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World of New Genesis
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- Moloth - The Believer is Happy; the Skeptic is Wise
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The Bard’s lines run through my head with uneasy and unceasing regularity.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
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Happy Equinox! Today, the Earth’s equator is perfectly aligned with the solar plane: at noon today, the Sun will be directly overhead on the equator.
The wobble that produces seasons here on Earth is exactly in the middle. The day in the Southern Hemisphere are exactly the same length as the day in the Northern Hemisphere… and while we are switching from Summer to Autumn, they are are now leaving Winter for Spring!
Now, we have to look forward to shorter days and the cooling of the weather. 
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Sam Harris is a noted historian, writer of philosophy and outspoken atheist. I have read his work and, by and large, agree with his message and conclusions.
This is certainly one of those times that i am full agreement with him. The topic? Sarah Palin.
Sam has written his thoughts for Newsweek and they break down, very succinctly, why i am horrified that Sarah Palin is a heart-beat away (or is that a “heart attack away”) from being one of the most powerful people in the world.
I URGE you to read this. http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080/page/1
Here are a few choice paragraphs…
Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin’s performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin’s speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones “God and country.” If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.
The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth’s surface (she didn’t have a passport until last year), or that she’s never met a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with Gibson, Palin managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a straight-faced claim that Alaska’s geographical proximity to Russia gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. Palin may be a perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American success story—but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling into, or upon, world history.
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… that you’re about to get a card like this?
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I like the word “Borked”. Simply from contextual clues, one can easily determine it to mean “broken”… its just a more fun way to say it. Like many other words added to the internet-speak lexicon, it began existence as a mere misspelling: “Borken”, where the “r” and the “o” have been accidentally transposed by a careless typist. Now, this word, “Borken” is pretty funny on its own, as any Swedish Chef will attest to. The common (and often hilarious) transmuting of adjectives into verbs, and vice versa, is a further corruption that this word has had to endure for the greater good. No longer is something merely “Borken”, it is now just totally “Borked” (bork bork bork!).
Try throwing out it in a real conversation… i guarantee you that your audience will do little more than bat an eye at the word and will seamlessly assimilate it and perhaps even integrate it into their own vocabulary.
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Today is a momentous day in, not only the world of science, but history of humanity.
Today, the LHC was fully powered up and tested, sending a stream of protons one way around the 17 mile-across circle deep under the Franco-Swiss border. The first particle collisions are planned soon after the official unveiled date of October 21st, 2008.
This experiment will reveal some of the most fundamental particles in known reality.. and, perhaps, some that are merely theoretical. This experiment could further confirm the Standard Model of the Universe, force us to completely rethink it… or, perhaps, show us things completely unexpected.
In any case, this is an exciting time to be alive: our knowledge of the very nature of reality is being expanded in profound ways.
Also… please stop calling it “The Large Hardon Collider” (NSFW)
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I returned home at about 4:30 yesterday, unpacked, ordered some pizza and played some WoW. Today is my ‘recovery day’… something i learned to appreciate early on in my Con-going career.
Dragon*Con was, of course, amazing. 60,000 people all in downtown Atlanta over 4 skyscraper hotels. even as crowded and hectic as everything was, everyone was so nice, so polite and so helpful. Everyone there seemed to be enjoying themselves and i neither heard of nor saw ANY sort of trouble making or strife.
There was quite a bit of fun to be had.. and not all of it explicitly Con related. i can’t imagine the number of gallons of alcohol that were consumed by the nightlife of this Con. I had read somewhere that “ComicCon is nerd prom… DragonCon is geek Mardi Gras”, and that certainly has its merits.
Its going to take DAYS for me to process all that i saw, all that happened and all the little stories i have to tell about that amazing weekend.
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