Defiantone.com

We’ve seen the debate over evolution rage for years and often brought into the forefront by conservtive and liberal minds alike. We, as a race, are still unsure as to how we really arrived here. Were we created by God? Did the big bang bring us all into existence? Did God cause the big bang and thus all of the subsequent events?

While we may not know how we arrived here we cannot deny that evolution is a force that is still changing the planet around us. Darwin didn’t discovery the theory of evolution - things simply evolve. What I didn’t know was how fast things could actually evolve. I caught an interesting article at the NY Times about evolution that has occured over the last 30 years. Scientific data is amazing because we can figure out quite a bit if we happen to get the correct measurements. Nobody can really tell me how warm it was at 12:13pm on 4 Dec 1401 on the top of Mt. Rainier because there was nobody to take a measurement, but, someone can tell me how the beak of a bird species has changed over the last 30 years due to the data that was collected.

It’s quite an interesting article because I figured it took quite a few generations (decades) before we would see any measurable change - boy was I wrong.

For quite some time I’ve thought that we didn’t have information to conclusively determine that humans are causing global warming and the contention that it is irreversible unless we change our carbon consuming habits.

Some interesting research has come out and it points to the idea that we may not be as involved as some would like to think. This winter has been cold

According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.”

Check out this interesting article - it doesn’t draw the conclusion that we aren’t on a pattern of global warming or that we aren’t polluting the heck out of our planet but rather alludes to the fact that we may have less to do with it than some scientists believe. Read on at the National Post

I’ve had extra time to scour the internet for interesting articles - here’s what I’ve found in the last few days

A college educated man experimented to see if he could rise from the ashes with only $25 in his pocket. His goal: to get a job, a car, an apartment, and put some money in the bank before the end of the year without using any of his connections. He succeeded - read his story

America may never become energy dependent unless we make a drastic change in the way we educate our young and the way we value everything in our society - read on

The author believes that we are accepting ignorance and that we are systematically dumbing ourselves down because - its just too hard. Its a fascinating read and ties into a book I am reading about globalization.

Stanford conducted a study on voting patterns based upon how people associate with a candidate - based upon the candidates appearance vs. their own. Great stuff - a summary is available here and you can read the full text at Stanford.edu

We’ve been fighting the war on terror since 2001 and we have still not captured or killed our number one target. Many believe that he is hiding in the mountains nearing the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. We have tried to make strikes in Pakistan in the past but have faced stiff opposition when seeking approval - this time we didn’t ask for permission and we found that there were no complaints made in the end. Hmmm… who would have thought - read on at MSNBC.

CNN fired a producer, Chez Pazienza, for writing on a personal blog - he was not writing about his life experiences while never mentioning his employer. Its a fascinating read about corporate politics - read on

Well, there really is a 10th planet in our solar system. (according to the news) The new planet, which doesn’t have anything more than a purely scientific name, is about 3x further away than pluto. Well, thats about it….

Although the US govt had deemed that stem cell research is immoral and evil, I think alot of good can be had out of the research if done in an ethical manner. Today, Korea, not bound by the morals imposed by our own government had a giant breakthrough. Read more… (thanks /.)

Wired News reports that South Korean scientists have made a dramatic breakthrough by deriving stem cells from cloned embryos of patients with spinal cord injuries. It shouldn’t be long before we can expect have a set of replacement parts ready when our own wear out.” From the article: “Researchers must test the cells in animals before they can try the therapy in humans. But embryonic stem-cell researchers were shocked and delighted by the advance, which many had referred to as a distant possibility until they saw this study by Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues at Seoul National University, which appears in the May 20 issue of Science.”

He sits on the bar stool staring blankly into space. At the bar in front of him sits a dirty glass half finished pint of bitter. His eyes are dark and show no emotion. They seem cold, like that blast of cold that hits you when you step out of your house in January to start your car. If you stare into them they’ll take your breath away and you’ll be forced to look into another direction. He sends piercing gazes to the others in the bar in a vain effort to figure out how they do it. He wonders how they communicate with people that they’ve never met. The only one he knows is the bartender that replaces his pint and he doesnt know her either.

