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2.22M 6:27

I owe a debt of gratitude to Stefan Molyneux and his work in philosophy which can be found at Freedomain Radio, and to the many courageous individuals who have shared their experiences.

This evening, I thought it might be a good idea to try to upgrade my server to the 2.6 kernel. After coming across an issue with the Squid proxy I use for WAP connections (I downgraded it so that things started working again, but I considered the relative benefits of upgrading before I’ve been really left out in the cold).

I’ve had this weird network issue that I still don’t know why it happens… on the one hand, ssh+putty connections will lock up when “a lot” of data is coming down… but then it’ll also lock up on an `ls` that puts out 6-7 lines. I’ve tried to find the common thread, but so far, no go.

I considered that perhaps the 2.4 kernel I’m running needs to be upgraded, but I’ve got a hardware issue standing in the way of that. Back in 2003, I purchased the Promise SuperTrak SX6000 IDE RAID card. It’s got 6 channels, so even back in ’03, I could have probably come pretty close to a terabyte storage capacity without really breaking the bank… too much.

So, tonight, I download a 2.6 kernel for debian and compile away, adding this module, that module… and… it doesn’t fucking work. OK, no problem, I knew there were going to be issues… perhaps I need to upgrade the firmware on the RAID card.

No go. I try two different downloads (nevermind the headache I had to go through to get a DOS boot disk working)… no dice. I get this error: “dl_flash_block return status != IO_STATUS_OK” which returns 0 results on google. Great.

I did a little more searching based on the errors I was receiving when the i2o_block module was loaded (block-osm TID 001 error status 0×05, detailed status 0×0004), but the one patch I came across didn’t relate to my kernel patchlevel (2.6.18), but even when I tried implementing it anyway, it still didn’t work.

So I went back to the 2.4.32 kernel… and it’s working just fine. Obviously, I need new hardware, because this Promise SuperTrak SX6000 card just isn’t worth the headache.

I found it a lot easier to write about atheism than I did to write about anarchism.

I hope I didn’t screw up my arguments too much in either area, though.

Following up on my post on Atheism, I’d like to do something similar when it comes to political thought.

Again, the labels are rather heavily-loaded, and I want to be understood as clearly as possible.

When I say that I am an “anarchist,” I get a number of reactions from people. Most often, images of violence crop up in people’s minds, most likely due to the association of the violent anarchists near the end of the 19th century, but also due in large part to the perpetual propaganda pushed on them by their parents, schools, and government officials. Somehow, it seems that people believe that “anarchy” equates with “chaos.”

First things first: “anarchy,” taken literally, means “without rulers.” In comparison with other words, such as “monarchy” (one ruler) and “oligarchy” (select few rulers), “anarchy” simply means “without” (“an-”) “rulers” (“-archy”).

What seems to be the case is that people believe that they need to have some sort of ruler, some sort of hierarchy where somebody is at the “top,” running everything. What they fail to realize is that it is entirely a fictional construct to exist in such a hierarchy. Here’s what I mean: if you have a king that rules over you, then what is actually happening in reality? That king can tell you what to eat, but that king cannot actually eat for you. That king can tell you where to work, but ultimately, the decision to work at that place is yours. So the notion that somebody can actually rule you is fallacious!

People may object, “Oh, but that’s not what I’m talking about when I say that people need rulers!” Really? Consider all of the laws and regulatory bodies that make up the agriculture industry. Consider all of the rules an employer has to follow and all of the taxation that employing an individual entails. Those are, indirectly, your rulers telling you what you can eat and where you can work.

So why do people believe this? Why are adults willing to subject themselves to some other person telling them what to do? Why do they desire rulers?

This is the question that people try to answer, but really, the answer is, “I don’t know.” I believe that we are much closer to accessing the answers to those questions than we are about the existence of God (I’d say “infinitely closer!”), but for most people, they simply do not know, but they are not willing to admit that they don’t know.

