Just finished a bit of The Matrix Online (HUGE article I wanna write up about this soon) and happened to turn on the TV.

It’s now 1:47 AM EST on April 1st, 2005. The time and date should be taken into account for the next thing I’d like to make note of…

…that right now, HBO East is showing The Godfather Part III.

Knowing that these TV schedules are pretty much established several weeks ahead, if you’ve seen the movie you’ll already know why that’s an unsettling coincidence....

…I’m talking about the factionalism.

It occurred to me during my extended absence that nobody “matters” in this world unless they belong to a faction of some kind or another. A person isn’t supposed to be their own unique individual being anymore. In fact, “individualism” is a vastly scorned and ridiculed concept: you are either “with US” or “with THEM”… or you don’t exist at all.

I said in my last post that it hit me that there are three kinds of people in this world: Those that Want to Control, Those that Want to Be Controlled, and Those that Are Out of Control. The first two are the vast majority of this world… well, of America and the western world anyway. They’re for people that either want a sense of being part of something bigger than they are, or they want to exploit the desire for ...

It was brought to my attention this morning that people on some websites are saying that I’m dead.

One place is even saying that I committed suicide. Didn’t know I was the kind of guy whose extended absence elicited that kind of concern.

I’m still here. Had to leave for awhile and look into some things that warranted an extended departure from any online activity. Didn’t intend on spending forty days in the wilderness… but there you have it.

I was away. And discovered some things. Lots of things. Including one that has had immense ramifications on my personal life and some of the responsibilities that, though they aren’t demanded by this circumstance it does leave me morally compelled to figure out how to use this selflessly. There’s no need to say anything more about that for now: sometimes the better part of chivalry is knowing when NOT to raise ...

This is only a notion that entered my mind. But it’s one that all too greatly suggested itself.

Just reading where the United States is recalling its ambassador to Syria. This comes in the wake of the bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minster Rafik Hariri yesterday.

And more people than you might want to know are right now cackling and grinning and rubbing their hands with anticipation over this news.

I’ve already written on a few occassions about the end-times beliefs that drive most of the supporters of the current administration in the White House. It can be safely said that those who consider themselves “Christians” and fall into line behind Bush can be divided into two categories: those that want to take over the world before Christ comes, and those who want Christ to destroy the world so that “if we can’t have, nobody can!” The pre-tribulation ...

Two bits of news that caught my eye. The title of one immediately brought all kinds of cultural references to mind and the other was just plain weird enough to pique my curiosity.

From the London Daily Mail via RedNova.com:

Posted on: Friday, 11 February 2005, 00:00 CST
Can This Black Box See Into the Future?

DEEP in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream.

At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment. Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.

But, according to a growing band of top scientists, this box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the ‘eye’ of a machine that appears capable

For the record, ‘cuz plenty of mail has been coming in about this, given my earlier relationship with the subject matter:

– Yes, I’ve heard about what’s gone down the past 48 hours or so.

– Yes, I’ve read the open letter.

– No, I haven’t read the message thread.

– No, I haven’t read any comments about it anywhere.

– Yes, I’m aware some things I’ve written here have been posted to another website.

– No, I do not post to that other website.

– No, I do not even regularly visit that other website.

– No, I do not presently post messages to ANY websites (other than TheForce.net forums as “Chris Knight”, and not as much as before).

– Yes, I’m aware that a few things about the years I spent there have been discussed very recently.

– Yes, I’m aware that at least one thing that I

Did a quick look through all the major news sites and #1 story today is Howard Dean getting elected to be chairman of the Democratic Party.

Why should we care?

This’ll be a big deal to a lot of people. The Dems will praise their new leader and the Pubs will hate him more. That’s all.

This “news” has no intrinsic value whatsoever. But it has the intended effect: trick a lot of people into thinking that this “really matters” so they can be even more faithful Democrats or spiteful Republicans and not have to bother to think for themselves about the things that ARE important. So they can be used by Those With Power(tm).

All of you Democrats who believe this news is critically important: you’re wrong. And you do precisely what’s expected of you when you become such tools to your party’s masters. Same to you Republicans: you’ll ...

This time he’s talking about what happens “When Christians worship man”. Go read it. Now....

So a little while ago my wife and I are talking about how things will be if/when we start having children, and how I’ve always dreamed of being the kind of Daddy who reads bedtime stories to the kids before they go to sleep for the night.

“But I don’t wanna read ’em stuff like ‘The Little Red Hen’ a zillion times over and over,” I told her. “That got old fast. By the time they’re five or six I’m thinking something like tucking them into bed and then reading The Call of Cthulhu to them.”

I’m not kidding.

She’s never read Lovecraft so she’s got NO idea what I’m talking about. And she would probably have a restraining order to keep me away from Baby if she did know. But she didn’t say “no” so guess that’s a de facto “yes” right?

Telling y’all here and now: our kids ...

The funniest thing about this Jeff Gannon story, for me at least, is that someone with two days of journalism training during a weekend seminar becomes a credentialed reporter from a website – that was maybe a week-old at the time – and then given regular access to the White House press briefing room. Despite having an obvious agenda to promote a political party, his meteoric rise was duly noted as he not only received the coveted assignment of asking questions at a Presidential press conference, but got called on by first name from President Bush. So the official statement from the White House about this is that they effectively don’t care. Whether he was who he said he was, or was a serious reporter, or apparently whether he was distributing gay pornography and prostituting himself over the Internet: none of that matters. He was still considered trusty enough ...