anything. There are teachers in the schools now that don’t know how to use the computers that they already have. There are systems in the schools that are supposed to be used for teaching and instead are co-opted for administrative uses. There are people that don’t meet the guidelines of being a teacher in this age and that aren’t planning on trying to get there. Schools are at a break point. They are led by people that didn’t have computers as children and who aren’t comfortable with them for more than email and word processing. These people are managing and teaching kids who use computers everyday for a million different tasks. This is a point that will slowly disappear as more and more teachers leave school knowing how to work computers and use them correctly, but I think any attempt that can be made to hasten this break points demise should be done.

More computers in schools is not the answer to that, more computer literate people in schools is. More technology to aid in the teaching process is. More reason to make teachers teach using technology as a tool and not a crutch is.