"'Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships.'
Michael Jordan"

True in ANY endeavour. :)

"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been." Henry Kissinger

"'Dreams are the most powerful motivators of all.' -- Nick Thornely"

"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe"

The most overvalued housing markets - Aug. 23, 2005

This is classic. Essentially neither NY or WA is really that great to buy a house in . Nassau-Suffolk broke the top 25 at 42% overpriced. Bellingham, WA, surprisingly, is the highest in WA at 35%, which is crazy. Bellingham is WAY up in Washington state, way north of Seattle. Why there? I'm thinking that its simply a matter of building more houses there. Some interesting ones are...

Seattle 25%
Tacoma 18%
Olympia 18%
Spokane 7%
Even Kennewick is there at 3% overrpriced!

Well, when demand outstrips supply again, we'll see these things come down. I hope....

TCS: Tech Central Station - Why 'Theology Is a Simple Muddle'

CHAPTER FOUR:

Why Do Fundamentalists Reject Darwin?



Now, at last, we can approach our final question, Why do fundamentalist Christians have trouble with Darwin's theory of evolution? Why did the Southern Baptist Church refuse to accept the Reconciliation Thesis that I had offered them?



According to Richard Dawkins, there is a simple explanation-fundamentalist Christians are ignorant boobs. But this explanation, as tempting as it may be to some, simply won't do. Catholics, according to Dawkins, are also ignorant boobs, and yet they have never had much trouble accepting Darwin's theory of evolution. John Henry Newman, arguably the greatest Catholic thinker of the nineteenth century, remarked that if evolution was the method by which God decided to organize the details of creation, then Darwin's theory, far from casting doubt on God's existence, merely demonstrated the perfection of his providence. Or to use his words:



"It does not seem to me to follow that creation is denied because the Creator, millions of year ago, gave laws to matter."



Rather than micro-managing the adaptations of each organism, God had simply established certain fundamental laws by which these adaptations could be produced-all according to plan, needless to say, but in this case, a plan that was laid at the very foundations of the universe.



The great seventeenth century French philosopher and Catholic priest, Pierre Malebranche, believed that it was unseemly to suppose that God worried overmuch about the minutiae of the world's day-to-day operation. Better to conceive of God as establishing, by an unchangeable and eternal decree, a set of general laws in accordance with which all the actual events of our world would be regulated-so perfectly regulated that Malebranche even ruled out the possibility of miracles. God had decreed that gravity should swiftly move objects towards the center of the earth-hence, when a three year old child fell off a balcony eleven stories high, how absurd to expect God to overturn his immutable decree by permitting the child to survive his crash into the pavement below.



Many Christians of Darwin's time also felt the same way. Henry Ward Beecher preached that "Design by wholesale is grander than design by detail," and the leading American biologist Asa Gray accepted the Darwinian principle of natural selection, but interpreted it as the method God had chosen to implement his eternal design. According to this lofty point of view, God is no humble craftsman forced to carve, piece by piece, each and every specimen of life with his own two hands and by the sweat of his brow-a mortifying role for the supreme deity, considering the fact that even Santa Claus can avail himself of an army of industrious elves to do all the boring and tedious work for him. Rather, thanks to Darwin's theory of evolution, God was no longer seen as a lowly artisan, laboriously crafting each species; instead, he was the grand architect who worked from a set of elegant and simple principles-namely, those discovered and set forth by Charles Darwin in The Origins of Species.



But if a man can accept the theory of evolution and believe in intelligent design without any logical inconsistency, what can explain the failure of Christian fundamentalists to jump on the same bandwagon that has been graced with the presence of men like John Henry Newman, Henry Ward Beecher, Asa Gray, and, today, nearly all Catholics, not to mention the more intellectually respectable denominations of Protestants? Do Southern Baptists, and such, just have lower IQ? Or is there a deeper reason for the fact that Christian fundamentalists remain opposed to Darwin's theory of evolution?



I would like to suggest that there is a deeper reason than stupidity or ignorance. Furthermore, I want to argue that it is the same deeper reason that led Darwin to reject the efforts to reconcile the belief in intelligent design with the theory of evolution that he had developed.




http://www.techcentralstation.com/081905B.html

The Second Amendment: The Framers' Intentions

A good friend of mine didn't know what the purpose of the Second Amendment was. I found this amazing since he is a liberal, and you assume they know stuff.
Truth is, most East Coast liberals are cookie-cutter liberals due to the media influence. Liberalism was impressed upon them because of what they are told Conservatives and Christians are going to do to them if they get in power. They think that conservatives hate freedom and sex and rock and roll, so they rail against conservatives. They're usually not Christians, cookie-cutter liberals.

Its important to open our minds on these things. How else are we going to end this cultural battle? A middle ground must be established.



The Second Amendment: The Framers' Intentions: " The overriding purpose of the
Framers in guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms was
as a check on the standing army, which the Constitution gave the Congress
the power to 'raise and support.'"

"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits."-- Thomas Edison"

September is almost here. uggh! Got Unreal Tourny 2004 for the balloon mod, one of the most creative ever, Air Buccaneers. This would rock on HL2's engine.