No one notices him sitting in a worn t-shirt with a logo for something he finds intersting printed squarely on the front and a old pair of jeans that are tearing apart at the seams. The others are wearing button up shirts and nice leather shoes. He wears the steel toed boots that take him to work every day. Maybe, he thinks, if he should get into it, the loud thud of the steel into the other guy will scare any other takers away. These people are too rich for him. The girls that come here are too shallow and too nice for him at the same time. He wants someone that can break his will, barring that, he’ll take someone that will be on equal ground.

He met someone the other night at a bar and talked for two hours. He doesn’t think she’ll remember the conversation in the morning; he doesn’t consider himself worthy of being in another persons thoughts. When people speak to him they had better have a clear self image of who they really are and who they want to be. If they don’t, he’ll tear them apart like a lion does to a gazelle ripping flesh from bone. He is, in no way shape or form physically attracted to her but the fact that she can carry a conversation without pissing him off immediately is amazing. She carries on many of the normal topics and assumes alot, She assumes correctly on many of the points. She guesses what his job is, where he is from, and roughly how old he is. He doesn’t guess because he knows about her. She is in her lower 30’s, married, and works in a job around children. Her mind moves in an analytical fashion; she must spend most of her time in math or science. It turns out she is a teacher… he was right yet again. She doesn’t challenge him mentally and he toys with her for the next two hours. For some reason, as he sits sober in the chair, he wants to make her question everything in life. Life is not as clear as many people think it is. She begins to doubt herself and the remarks she is making; she is not as strong as she thought she was.

The proverbial soft spot in the armor is shown to him and he opens up the wound. She is not safe anymore, she has let too much of herself out there in the open. She has a general naiveté that she is beginning to exude. She doesnt know even though she’s been around longer. She tries but is shut down. He won’t let anyone in.

She leaves and he wonders why there are so few that can challenge him. Maybe he sets the standards too high. He sets his own standards so high that he always fails himself. Constantly pushing, he never gives up but is always met with constant disappointment. The disappointment leads to a general contempt and hate for everything around him. They should know him but they can’t because he will not let them. If the did know, they wouldn’t be able to handle what came up.

There are probably thousands, even millions, of people out there that would love to visit England at some point in time. I’m not sure what the allure is now that I’ve been here a while. Most people would love to come here and see the sights and then go home.. or then travel on elsewhere. I guess I had the belief that I would go and see more things than I already have. Size wise the island is not all that big.. the major problem with the island is that transportation from one end to the other takes quite a bit of time. For example, the speed limit on most roads is 70mph (4 lane roads) but the average speed you’ll travel is roughly 50mph. Maybe I’m just jaded about this country.. and every other place that I’ve lived because I’m waiting for the next thing to happen. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to settle down in once location and be happy with it for an extended period of time.

Sure, this country does have some cool things to check out but there are some things that aren’t that great about it. Most of those things live within 50 miles of every US military installation. Its not all of them, its a few people that make it bad for all of the Americans here. When you meet one of those people they act like you are a lower class and they don’t want you around (probably because some other American ruined it in the past for the rest of us).

So, I am quite aware that I don’t have the mind for science, but I still enjoy learning about it. Somebody else out there is going to have to invent the transporter for me… I’m never going to learn any math past algebra and I’m sure its going to take some high end math. It will probably also require some physics and biology and the list could go on… I like literature and communication (verbal/written)… I could write the operators manual for them but aside from that I’d be little help.

Altering topics… Its spider time in the UK. They are everywhere right now trying to get a good place for the soon coming summer. I’ve probably killed 10-20 in my house in the last two days and have killed a few that thought my car would be a brilliant place to set up shop. Needless to say, its not brilliant when you are crushed with enough force to turn your body into goo. There are no screens in any of the windows here (probably because there is a tax I am unaware of) so anything that wants in usually has its way.

I’m very bored right now and quite unsure of how to spend the rest of my day. I’ve got myself in a budget that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room to do much of anything. I could relax it quite a bit but I probably wont… I’ve got a plan and I’m going to stay with it as best as I can. If I was thinking sooner I could have planned an excursion for today. The time has already passed so I am stuck here in my house until this evening. Tomorrow I’ve got something going on in the morning that will limit my excursion. I wish I had a chair that I could put outside… if I did have one I’d be outside reading a book rather than sitting in here typing away at this stream of consciousness…

I ordered a mp3 player for my car that should make my journeys much more enjoyable… I need to invest in a small one that I can carry around with me. I’ve learned to loath 95% of the music that originates from this country. If I have a choice of listening to nothing or BBC radio… I’ll choose nothing. Sure its mundane but these are the sacrifices we’ll have to make to continue on without killing hundreds in a murdering rampage.

