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Judges have Bonified Brainfart – order thousands of Calif. inmates released

Special panel says there is no other way to improve poor prison conditions.

updated 9:32 p.m. ET, Mon., Feb. 9, 2009

AP – SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A special panel of federal judges tentatively ruled Monday that California must release tens of thousands of inmates to relieve overcrowding.

The judges said no other solution will improve conditions so poor that inmates die regularly of suicides or lack of proper care.

“There are simply too many prisoners for the existing capacity,” they wrote. “Evidence offered at trial was overwhelmingly to the effect that overcrowding is the primary cause of the unconstitutional conditions that have been found to exist in the California prisons.”

via Judges order Calif. inmates released – Life- msnbc.com.

I know California has a serious budget problem. OK,, lots of states do. California’s prisons are overcrowded, but then I am sure if they deported the illegal immigrant inmates, that would help a bit.

What really gets me is this solution. I don’t think I have ever heard anything as absurd as our prisons are overcrowded and we have a budget problem, so lets release thousands of criminals into the public streets.

Does anyone else see a problem with this brain storm? I laughed at the wording as well, that the overcrowding is the primary cause of unconstitutional conditions. Give me a flippin break. They are crooks, incarcerated and have no rights. They gave up their rights when they decided they didn’t want to be law abiding citizens.

I also saw a perfect solution in their statement “conditions so poor that inmates die regularly of suicides or lack of proper care.” And the downside to this is what? Let em die, let em kill each other, let em kill themselves. I see a huge cost savings and a big “good riddance” of the criminal element in our society.

Not to mention, what a great idea for deterrence. Maybe someone thinking of committing a crime will first think “wait, there is no room in prison, lack of health care, I might die in prison, I better not sell these drugs, or rape this person, or rob this bank, etc.”

I’d like to know what you think about this. Make a comment, take the poll.

Rep. Gary Ackerman D-NY Blasts the SEC into speechlessness (mostly by interupting answers)

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., was the first to raise the issue of corporate jets at the earlier Big 3 Auto hearing. He is very boisterous and animated at the Madoff Fraud Allegations [Ponzi Scheme] and Financial Markets Regulation hearing, yet he nailed the SEC to the wall. Mr Ackerman didn’t do this by himself, in fact he was just echoing Harry Markopolos, an independent financial fraud investigator and analyst.

I give Harry Markopolos a gold ribbon for working so hard on the behalf of Americans and I give Rep. Gary Ackerman a blue ribbon for appearing to be on the side of good in a great show at the hearing and publicly pinning the tail on the donkey. Our congressmen and congresswomen should be working for and representing the public interest in congress, being the voice of the public, not echoing the hard work of others such as Harry Markopolos.

Background of the SEC (Securities & Exchange Commission):

The mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.

This is based on the Securities Act of 1933 often referred to as the “truth in securities” law, the Securities Act of 1933 has two basic objectives:

• require that investors receive financial and other significant information concerning securities being offered for public sale; and
• prohibit deceit, misrepresentations, and other fraud in the sale of securities.

In the economy of today, with billions of dollars being handed out to Wall Street companies, banking and investment firms, mortgage companies, and big industry, we can not afford or tolerate our one government agency (SEC) assigned to protect our economy from fraud, to be paid for nothing.

In the videos below you will hear Merrill Lynch named and you will hear specifically how the SEC has failed to do what the tax payers are paying them to do.

YouTube – Markopolos: I gift wrapped and delivered the largest Ponzi scheme in history to the SEC.

Next is Rep. Gary Ackerman at the helm:

Take the Poll

Fixing America

You may have heard our new fearless leader proclaim that change is what we need and that change must start with fixing America.

Two things come to mind almost immediately with one being that change brings two schools of thought , change for the better, and change for the worse. Change is a great flash word and it was used heavily in President Obama’s campaign, however it is merely a flash word while overstating the obvious that occurs in our lives and our country all the time. Evolution is change. Growth is change. Getting married is change. We have plenty of change already, both good and bad.

The next flashy statement was that America needs to be fixed. Really? I didn’t know America was broken. Congress is broken, yes. The SEC is broken, yes. Government and corporate policies are broken, yes. Our goverment is trying to break its citizens, yes, but America is not broken.

Americans were outraged when the big 3 auto makers flew to Washington D.C. on their expensive corporate jets to extort our government with “give us some bail out money or we will fire 3,000,000 employees” and now we have the President of the United States flying from Andrews AFB to Williamsburgh (155 miles – 12 minute flight) to listen to and speak to the Democtratic Conference.

This is not a cheap flight. When Air Force 1(747) flies, so does the backup 747. The cost of both jets flying 155 miles and then the return trip is huge. The President touts his tech saviness all the time. There is no reason why he couldn’t have video conferenced.

TYLER WHITLEY AND BILL GEROUX TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERS
Published: February 6, 2009

WILLIAMSBURG — President Barack Obama made a quick trip to Virginia last night…

…Aboard the plane, the president wore a new blue jacket stitched with the words Air Force One in cursive and the presidential seal on his right side and “Barack Obama” on the left side.

“I’ve got my spiffy jacket so I thought I’d come and show it off,” he joked with reporters.

“What do you think about this spiffy ride? It’s not bad.”

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am getting the severe impression that our new President thinks this is fun and games at the tax payers expense.