Anyone want to send me some ram?

:)

Judy's Book

In NY, where I'm currently living, we have Joan Hemburg(sic). She's a maven on all NY's happenin's, but her website SUX with a capital X.

So I see that in Seattle, someone has webified essentially the town maven. Judy's book looks good!

http://www.judysbook.com/

Fog Creek Copilot - Home

I'm a pretty big fan of Joel on Software, and this product of their's looks great! Good job guys. I very much like Joel's 12 point program on evaluating software shops.

But here's Co-Pilot -- Fix your mom's computer!

Fog Creek Copilot - Home

Bayden Systems - SlickRun

Bayden Systems - SlickRun

Republicans Display the Arrogance of Power

this article is so good I have to mirror the whole thing. As a Republican, I weep. What happend to "the government IS the problem" GOP?


Republicans Display the Arrogance of Power: "Republicans Display the Arrogance of Power

by David Boaz

David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute (www.cato.org) and author of Libertarianism: A Primer.

What does Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) have in common with James Madison? Madison's home is in the congressional district that Allen has represented in the House and Senate. And that's about all.

Madison, the principal author of the U.S. Constitution, sought to establish a limited federal government. In arguing for its ratification, he promised Americans, 'The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.' A few years later, faced with a bill appropriating $15,000 for the relief of French refugees, he rose on the floor of the House to say that he could not 'undertake to lay [his] finger on that article in the Federal Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.'

That's a far cry from the philosophy of George Allen, who has introduced a bill in the United States Senate to require official approval of any TV ratings system. Indeed, if Madison's spirit could visit the Commerce Committee hearing room where Allen's bill was discussed, it would probably say with some severity, 'I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article in the Federal Constitution which granted a right to Congress to regulate television ratings.'

Allen is hardly the only member of Congress who would be a great disappointment to the Founders. For years, Republicans argued that the Democratic majority in Congress was intruding the federal government into more and more matters best left to the states, the local communities, or the private sector. After 10 years in power, however, the Republicans have seen the Democrats' intrusiveness and raised them. The Republicans have pushed the feds further into the local schools with the No Child Left Behind Act and tried to take marriage law away from the states with the Federal Marriage Amendment. They overruled a series of Florida courts in the Terri Schiavo case, imposing the massive power of the federal government on a tragic family matter.

But it's not just these big-ticket items. Republicans have come down with a serious case of Potomac Fever. They believe that their every passing thought is a proper subject for federal legislation. They hold three-ring-circus hearings on steroids in baseball. They sharply increase the fines for alleged indecency on television. They hold hearings on whether college textbooks are too expensive. They threaten to punish Major League Baseball if the owners allow left-wing billionaire George Soros to be a part owner of the new team in Washington. They vote for a federal investigation of the video game 'Grand Theft Auto.'

Many of these gambits do target real annoyances and even real problems. But in a free society citizens don't turn to the national government to solve every problem. Indeed, a free society is measured by the amount of life that remains outside the control of government. We may all be tempted from time to time to say 'There oughta be a law!' when we're angry or frustrated. That's why we write a Constitution -- to protect us from our own temptations to turn our exasperation into laws, and to protect us from our fellow citizens yielding to the same temptation.

Republicans took control of Congress in 1994 by declaring that Democrats had given us 'government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money.' Now, intoxicated with their own power, they have forgotten those words. They too use the powers of the federal government to lavish money on favored constituents, summon us before congressional hearings to explain ourselves, and intrude into our most local and personal decisions.

When Major League Baseball owners suggested that Congress had no authority to investigate steroid use, committee chairman Tom Davis (R-Va.) and ranking Democrat Henry Waxman replied that the committee 'may at any time conduct investigations of any matter.' So much for Madison's promise that those powers 'delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.'"

"Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim, Wisdom the source of virtue, and of fame, Obtained with labor, for mankind employed, And then, when most you share it, best enjoyed.

Alfred North Whitehead"

Marvin Olasky: 'South Park' vs. Ann Coulter

This is a great quoteMarvin Olasky: 'South Park' vs. Ann Coulter: "U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to offer good advice: 'Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world"

Discovery Institute - Article Database - Seattle's Charms Can't Hold The Young And The Restless

If seattle has an income tax when I go back I'm going to shoot someone.



Discovery Institute - Article Database - Seattle's Charms Can't Hold The Young And The Restless: "Seattle has a mild climate, beautiful nature and civil residents, a rare combination for a major urban area for those who have experienced blighted East Coast cities and decaying Rust Belt towns. Seattle is high on fashionable ethnic restaurants and other urban attractions and low on violent crime and grimy ghettos"

Life Quotes

My penchant for quotes has found a soulmate.

Life Quotes: "Say Yes to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky.
Say Yes to the universe and the planets become your neighbors.
Say Yes to dreams of love and freedom.
It is the password to utopia.
-- Brooks Atkinson"

boogle.com - google search engine with quotes: "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.

Abraham Lincoln"

Sorry for the delay in posts, but been REAL busy.

Here is a spoof on what can go wrong on FPS games. :)

Pure Pwnage - Episodes