The other day while I was wandering around I saw a DJ from a radio station with a banner that said “We play only the best music” or something of the sort while he played some crap. I had a great visual in my mind where I walked over, insulted him for playing junk. Some people might like that crap but there was no intensity or passion in it… they just seemed to play because they wanted to make some money… and as we all know its easier to sell something to an uneducated person that one that knows whats going on. After insulting him I thought that I would knock over his music stand and tent above him. At that point I would take a cd and jam it into his ass.

Its a great visual… well, at least for me it is. These people should be stopped at all costs… seeing another person listening to pop music should be a reasonable excuse to club them because they arent choosing to listen to it… they are listening to it because they dont know any better. There are millions of songs out there sungs my millions of bands. If you think Justin Timberlake is the shiz-nit you should be shot where you stand.

Ok… I’m going to do something else now… I really dont know what

I wonder if I could find some people that would like to play dodgeball… I think it would be a splendid time… odds are I couldnt recruit more than one… It would be a rather boring game.

I’ve been watching it alot lately, mostly because it’s on at work all day long. It’s not a bad thing that it’s on because we often have downtime with absolutely nothing to do but wait for something to happen. Yes, it can feel like a completely meaningless existence. The programming that is on during the daytime hours caters to a high school educated 18 year old male.
For example, there is a show hosted by Tony Saragusa… where he drives big trucks and construction equipment around. They never get into technical details and the end of the show culminates with a staged “race” of how fast Saragusa could do an obstacle course in the piece of machinery vs. the person that normally does it for a living. Saragusa never wins and the regular joe wins a t-shirt or something of the sort.

Next up is extreme engineering, a show of slightly higher caliber. Here, engineers, people that actually went to school for a few years talk about some of the structures they have worked on. The technical content is slightly higher but it’s no more technical than 6th grade science class. My major grievance with this program is that there are only 20 episodes… and I’ve seen them all… more than once.

Junkyard Wars, or Scrapheap challenge as its known in the UK, is next on the billet. It’s the exact same show that they have in the US but with a different logo. I’ve noticed the Junkyard Wars logo in the back on a few episodes but they normally edit it out. This show, at one point in time, was slightly interesting but they haven’t built anything interesting in quite a while. They seem to have run out of innovative ideas so they recycle the same crap over again. They “could” make the task more technically challenging and give them either more time or more crew members. Some of the projects are “shanty” and work like crap… I’d like to see some decent stuff out of some of these guys. Sure, its scrap yard parts but if they had better “junk” to work with the outcome could be better.

Interspersed throughout these shows are terrible British commercials. I hate 95% of them with a passion. The bottom of the barrel is ringtone commercials… something that should be abolished back to the twisted hell that it came from. Having a custom ringtone is like wearing a shirt exclaiming “Kick My ASS! I’m a giant tool!” Its an epidemic in this country.. if you dont download shit on your phone you are an outcast. I dont even have a mobile phone (if you call it a cell phone they have no idea what you are talking about) and I really dont want one… If at all possible I want to disassociate myself with customized mobile phone tools to the furthest extent possible. Vanity has gone WAY too far.

I’ve got two to report today. One that I thought would never happen and another that ca me rather easily to me. So, for the easy one, I think I did a fantastic job on the speech that I did the other night. I talked about our past when we mixed politics and science. Todays example is global warming where we often ignore any research that indicates no global warming and hide it away from the public. Arguing is what I do best and once again I did a good job.

The other thing, that I didnt think would ever happen, was that I made a physical milestone. I benched my weight today… to some that may not seem like a lot but I’ve been a scrawny bastard for a long time and to be able to put up 185 felt good. As soon as I had it, it felt HEAVY, but I was suprised that I could do it. I didnt try more than one but I just wanted to give it a shot. I’ll keep on working on it because I’m not that far away from reaching 200 lbs.

Thats it for now… tonight is another night of pubs and interesting stories. Its a shame I dont remember all that much.