BigCat’s Blog of DOOM

I GOT MY IPOD….AWESOMES!!!!

I have no digital camera to take pictures, but come on, why would I lie about it.

Anyway, for those of you waiting for proof, I now have the Ipod, so if you want to sign up check out this link to my friends who signed up under me or if you are super nice (or if they have theirs already ordered), sign up with this link to help me get the photo Ipod.

In fact, could the people who signed up under me please post how their status is going, so I can know. That way I can help spread your link around a little while I’m posting my new one all over the place.

I decided that the picture Ipod is the way to go for me. This is because I have something like 4 or 5 cd’s of wedding pictures and I would like to carry them around and set up a slide show during the holidays. That would be cool, and I think my relatives would love it.

Besides that I am still waiting on some people who signed up under me to finish offers for the flat screen. Eric, and Faith? Did you guys complete one of those offers, cuz it is saying you haven’t so far, and I wondered if I should send them an email. If you could leave a comment saying what offer you completed and when you completed it, that would be cool. Cuz I’m going to need that info if I email them complaining about it.

Anyway, as I said, maybe after the do a free digital camera deal I can take pictures, but until then you will just have to take my word for it.

Thank you, and I have to go to work now.

OH…yeah, I went to small group, and it was pretty good. I feel a little better, and thanks for the comments yesterday and all that.

So Jeff was saying (and I agree with him) that we both want the same things for the world, but we have completely different ideas of what the governments role is to get there. So I figured I would make some questions up, and see what people think and why. If anything, if I think about them, and so does Jeff, and then posts our discussions on the topic will probably get easier. The rest of you can do this if you want just for fun. Though, you are warned, it is my blog, and you will post on my blog (NOT LIVEJOURNAL) which means you need to sign up with Typekey (click “Sign in” when you go to comment, and you can create an account there), and I reserve the right of anyone posting to attack anyone else who has apparent holes in their ideologies. Calling someone stupid is not acceptable, but calling their line of logic incomplete is. Make sense…if not, don’t reply.

1. What do you think the main role of government is, and why?

2. Same quesion, just think specifically about social/moral issues.
3. Same question again, just focus on economic issues.
4. Same question, only about foriegn policy / defense.
5. What specific things that different or our own govenments do, do you think is working toward fullfilling those roles, and why do you think they are?
6. Which ones aren’t
7. Do you consider yourself more “liberal” or “conservative”, and why?
8. Do you tend to agree more with the “Democrats” or “Republicans”, and why?
9. What is the biggest issue you vote on (like if you couldn’t make up your mind this would swing you), and why?
10. Do you look for trends in government and history to determine how a major party cadidate will vote in a situation that could arrive, or do you vote primarily on platform issues? (i.e. We didn’t know 9/11 would happen, if something big and unforseeable comes up do you care what a person in office would do, or do you just focus on the issues brough up by the persons platform)
11. Does a politician who doesn’t come through with campaign promises bother you, or do you not notice?
12. Do you see economics and the american economic situation as something directly related to the yearly budget of the US, planned by the president, approved by congress, or is it something that the previous budgets effect, as well as the outside influence of foriegn markets.

That is probably enough for now. I have more, and I had a couple better ones earlier today, but I forgot them…damn you work.

For reference, I’m going to post the dictionary definition of liberal and conservative…might make this easier. And none of that “I made up my own definition for xyz” crap, that pisses me off, and makes it hard to discuss anything. If you disagree with the definition listed, post what you think the definition is, and prepare to defend that definition (in other words, go look up some other dictionary/encyclopedia that agrees with you).

