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Gay Marriage Amendment in Alabama

So much for that label of ‘conservative.’ It’s laws like these that show they are not social conservatives but social bigots.

Yesterday Alabama became the nineteenth state to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage at the state level. Meanwhile the proposed federal amendment has fizzled by a vote in the Senate.

All of this talk about the “defense of [straight-]marriage” is completely ludicrous. Let’s ponder the meaning of _defend_. Defend is to protect and relieve from attack. Do these statutes and amendments in any way “protect” or “relieve” straight-marriage? They do not. Do they protect the family? Children? Nothing of the sort.

What do they do? Almost nothing. Every state that has constitutionally banned same-sex marriage already had a statute that did the same thing. The claim is that “activist” judges could overturn the statutes through “activist” interpretation of the law. Is that no longer an option that these have become constitutional? Hardly. Judges are still responsible for interpreting the constitutional laws of states. When two or more parts of a constitution come into conflict with one another, the judge or judges then must examine the conflict, and make a ruling about which part of the law is more essential, is more entwined and necessary in the fabric of the law. Further to the point, a judge can still rule that accomodations have to be made for some other form of civil union, distinct but equal to marriage. Of course, federal law can also trump as well.

So, then, what do they do? They are nothing but a showboat. This is a dispicable parade of bigotry in which the people of a state can proudly march to their respective voting booths, and boldly proclaim, “I hate homosexuals.” That is all that is being done. Rather hypocritical when you consider the bulk of the impetus of these amendments comes from Christians. So much for “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” So much for faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

These that call themselves Christians are anything but. Charged with the task of cleaning up their messied room, they do nothing more than spit in their parents face and shove their toys hastily in a closet. They pat themselves on their backs saying “we are righteous, we have stood up to the ills of our messy room,” meanwhile they have soiled their pants and their Bibles. Welcome to Murka, indeed.

Fold.com Folds

Update on the upstart webtop Fold.com.

If you remember my previous entry about the Fold.com public beta, you may be interested to know that the site is closing up shop. Apparently there is not yet a demand (or some claim there is oversaturation of the market) for that sort of “Web 2.0” site right now. It should still be remembered for a noble effort, and of things we may look toward in the future.

I guess the main thing to me, it was a neat little ‘toy’ that might be useful for some… and maybe it would be better if it were a replacement backend for ‘active desktop’ type of things… but ultimately there needs to be more forward thinking beyond reimplementing existing schemes as web schemes, to implementing new user interfaces and things of that sort.

Why?

Existential musings with a scientific (pseudo-scientific?) bent.

Or possibly how? How does anything exist? Or why?

If you believe in god/_God_, why does it exist?
If you can reduce the universe to an infinite recursion,
why does that exist?
If you believe in a singular Big Bang, why did it, or the
singularity that caused it, exist?
In other words, in any schema there would be what can
be referenced as a “beginning..” can it really hold?
The only available answer is infinity. A continuum. There
could never have been a true beginning.
Can something without a beginning have an end?
Did you begin? You were born. What does that mean?
You were begun as (hopefully) a good evening/afternoon/
twice in the morning (before and after breakfast). You
were created out of nourishment from the mother.
What is food? It’s dead (formerly living biologically) creature.
So you are what you eat. Therefore in some physical sense
you are made out of non-living material.
It becomes living in you via digestion which supplies to living
cells the nutrients to multiply, continue to live, and provide
whatever function they are created for. (Computers do the
same thing.)
The first life forms were probably just relatively simple chemical
reactions in odd combinations causing the basic blocks of
biology to come together. Think of what happens when you
mix vinegar and baking soda. When they first mix, the life
begins, and when they have finished mixing, the life ends.
But you still have something there, the remnants? No, you
merely have separate substances.
Where did these substances come from? They are composed
of tiny (physically) bits of energy. (These bits of energy are
something like bits in a computer.)
These bits of energy (particles) are basically three dimensional
pixels. When you mix a couple of pixels on a computer monitor
(red, green, blue I guess), you get a picture.
When you mix several particles together you get a substance.
Water, for instance.
What are the particles made of? They are made of tinier particles.
Where did these particles come from? Most likely they came from
the Big Bang in some form. It’s also pretty likely that they are
not the original substance, but instead one that has, like biological
life, evolved.
More specifically, the Big Bang was probably just one of many
significant events in the continuum of the universe. An expansion
along a particular set of dimensions (spacial and temporal).
The particles (elements) were expulsed from a tiny (in spacial and
temporal dimensions) singularity that suddenly lost its nerve, or
more likely suddenly came into existence.
They came out in one form each. Probably of a singular type that
reacted with itself and the reactions caused new combinations of
this particle to combine, some stable and others unstable. The
unstable ones would change again, while the stable ones remained.
Some small amount combined to form individual atoms, while the
rest fly around random (some of which can and do penetrate solid
materials all the time).
So this sounds like a neat setup, right? The singularity suddenly
exists in these dimensions, and in these dimensions it is
unsuitable for a space to be so dense and rich in energy, so the
energy has to move away from itself.
The energy can basically be thought of as computational bits with
the realization that each one is not merely a one or zero instead
a stack of them to form its energy. Each bit is analog as well as
digital. (This means ultimately there is a point at which digital
becomes analog/good enough to be equivalent.)
The universe is a quantum computer of itself. This means it
calculates itself perpetually.
The brain is also a computer. It receives input from the
preexisting code of biology, as well as external stimuli via
the organs and nervous system. But are our experiences
“real?” Not exactly. They are a representation of our senses
rendered/viewed internally.
Think of it like this: a digital camera takes a picture of a flower.
The light that is not absorbed hits the photoreceptor/charged
coupled device, gets turned into digital information. That
information passes through wires into presumably a buffer,
which then feeds it through a program/chip that then changes
the bits into the arrangement needed (the image format).
The brain receives reflected light, focused via the lens, hits
the retina, and then gets sent through the optic nerve. The
brain (or more specifically certain structures of the brain
adapted to do so) then reorder the data to be perceived,
and then the mind perceives it.
The brain is unique in that it is evolved to be adaptive.
People might be born blind, or lose sight during life. The brain
is made to be rewired depending on the process. Senses are
particularly adaptable since they are very much dedicated
processes of the brain; it makes sense for survival. The sight
is lost, the brain rewires itself to be capable of more processing
of the hearing/feeling/smelling senses.

[sorry, I’ll try to finish this later, but for now I’ll throw it out
there]