They take the answers provided to them, often when they were children, and parrot them back. Certainly, there are some sophisticated explanations, but they really fail to address the question in full.

One might also consider that somebody was following you around, holding a gun to your head, and telling you what to eat and where to work, you might handily object! I’d say that most people, given the opportunity, would try to escape, or fight back, or simply refuse, depending on their personality. Not only that, but people around you would feel a deep pity for your situation, and some might even try to help you escape or subdue the gunman, or something. It would be blindingly apparent that you are listening to the gunman not because you wish to, but because you are being forced.

The difference between a ruler that tells you what to do and the gunman holding the gun to your head is one of distance and language. The ruler will be called “President” or “Prime Minister” or “King,” whereas if somebody was directing a gunman to follow you around holding a gun to your head, people would rightly call him a “Mob Boss.”

There is no difference in kind between a ruler and a mob boss. If you do not obey the ruler’s edicts, you will be punished, and usually with horrible, horrible results, ranging from imprisonment to rape, to death.

This is violence… and this is what people say they want. People say that they want violent overlords couched in euphemisms.

Of course, I wouldn’t say that the vast majority of people are aware of this distinction, at least, not fully. They understand that if they don’t pay their taxes, “bad things” will happen, but that still doesn’t really explain why anybody accepts the fact that “bad things” will happen. Furthermore, it is only because people continue to support the Government Mafia that “bad things” are pretty much guaranteed to happen!

But this still doesn’t answer the question, why do people desire rulers? It makes it rather perplexing, but I think that an answer exists.

One way of looking at the situation is to consider, what other areas in life do people experience an incredibly powerful, larger-than-life entity that tells them what to eat, where to go, when to sleep, where to work, and so on?

The only common thread is parents.

Are you still here? Good. Let’s continue.

Imagine yourself as a small child… it shouldn’t be too difficult–you were there once before! Consider yourself in relation to your parents. Your parents seem to know everything. They’re enormous, and incredibly strong.

Now, imagine that your parents become angry for some reason or another. You don’t have a problem sensing your parents’ emotions yet, so you become frightened. If your parents are like most parents, they may take out their anger on you. In that moment, you have the biggest non-choice in the world: either attempt to placate your parents or run away from the situation and risk death.

Children do tend to want to live, so they create defense mechanisms in order to survive living with their parents. This is entirely natural and, at the time, the only way they can preserve their future health. It is about survival and nothing more.

However, when the child gets older and gets out into the world, he has been traumatized by his parents, but he’s also been trained to repress his trauma. He is never allowed to talk about his feelings with his parents, how he feels scared or angry or frustrated. He is never allowed to demand an answer to, “What does it mean when you say that you love me?” In fact, a child is somewhat lucky if he never hears the words, “I love you,” spontaneously and voluntarily, because at least then there’s slightly less confusion over how his parents feel. Actions speak much, much louder than words.

Because of this trauma, he never truly stops seeking that which he was denied. Unfortunately, since his parents never provided it when he needed it, he will never get it from them. He has set up defenses around certain areas and, if he never dismantles them, will perpetuate them upon his children, all the while desiring to be parented in the way he never was.

Worse yet! Parents, as they approach middle- and old-age, demand love and respect from their children despite having never given their children anything resembling any reasonable definition of “love” and “respect.” Here’s a news flash: feeding, clothing, and sheltering your children are not sufficient prerequisites for “love.” Prison guards do the same for prisoners–ought parents not be a little better than mere prison guards?

I think that this needs to be developed further, but I think that this line of thinking has some promise. The desire for people to be ruled directly stems from their treatment as children by their parents.

If that is the case, then what is necessary for people to realize that they do not need to be ruled is for them to face the horrors that their parents inflicted upon them, whether it was emotional abuse or physical abuse or what have you (physical abuse and emotional abuse often go hand-in-hand, but physical abuse also gives the child a much clearer insight as to what their parents really thought of them).

I don’t expect that everybody will be able to do this… it becomes especially more difficult if they’ve already had children. However, if this is correct, then it is right to do, no matter how long it takes, because truth is always better than falsehood.

