Paulville?

Well, it ain't Westhaven(few places are), but this place might be interesting. Who knows, if the US economy isn't completely in the crapper in a few years, I might look at getting myself a lot out there.

How white is white?

This blog, in my opinion (well duh it's my opinion--this is my blog, about me and my thoughts), one of the best in the blogosphere. Almost every post makes contact (baseball season's starting, so here come the favourite pastime metaphors, similies, and analogies). Not all are home runs, although the slugging percentage is Barry Bonds-esque (2001-2004 Bonds).

It's consistently one of the 4 or 5 blogs I check as soon as I boot up the JoshBox. It provides me with intense enjoyment, probably because I can relate to the subject so well (I live in a neighbourhood and go to school with a lot of White People).

A downside, though, is that this blog has forced me to examine and question my own whiteness. I don't use Macs, Priuses, or read the sunday Times. Am I in danger of losing my white status because I watch sports or eat non-organic food? And if I am no longer white, what am I?

Ron Paul Music Video

Here it comes

For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk

Now that McCain has nearly locked up the GOP nomination, his "friends" in the Old Media are kicking him out of their friendly little circle. This story runs tomorrow in the New York Times, and already MSNBC is talking about it.

I was always very suspicious of McCain's campaign--he was deader than Marley (you know, Scrooge's partner) in autumn, did poorly in Iowa, and came roaring back out of nowhere to win NH and eventually become the GOP frontrunner.

McCain was always the darling of the media, they loved his "straight talk," his "maverick record," and his battle for "campaign finance reform" (which is incumbent insurance, not to get sidetracked. Good job being objective there, media.

The media propped up McCain through the Long March (you see what I just did there? I made a reference to Mao, almost like I was calling In$ane McCain a commie) and got him the nomination, ensuring that the Democratic candidate, whether her royal Hillaryness or Obama-rama, would take the White House in a cakewalk.

I, for one, cannot wait to see the hysteria amongst the conservative commetariat, who have finally convinced themselves that McCain is the new Reagan.

And this is just the beginning. I'm hearing rumours of a massive swiftboating of McCain that will take place in the spring or summer. I can't wait :)

Janet Folger

Is approaching Michelle Malkin levels of media harlotry as she continues to go ga-ga over the Man From Hope (Part Deaux), Mike Huckleberry.

From WND:

There are sheep, and there are shepherds. Sheep follow the pundits, the polls, political expediency and promised perks. Shepherds follow principle. Gov. Mike Huckabee is such a man. So are those who stand on principle with him.

Every single Folger column for the last six months on WND has been nonstop pundit fellation of the guy who is obviously "God's Choice." Yes, I believe she actually wrote those words. Mike Huckabee is a terrible candidate. He's a big-government liberal yankee do-gooder who embarrassingly wears his faith on his sleeve. He's shamelessly pandering to evangelicals, and they're eating it up.

I'm a Ron Paul Republican. I've supported him since this time last year, I've given of my time, my effort, and my money. The RNC doesn't really want me and my liberty-loving comrades, but I really hope that some RNC flunky hits me up for donations for the McCain-Huckabee ticket, and I hope that phone call gets recorded.

It's On!

Pale Horsey vs. Internet Superintelligence:

EP and Vox are debating the Reformation. EP's a good ol' Catholic, I think Vox used to be Southern Baptist. I guess Baptists eventually came out of the Reformation, although it might have been a better debate if you had a Lutheran or Presbyterian up there against the Knight from Fort Worth.

Some of EP's closing remarks in the opening salvo:

The reformation was a heresy not put down by the Church, but one allowed to thrive in the circumstances that history provides. There are now thousands of denominations with thousands of ideas which stand against tradition and the early Church. I don't like what happened ; will I defend the loose morals or the sins against dogma that went on, no. But the Church still stands and my Protestant friends still worship, but they have left the better part of God and have become incomplete in salvation history.

The fingers of Protestantism have given more ammo to the atheistic community. They can now legitimately say, which version of Christianity do you believe. Even the Devil knows there is only one truth and that truth is the Roman Catholic Church and its authority.

I'm not Catholic, and while I do admire the continuity of tradition within their church, I most certainly do not think that those outside the Catholic tradition (which is itself a divergence from the Eastern Orthodox) have "left the better part of God."

Anyways, it should be a good debate. Analysis can't happen until Vox posts a rebuttal, and then it should get fun--it's already heating up in the comments over at EP's place. I bet Vox's post on this gets 500+ comments.

It's the Catholic Church vs Reformation--Larry, Dread, Mark Call, even Galt will making it rain in the cyberspaces.

Goodbye, Fidel

Well, it had to happen eventually,

HAVANA (AP) - An ailing, 81-year-old Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba's president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he will not accept a new term when parliament meets Sunday.

The old guy's gone. I guess it's a bigger deal for the baby boomers than for me, but it's still a mater of significance. Here's to the Cubans, hopefully they can rebuilt their economy and their country. I'm convinced that within 10 years, Havanna will be bigger than Miami, Vegas, and Cancun. However, I do wonder whose boots will be on the ground first--the mob, the bankers, or the CIA.

This story does damage my theory that Fidel Castro was a robot. Well, Dick Clark's still there...

