New Song

This is not really finished as I would like to add words, and an actual ending, but its a work in progress and I'm excited with what I have so far. check it out!


OR you can download the file here

Sorry about the Mp3 player, it kind of sucks, but it works. hopefully
You might have to refresh it for it work. I'll figure this out more later.

Iowa Senate approves cloning legislation.

DES MOINES, Iowa, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- The Iowa state Senate Wednesday narrowly passed legislation that would allow researchers to use therapeutic cloning to aid in harvesting stem cells.

The vote was 26-24 in favor of the legislation, the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette said. the vote paved the way for the use of cloning and stem cells to solve medical issues.

Opponents of the bill called it a major step toward human cloning, but supporters called it a beacon of hope for many sick people.

"The bill would lift the ban that prevents doctors from taking the basic embryonic stem cell research currently being conducted in Iowa and using it to help treat patients," Iowa City Sen. Joe Bolkcom said. "It is time to give hope to our citizens that are suffering from debilitating diseases. It is time to develop the full potential of this area of research."

Gov. Chet Culver supported stem-cell research during his 2006 campaign.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

It seems that daily we get closer and closer to explaining questions and solving problems that have plagued man for his entire existence. I feel that this is a step in the right direction to a certain degree. The thought of healing a loved one through science is a comforting idea when you begin to think of yourself as indestructible. This may be the case in years to come when actual human cloning is made possible. I would like to more about stem cell research, and hopefully will post something about it sometime soon.

Metal Storm

That last post was a little boring, but if you have a spare 7 minutes, watch this video. That gun should take care of its fair share of terrorists I think.


...yea... damn.

The Origins of Valentines Day

During the third century, in early Rome, before the introduction of Christianity the pagans celebrated Lupercalia. This was a ritual feast celebrated every year to honor the god Lupercus, Gaurdian of the flocks. He was said to protect the livestock from the surrounding wolves. Also during Lupercalia, but in honor of the goddess Juno Februata, the names of young women were put into a box and names were drawn by lot. The boys and girls who were matched would be considered partners for the year, which began in March.

This continued on until the introduction of Christianity. The church officials changed the name to St. Valentine's Day. To give the celebration further meaning and eliminate pagan traditions, priests substituted the drawing of Saints names for the names of the girls. On St. Valentine's Day the priest placed saint's names into an urn or box. The young people then drew a name from the container. In the following year, the youth was supposed to emulate the life of the saint whose name he had drawn.

The name St. Valentine originates from a priest alive during the rule of Emperor Claudius. Claudius was heavily recruiting men to serve as soldiers for his wars without much success. The men preferred not to leave their wives and families to fight in foreign lands. Claudius became angry and declared that no more marriages could be performed and all engagements were canceled. St Valentine felt this was wrong and secretly wed couples. When Claudius found out, he threw Valentine in prison where he died. Friends of the priest retrieved his body and buried it in a churchyard in Rome.

So now you know. There are other theories about the origins of St. Valentine, but that is the most concrete idea. I find it interesting that this holiday has now become such a commercial celebration, though most every other celebration has as well.

New Book

I have started reading A History of God by Karen Armstrong, and though I am only about 40 pages in, the book is already explaining the evolution of the Christian god Yahweh, from primitive gods. Starting out with the original monotheistic deities ,and the religious paths of early man in relation to the growing number of pagan gods that eventually were pooled together into the god of our fathers.

Strange as it may seem, the idea of "God" like the other religious insights of the period developed in a market economy in a spirit of aggressive capitalism.

Its a very interesting read and I will be writing a full report after I'm finished.

The 10th Dimension

This clip is probably not that accurate, but gives you a good idea of how advanced this field of science is getting. Pretty crazy.

War On Drugs

Do you ever wonder if the war on drugs, will instead of failing (which most people think will happen) it will succeed and eradicate the market for illegal drug use. Would it equalize society or remove from artistic creativeness. its seems to me now that a huge majority of great art and thought in society has come from the use of drugs. Is it good for the government to eradicate this unspoken cornerstone of our society? Or is this vise that controls the thoughts of millions in our world really the key to reaching new levels of thought and creativeness?
In the 70s high level thinkers and mathematicians were known to take small doses of LSD to think in a more abstract way to solve abstract problems. just a thought.