I may or may not have had an official “coming out” regarding my thoughts on religion and such… and the labels are understood to be different things by different people, so I’m going to try to illuminate my position and perhaps even why I hold it.

Strictly speaking, my position is more of a non-position. I am actually not interested in making any claims. What I will say is that my position is based on the evidence of my senses and checking the inner world of my mind against the outer, observable world.

For example, if I believe invisible pink mongooses (mongeese?) are tapdancing on the moon, there really isn’t anything to substantiate that claim. Just about every person out there would ask, “Well, what’s your proof?” If I say that they cannot be detected in any way, but that I know that they’re there, my belief is going to be dismissed as fantasy.

In fact, “invisible pink” itself gives lie to the belief, because it’s not possible for something to be invisible and pink! One does not need to pursue the argument beyond that immediate contradiction.

When it comes to God, the definitions given are often immediately contradictory, such as when God is omniscient and defines certain human actions as Sin. If God knows everything that is going to happen, then he knows when I, for example, am about to tell a lie. If he knows I am going to tell this lie, then that is what will happen. Since I cannot escape telling a lie, I cannot justly be held responsible for having told a lie. Yet, God defines this lie as Sin and then I am deserving of punishment. So, then, I am held responsible for an action for which I cannot justly be held responsible!

Religious folk attempt to undo this contradiction by inventing concepts like “Free Will,” but that is just a mask over the initial contradiction. Claiming that we have “Free Will” but retaining God’s omniscience does not resolve the contradiction at all.

Usually, by this point, religious people will say, “Well, you just don’t understand God” and will usually quote the Bible verse that goes something like “God works in mysterious ways.” Well, by that point, they’re just saying, “You’re stupid!” I’m not sure that works to increase my understanding, and it certainly turns me off.

But even if the contradictions in the definition were not an issue, there really isn’t any evidence for God at all. The best I’ve ever seen anybody come up with that didn’t have some sort of naturalistic explanation behind it or wasn’t an outright lie (or fantastical guessing) was that you just “feel” it in your heart. Well… even when I was a Christian, 99% of the time, I did not “feel” God at all. Even when we were singing or praying or whatever… I did not feel God or anything even close to a glimmer. There were a few moments I might have felt something, but that certainly isn’t definitive, and surely God could, if he wanted to, make sure that I did feel his presence. I was certainly open to it for years, and he didn’t take advantage then. God presumably knows the kind of person I am, so he has to know that if I was convinced, I would likely have stayed convinced.

But the existence or non-existence of God is not the issue for me. Really, when it comes to that question, God either exists or it doesn’t. If God exists, then God has to somehow align with the universe in some logical fashion. It might be a logic based on facts we do not yet understand, but we don’t even have inklings of what those facts might be.

What is the issue for me is that when the answer to a question is “God,” then the questioning stops. When somebody asks, “How did the world get here?” and a priest or a parent or whoever says, “God made it,” then there really isn’t much of a drive to actually find out what the world is like. You want evidence for this claim? Look at Europe between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. There was virtually no curiosity about the world, and for hundreds of years, nobody asked the question, “What is the world like?” It was only when people began to seriously doubt the answer, “God made it,” that science and rationality really took off. How do you think people get to live well into their 70s, 80s, and 90s with all manner of ailments and such that would have killed people even as recently as 20 years ago? It wasn’t because people believed in God–what rubbish! It was because people were willing to say, “I do not know,” in response to the big questions, and proceed from there to answer smaller questions.

It is this utter lack of curiosity that strikes me the most when it comes to religion. If you think you know how to get somewhere, you’re not going to ask directions. You’re going to drive as if you know. However, not only will you get yourself lost, you will get yourself much, much further away from your intended destination. Until you admit that you don’t know, you will never get to where you’re going.

So, I am an atheist primarily because there is no positive reason for me to believe in God–the definitions are self-contradictory, and the one or two that aren’t have no supporting evidence whatsoever.