Pronunciation: ‘li-b(&-)r&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin liberalis suitable for a freeman, generous, from liber free; perhaps akin to Old English lEodan to grow, Greek eleutheros free
1 a : of, relating to, or based on the liberal arts (liberal education) b archaic : of or befitting a man of free birth
2 a : marked by generosity : OPENHANDED (a liberal giver) b : given or provided in a generous and openhanded way (a liberal meal) c : AMPLE, FULL
3 obsolete : lacking moral restraint : LICENTIOUS
4 : not literal or strict : LOOSE (a liberal translation)
5 : BROAD-MINDED; especially : not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms
6 a : of, favoring, or based upon the principles of liberalism b capitalized : of or constituting a political party advocating or associated with the principles of political liberalism; especially : of or constituting a political party in the United Kingdom associated with ideals of individual especially economic freedom, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives
- lib·er·al·ly /-b(&-)r&-lE/ adverb
- lib·er·al·ness noun
synonyms LIBERAL, GENEROUS, BOUNTIFUL, MUNIFICENT mean giving or given freely and unstintingly. LIBERAL suggests openhandedness in the giver and largeness in the thing or amount given (a teacher liberal with her praise). GENEROUS stresses warmhearted readiness to give more than size or importance of the gift (a generous offer of help). BOUNTIFUL suggests lavish, unremitting giving or providing (children spoiled by bountiful presents). MUNIFICENT suggests a scale of giving appropriate to lords or princes (a munificent foundation grant).

Main Entry: 1con·ser·va·tive
Pronunciation: k&n-’s&r-v&-tiv
Function: adjective
1 : PRESERVATIVE
2 a : of or relating to a philosophy of conservatism b capitalized : of or constituting a political party professing the principles of conservatism : as (1) : of or constituting a party of the United Kingdom advocating support of established institutions (2) : PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE
3 a : tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions : TRADITIONAL b : marked by moderation or caution (a conservative estimate) c : marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste, elegance, style, or manners (a conservative suit)

Taken from Merriam-Webesters online dictionary

So I’ve been doing a lot of political agruing, and reading some of my friends blogs and I’ve been thinking. What if more people took a systems approach to everything. By that I mean, what if the stability of an entire system was more important than the individual. Our democracy is built on that kind of an ideal…i.e. the best for the greatest good. But a lot of times I’ll be arguing and people are only concerned with one particular agenda, or how it is the governments job to single-handedly solve every single persons problem in the whole world.

Well, I could go on and on about how my thoughts ranging from theology to politics, to how I drive is entirely based around my idea of systems and how being a working part of the system improves my drive/understanding/taxes and planning to unbalance the system uncessarily causes undo stress and pain for myself and the others around me. But I won’t, cuz it would take a long time. And then I would probably make a lot of you mad by just spouting control-system theory as a basis for my arguement, and that pisses my wife off when I reduce the world to math.

So, anyway…maybe I should think more about helping individual people, which is why I like Jeff not learning this system theory stuff because he reminds me (so does my wife) that individual people are important. But others of you should think about how systematic approaches to government (and driving….it works better with driving) benefits all of us.

Something else unrelated, but important

I decided I’m going to write in if I can actually vote. Not mickey mouse, not yoda, or anything like that. I’m going to write in my Dad. Joel Patrick Catlin for president. I told him I’m going to write him in and he actually said I shouldn’t cuz he would suck at being president. But I figure I like my Dad, I agree with a lot of what he says, and he is politically savvy (he minored in Pol. Sci. in college). He could get in the game and stir stuff up.

Now, I’m aware that he won’t win, but it would be cool to get a big write-in champaign going. Just enough votes to make some people notice. That would be funny. So vote like me, vote for my Dad. It is like voting “Neither” only better than a third party because my Dad isn’t crazy like most the third party candidates.

This all comes from me being unable to decide which third party candidate to vote for. They are all so wack-o. With crazy stuff like getting rid of the military, and legalizing weed, to completely socializing the hell out of everything. I just wish someone would stand on the platform or reforming the FCC, FDA, and all the other government regulators that don’t keep up with technology, and just hamper and stifel innovation in the marketplace and in healthcare.

OK, so that is it for now, go vote for my Dad on Nov. 2.

What is worse than missing the Bears game because they don’t show it here….that instead I only have the Green Bay vs. Lions Game to watch. Oh well, back to metroid I suspose.