The Blissfully Ignorant, and The Ignorantly Blissful

So to my first serious topic, I would like to present my idea of what Christianity in America is compared to my personal thoughts and feelings on the topic. Science is making leaps and bounds in the explanation of how everything works and why we are here. Evolution is an accepted and basically proven fact in the scientific community and still more discoveries are being made daily. Evolution through Adaptation is no longer a theory and again we are closer than ever to being able to entirely dismiss the thought of a god figure. So how is it that there are so many people in the world that still believe in a religion that in its basic ideas says the world was created 6,000 years ago, when we have found remnants of pottery and tools dating back tens of thousands of years? I feel there are two good explanations for this. The first is what i feel appropriate to describe as being blissfully ignorant.
This idea to me is the realization that the bible is one of thousands of ancient texts, and this one just so happened to make it through the major wars and political upheavals of the ancient world, and was then introduced to people who took it all much to seriously and began to accept these guidelines as written dogmatic law. The blissfully ignorant person is entirely aware of the explanations given by science and for the most part accepts them as fact. I feel the best explanation is that more than likely we are just living tissue with a developed sense of self and are capable of cognitive thought. We are born and make decisions on what we do every day, and then we die. There is no afterlife more than likely, and there will always be a tomorrow, even after humans are gone, the earth is gone, and all the stars burn out, there will still be something. But the blissfully ignorant person feels best to think that if you live life as a good person, then if there is a heaven, then we get to go there. The bible is taken as law by many people, while in my life I try to accept it as a guideline on how to be a good person.
On the other end of the spectrum are the The Ignorantly Blissful. These are the people who instill a sense of strong dislike in many of my friends who feel that being a devout Christian is a bad thing and hypocritical. Today these people are often the right wing ultra elite of society. There are many conspiracy theories about that part of society but I speak more to the average American super-Christian. The people who feel that these words, written by mans interpretation should be taken as infoulable law. If the bible says to love one another, then why is it that some of my atheist friends who try to be good accepting and loving people will, according to the bible, go to hell for not worshiping the correct god. I'm sure everyone faced with an eternal realm of pain or heaven, would prefer heaven. In reality God is what our mind has created to explain the unexplainable. I am comfortable with this. An idea to base our reasoning for being loving and kind is not a bad idea. Taking this to the extreme it has been taken too today is an unsafe and insane act, one that with in a few years will be explained away, just as our "flat" world was.

Coolest Fact

My friend Ike told me one of the most interesting nuggets of Information I have heard in quite some time.
Recently the Navy in Hawaii did a study on dolphins to determine intelligence. They dumped a bunch of different colored balls into a pool and trained "Dolphin A" to go hit the orange ball, the reward being a fish. The dolphin became very adept at this task and would do it instantly after a while. The researchers then introduced dolphin B into the pool and let the two swim around and play for a bit. They then removed dolphin A from the tank, and again dumped the balls into the pool. The second dolphin, never having seen this done, went to the orange ball right away, touched it, then swam over and waited for his tasty prize.

Do you know what this means? Dolphins have been proven to communicate, this doesnt amaze me as much as the fact that Dolphins have a word for orange! pretty amazing i think.

A Profound Evening of Conclusions

I have had many friends and aquaintances in my life, but as of late I have begun to realize what real friends are. Going home this past weekend, I had the chance to hang out with friends I hadnt seen in quite a while, but more importantly I had some of the most profound conversations of my life with these people and saw a side of both them and myself I never knew existed. These topics will be discussed in the next few blogs but for now I will just say that this was a very enlightening night filled with ideas I had never even given a thought to. There is an unlimited amount of conclusions that one may come to, and at this point in my life i feel that i have come to a few more very deep conclusions that the day before. But is that what life is? To go from one conclusion to the next always striving to get from point A to point B, whatever those destinations may be. Now I am rambling but I feel excited to take the readers of this on the journey of my spiritual and mental growth.
Also as my first blog I want to thank Arlen for giving me the idea that it is not only "ok" to express your ideas thoughts and emotions, but in reality almost imparative that for one to truely grow then the process of thought and conversation must take place if only to wade through cluttered ideas and come to these conclusions.