Secondarily, even if this wasn’t a concern, when I look at the history of the world and the effects a belief in God has in other people’s lives, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to associate myself with that sort of thing. A belief in God is a symptom of the refusal to say, “I don’t know.” Such a refusal is a very dangerous thing and, essentially, destroys lives.

Finally, the refusal to say, “I don’t know,” does not come naturally. Children in particular know that they don’t know. That’s why children tend to ask so many questions. However, when a child is given a fraudulent answer instead of honesty (saying, “God made it,” instead of, “I don’t know”) and then is punished for his curiosity if he pursues the line of questioning, he begins to be infected with the same “brain virus” and learns that to say, “I don’t know,” is a moral weakness and must be suppressed in others.

At the end of the senior high school year, I came upon what seemed to me to be a really nifty idea! I would collect the names and addresses of my classmates and put them up on a website with security levels and such. If somebody didn’t want the world to know their contact info, no problem, I can restrict that to being only viewable by classmates or even just by admin (myself). Oh, and when I got the domain (97cc.com), I was thinking, “everybody gets their own semi-permanent email address, blah blah blah…”

Well… more than ten years have passed since the inception of that idea, and I think it’s totally fair and entirely reasonable to say that it just ain’t gonna happen.

I had a few good starts at it… I’ve tried a few different ideas, but the biggest problem I have is that when I sit myself down to do it… I find that I simply don’t want to.

At first, sure, I was busy. I was in college, I was working (sort of), I had things going on. Not much time to program a website. Besides, people in college have their own things going on and nobody seemed to be too interested in keeping in touch (with one or two exceptions).

As time progressed, I struggled more and more with depression, sapping my motivation for far more than the website itself, so that (among other things) simply did not get done.

After college, I stopped believing in Christianity, so… maintaining a website for a Christian high school kind of seemed… silly to me? I’m not sure…

But then there were also all of the other websites that catered to high school classes and such on a much more general scale. Sites like Alumni.NET and Classmates.com seemed to be ripe for the picking. At first I thought I might be able to compete since the site would be designed specifically for our class, and that perhaps I could expand it to include other classes… but the whole depression thing sort of wasn’t playing along very nicely.

So when I look back at all of this, I just think, “Man… it’s pretty obvious that I changed my mind somewhere between high school when I thought of this and now. I really don’t want to do this anymore.”

I’ve since put up a notice on the website indicating that any interested classmates should contact me so that they can get their hands on the domain and the information on my server. I’m simply no longer interested in maintaining or hosting the site. The domain is registered until 2010, so if anybody wants it, they’ve got plenty of time before it gets snapped up by domain squatters.

There’s also the possibility that I’ll think of something really nifty for the domain name that has absolutely nothing to do with my high school class. In that case, screw it, I’ll keep the domain and go with that idea. “97cc” sounds vaguely related to internal combustion engines… but even if that made any sense, I’m not really into that at all.

I’ve also disabled a major source of spam from that site: my japyrich@97cc.com email address somehow got snagged years ago… I don’t use it and I don’t think anybody else knows about it anyway, so that’s gone.

My recipe repertoire isn’t too large, and I’d really like to get a few more ideas for dinner. Does anybody have any suggestions for dishes I might try? I might even comment on them here if they go well (or maybe even if they do not!! ).

If you don’t want to register with my wordpress, you can send me a comment using my contact form, but then your comments won’t be attached to this entry (unless I go slightly more insane and add them to the database manually).

If you’re like me and grew up on prefab spice packets when it came to Tex-Mex food, you began to wonder how exactly food like that is made.

Well, I won’t claim to have reinvented the contents of the Old El Paso spice packet, but I think I have improved on it with regards to taste using fresh ingredients and spices.

Do remember, however, that I tend to like my food pretty spicy (at least in comparison to standard cheeseburger-and-fries American fare)!