I figured out how to keep my eyes from bothering me when I play some FPS, sit back from the screen with a smaller screen. I can still make everything out fine, but I’m not as close so I blink more I think.

Also, my laptop is messed up. The memory appears to not be the problem, unless both sticks I have went bad, which is possible. But I think my hard drive might be corrupted. The good news is that laptops have a standaradized hard drive, the bad news is that they are kinda expensive. I might go to a local shop and see if I can find a cheap 10 Gig one. Right now it is doing a check-disk scan, which takes forever. And it is recovering tons of messed up errors. I might just reformat both partitions and see if that helps.

On the free stuff front, Jeff might help me out by trying blockbuster under my free tv thing. That is cool, and it makes 4 people. The Ipod should ship this week because they are catching up on backorders…the company is shipping them right from the factory now since they inked a deal with apple. Also, all my video game friends, they are going to have a Nintendo DS offer soon. I’ll keep you posted because I know you guys will think that is worth it. The only deal is, if my friends in the appartment want to try it, make sure you put your home addresses, and you don’t use appartment computers to sign up since they track which IP you use, and you can’t have two people do an offer from the same IP address. When they get that site up I’ll post about it.

Death is a sad event. Death by old age or older people dying from illness is sad. A younger death due to illness or tragedy is slightly more sad still. Children dying is very sad. Death in war reminds us that living life is only worth it as long as we have certain things. But wars are also very sad. I watched a DVD last night about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It made me think about a lot. First off, this guy didn’t get much of anything he set out to do done. He was part of the plot to assassinate Hitler, he tried to smuggle Jews out of Germany and only got 14 out, he tried to get married and got executed before he did that, and he didn’t finish his last book, his friend had to finish after he died. But he stood up for something, in the face of something terrible. If you know me well, you know that there are two wars in American history that interest me more than the others. The Civil War, and WW2. Both for seemingly different reasons. I’m sort of a history guy, but I’m no war buff, so a lot of people know more than me about both these wars. But I’ve been to Gettysburg, and I’ve been to Dachau, and I’ve even been to Arlington national cemetery. Even when you are little those places seem to call out to you with pain. The blood is so soaked into the ground, and seems as if it can never go away. Nor should it, people need to remember that when it starts happening again…like it is, and has in Africa.

Continue reading ‘Lives worth Living’

So last night Jeff and I got into an arguement. It was probably the most “You’re wrong,” “No, you’re wrong” kind of arguement we’ve had in a while. We’ve actually been having really good discussions on all our hot topics, but this was interesting. He claimed that all the news is slanted to the right. I claimed that besides Fox news and the Wallstreet Journal, it is pretty much all slanted left. So my challenge for my friends who are more liberal than I, and more internet savvy than Jeff is where is there a good source of liberal news. The UK version of the BBC? The The economist? I claimed MSNBC (a.k.a. the liberal version of Fox News) is more than liberal enough for everyone, but he disagreed. I would think that USA Today is fairly liberal to, but that wouldn’t satisfy Jeff. So anyway, post some links….don’t flame Jeff for thinking (incorrectly IMHO) that the news is mainly slanted to the right. Could he customize Google News to be super left slanted? I haven’t played much with that yet.

Besides that, work is OK, still pretty boring. Probably going to get the car tomorrow. Decided on insurance, going to cost $1200 / 6 mo. for full coverage on the saturn and liability on the BMW. Part of me loves that BMW to death….the other part just wants it to die, so I can stop forking out the money to keep it on the road. I can’t wait to be 25. The annoying part of this is that I haven’t had a ticket in over 4 years, never had an accident, I just graduated, and we are buying a car with passive restraint seat belts, ABS, and Traction control, but our insurance is still freaking through the roof.

When does the new Tony Hawk game come out? I think I might get that. Besides that I’m out of the loop on video games, is there anything out there that I would like for GC, or GBA?

I only have two people for my free TV thing…..anyone want to help a brother out and sign up under me…the link is on my main page for my blog on the right. And that is about all for now.