Stars

There's something very spiritual, very magical in a sense, about nature. Now, I'm not some hippie Gaia worshiper, nor am I a pantheist who sees God "in the tree," but I am someone who is seeking to grow ever more aware of what God has created.

Several years ago (2001), I was sitting at a rooftop cafe in Istanbul, several blocks from the Hagia Sophia. We were eating some sort of dessert and drinking that thick Turkish coffee, when talk turned to things of a more eternal nature. The part of the city we were in didn't have much light pollution, so the sky was magnificent. One of my friends looked at the Hagia Sophia and said, "this is what Man has made," and then looked at the sky and said, "and this is what God has made."

That's always struck a cord with me, it's something I won't allow to fade into the backdrops of my memory. We might look around at our humanized, localized, sterilized, world and bask in the self-satisfactory glory of what our race, the race of Men, has accomplished. And yet, take a minute to look upwards to the heavens on a clear night, and you will almost hear the very stars proclaiming the glory of their Creator.

There is something sacred about the stars. I'm not one for astrology, for I know that the stars have no power to determine our destinies, but I can't help but wonder if modern man in all his mechanical wisdom hasn't lost a part of his soul, the part that is awakened in the middle of the night when Diana the Huntress is out in full regalia, surrounded by her court of stars. Or when rosy-fingered dawn appears on the horizon in the early stretches of the morning, as Apollo takes up his chariot once again to bring us the dawn.

Don't lecture me for fancying some form of paganism, I did nothing of the sort! Merely, we should all take some time to just sit outside under the stars and let our souls be open to listen to what the stars are singing about their Creator.

Michael Card, a singer/songwriter in Middle Tennessee, put it this way:

"A billion bright and holy beams
From a light that's traveled far
Began the trip from His fingertips
O the wonder of the stars.

Affirm the signs and seasons,
So silently they sing
Of the wonder of their kindred
Of the power of their King"

On Beer

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
-Benjamin Franklin

"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza."
-Dave Berry

"Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."
-Winston Churchill

There is nothing quite like a good, cold beer. I mean a good beer, not the goat's urine that most "U.S. Americans" drink. This past football season, I was watching a football game, don't quite recall which one, and chatting it up with the lads on the FO unofficial IRC channel, when a Miller Lite commercial came on. Apparently there's this thing called the World Beer Cup or something, and Miller Lite has won the gold medal for "Best Tasting American-Style Light Lager" or some such thing. Someone on the IRC, I think it was Travis, typed, "they have awards for crappy beer?" That kinda brings it home. There's beer, and then there's bad beer. I, for one, like good beer. Here's the current list of my favourite beers.

The Beer List:

1. Newcastle Brown Ale
2. Guinness
3. Smithwick's
4. John Courage
   
5. Shiner Bock
6. Blackstone Brown Nut Ale
7. Sam Adam's Boston Lager
8. Amber Bock
9. Corona
10. Blue Moon

That's the top ten, as it currently stands. I try and rotate what I get, right now I've got some Blue Moon and Sam Adam's.

Is there a good beer I'm missing up there? Any great micro-brews in your neck of the woods?

The JoshBox

I spent several days in the middle of January (the winter of our discontent) assembling a serious gaming machine. It's the first computer I've built--my previous computer, a serviceable Dell, died at the end of December. Before leaving for NH (Operation Live Free or Die!), I ordered all my stuff. When I got back from Yankee Hell (not really, Nate. You're thinking of MA, CT, RI, or NYC) there was a big box with lots of little boxes inside! So I went to work and after many hours over several days, my baby was born.

The Case:

It's a great case: APEVIA X-Cruiser, Black. With a side window!
3 case fans: back, front, and top.
LED gauges and lights.
Lots of room for expansion.

The CPU:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.
2.4 GHz.
Quad Core, baby.

The Mainboard:

MSI P6N SLI Platinum.
This is a great board, expandability for more RAM and another vid card.

The Video Card:

XFX GeForce 8600GT
512 MB, DDR3, 1.4GHz
I love this vid card.
It can run everything I can throw at it, and then some.
Yes, I know there are better cards, but I'm a college student.

I also have a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio sound card, two 160GB Hitachi Hard Drives (with a RAID array), and 4GB of DDR2 RAM.

OS is just regular Windows XP, nothing fancy. You'd think I'd soil this machine with Vista? Yeah, right! I am planning on installing Ubuntu as well, sometime in the future. I've got 300 GB of HD space, why not?

Thus far, this is a great machine. The only problem I've had so far was when my vid card got a little hot because I had my sound card a little too close. It's all about airflow, mates. So, I moved the sound card, and everything's fine now.

I'll take some pictures of the machine in action in a few days, hopefully, so everyone out there in the various tubes of the internets can appreciate it in it's full glory and majesty.

In the meantime, I'm gonna go play some Civ4

The Reboot

This is the Reboot, the Rebirth, the Re-blog.

This blog is headed for newer things, better things, readier things, writier things.

I broke this blog into shards like Narsil: now, it will be rebuilt as Anduril.

I have a great many passions in life, and I hope to detail them.

Sports, food, beer, games, politics, high culture, low culture, pop culture. It's all up for grabs.

February has disappeared into history by more than half. It's time to make up for the time gone to the dust and the shadows of the world that is no longer the present. It's the now, baby, that's what's here. The new, the now. Now=New.