Whenever I approach Tex-Mex, I always think in terms of “onions and cumin.” I don’t know if this is how other chefs do it, but it’s my kitchen and I think it tastes pretty damn good.

I rarely measure things out, so every meal has its own character, but I’ve also developed a bit of an eye towards consistency during preparation so that they’re not completely different dishes.

It’s a biological process, okay?

So here’s the shopping list for Steak Fajitas for Two:

• 1 medium sweet vidalia onion
• 1 medium-large red bell pepper (you may go green if you like; my girlfriend prefers reds)
• 3/4lb to 1lb steak, preferably sirloin… you’ll want something that’s not supposed to be cooked well done
• Ground cumin (if you have less than 1/3″ in the bottle, it’s time to buy some more)
• Chili powder
• Ground cayenne pepper
• Salt
• Black pepper (I prefer to grind it fresh)
• Olive oil (or your preferred fat for frying on high heat)
• Optional: 3-4 large white cap mushrooms

First, cut up the onion and bell pepper into strips. Depending on the size, you may wish to slice them in half (bell peppers are good but 4″ strips are unwieldy for me). Slice up your mushrooms into parallel slices if you’ve got ‘em.

Now, trim the excess fat off of your steak (if any) and cut it up (if it’s not already pre-sliced, though I think that cutting it yourself makes it taste a little fresher and it’s really not that much work) into approximately 1/3″ by 2″ strips. This may or may not be so easy depending on the thickness of your steak, but eh, I’m not looking for perfection, I’m just looking for taste.

Oh, and if nobody ever told you this: sharp knives are a MUST for cutting up beef. I mean, seriously, invest in a good knife and a blade sharpener. It will save you plenty of aggravation and it’ll be safer, too.

I prefer to use two skillets. For the veggies, I use a wok (not really a wok, but it’s wok-shaped and does the job) and for the meat (initially) I use a flat griddle pan.

So, to cook! The first thing to do is to brown the meat a little. Spread a thin layer of your favorite oil over your fryer and heat up the pan on high. When the pan is heated, start putting down the beef! You’ll need to keep an eye on it to make sure it does not overcook. When you’ve got one side browned, turn to the other and heat that one up. Sprinkle a small amount of salt over the browning beef. If/when the juices begin to flow out of the meat, remove from the heat and set aside, retaining any juices.

Put some oil into the wok… consider that it’ll need to be enough to saute a full onion and bell pepper… I play it by ear. Heat up the oil to medium-high-high heat. When the oil is hot enough (I usually take a bit of onion and touch the oil–if it sizzles, it’s ready), dump in the onion. You want to have the heat high enough to brown the onion as it sautes but you do not want to start burning the onion. It took me a while to get this, though, so it’s sort of an art.

When the onion begins to turn translucent, put in the bell peppers and mushrooms. Also, at this time, add some salt, black pepper… I take the McCormick cayenne and give it four brisk shakes–that’s the right amount of spice for me, but it might be hot for those with sensitive tongues. And now, the cumin and chili powder. I add a lot of cumin. I might even add too much. But I’m the one that’s eating this, so what do you care? I know that I add at least a teaspoon, probably two… I judge it based on the color I’m looking for (here, we’re looking for “earthy”). Do what you like. And as for chili powder, add what you think will taste good, no rules here. I don’t do nearly as much chili powder as I do cumin, however (the balance shifts when I make chili, hooboy!!!).

As you’re putting in the spices, add the bell pepper, mushrooms, beef, and any beef juices from the browning. Keep everything on high, stirring around, until you get the spices covering everything. Maybe cook for another few minutes, test if you like, but at this point you’re pretty much done cooking.

We had this as part of a salad last night, so we made more beef to make up for the lack of tortilla… but it works no matter what you want to do with it. I like to eat mine with salsa and sour cream and shredded cheese, as well as fresh tomato and lettuce. We also put some refried beans on top of it all, but in retrospect, that was a bit too much.

So there you have it! Pretty easy, in fact… to me, just about as easy as buying the Old El Paso packet!

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