Stay tuned for:

“Immoral Mothers against Immoral Athletes”

“An Oil Barrel of Monkeys”

“Stimulus Package Stimulates Debt and Abuse”

“Illegal Immigrants Employed, Americans Unemployed”

“$75 Billion to Keep you on Welfare”

“D- Gary Ackerman Blasts the SEC into speechlessness”

Swindled in America

On a daily basis I am surprised at how easy it is to swindle Americans out of their money and a vote.

In the 1960’s JFK made a speech that implored you to ask not what your country can do for you, instead, ask what you can do for your country. For two years Obama campaigned the exact opposite, and spent your campaign dollars telling you what he will do for you. As history now shows, you bought it.

How could this have happened? Could it have been a simple case of lack of education and the structure of our own government? Could it have been just a great Hollywood performance? Could it be that you wanted to hear certain words like “change” (be it for good or bad), and “united”?

We have Joe Public who goes down to a car dealer to buy a new car. He saw an advertisement on TV that told him he would get a $5000 off deal, or a $5000 trade in allowance, or some BS gimmick whre there is no savings at all of any kind let alone $5000 worth. Joe Public ends up buying a car for 3 times its actual value. Why? because the car makers have to pay union wages which are 3 times the cost of non-union wages and they car makers have to offset this with the price of the car to still make a profit. As Joe public drives off the car lot with a car he paid three times what its worth, he understands the value of the car is just got cut in half by simply driving off the lot with it. This is OK with Joe, because the key word “New” is still in his head and in his nostrils. He got swindled out of his hard earned money, but is it new.

Now Joe Public sees on TV that the Big 3 have gone to congress to ask for “more” of his hard earned money he paid in taxes. They got it. Now Joe is feeling even more swindled. Then Joe realizes, this isn’t the only time. Other privately owned companies have gone to congress, as if congress were a bank, and asks for more of his money.

Meanwhile, Joe finds out that he is losing his mortgage and is facing a layoff at work. How can this be? In his depression, Joe mutters profanities at the President of the United States, not realizing that this blame is misplaced. See, Joe Public didn’t get a great education so he doesn’t understand the “limited powers” of the executive branch of the government, in fact didn’t even know there was a branch. Joe also doesn’t realize that the true power to approve or disapprove where his tax money is spent lies within congress, not the office of the president.

Joe Public is very depressed now as he turns on C-Span and watches where his tax dollars (33% of his income) is being spent and wonders “why did I vote for a powerless president? I don’t even see him sitting in congress.” Then it hits him as Joe recognizes the people he voted for, sitting in congress, giving away his money to the people he just gave money to for a new car, gave even more money to for his house and other companies getting a load of his money.

Joe says to himself, “I should have put more importance on who I hired into congress, than on voting for a President that can’t really do anything for me. I’m supposed to be doing something for my country to make it a better place, not relying on a double talking president to do it for me.”

As Joe hears in the background that another $800 billion and another $350 billion behind that are going to be used to “stimulate” the economy, a thought occurs to him. There are roughly 300 millions people in America, 7% (21 million) illegal immigrants, 150 million under the age of 18, (2.5 kids per household) 6 – 11% unemployed or on welfare (18 to 33 million) which leaves about 100 million employed working Americans. If I were a congressmen I could save a lot of the tax payers dollars by giving it back to them to stimulate the econmy, instead of giving it to these failing private companies. Yes, if I gave everyone $1000 back to the  100 million working Americans that would only be $100 billion. I could tell car companies to shut down their plants overseas and put that saved money into operations here at home. I could reverse NAFTA so that Dupont and Hershey and other major companies brought jobs back to America. I could take the unemployed and train them up to be border patrol agents with the hundrds of billions of dollars in tax payers money I saved from not giving it to failing companies. I could randomly drug test welfare recipients every month and for everyone that fails the drug test, they are permanently denied welfare which would save billions more dollars that can be given back to hard working Americans.

Joe Public starts to light up as all these simple solutions that he never heard utterd by “Both Ways Obama” in the entire two years of his campaign.  Joe beams even more as he realizes he can “fire” [with a vote] these crooks in congress with the real power, handling his tax dollars, just as easily as he “hired” them. Afterall, they aren’t performing to the level of expectations and job requirements, and someone who can do the job are waiting to be hired. Why have we been paying Ted Kenndy all these years? Yes, I do want change, I want these crooks and criminals in congress FIRED!

Big 3 Auto Makers Charged With Extortion

del.icio.us Tags: Big 3,GM,Ford,Daimler,Bailout,Extortion,Economy,Bank,Mortgage,Fanny Mae,Freddie Mac,AIG

If anyone else had gone to Washington and gave Congress an ultimatum that if they didn’t give $25 billion to bail their company out of hot water or one to three million people would lose their jobs and throw America into economic ruin, they would be going to prison on charges or extortion. But this is the Big 3, so people will be looking the other way.

You wont be seeing those headlines because General Motors (GM), Ford, and Daimler feel they are above the law and the main stream media doesn’t recognize extortion since they don’t even recognize that they committed treason many times over while reporting on military matters based on the fact that it was news and it’s freedom of the press (which is a different story for another time).

President Bush felt it was necessary to “help out” the economy even though it isn’t his responsibility to bail out businesses who fail at being a profitable business, by offering a $700 billion safety net. The House of Representatives were smart enough to vote it down. However, the Senate wasn’t so bright, and they passed the measure.

At that time, I stated it was a huge mistake and it would set a trend that this country doesn’t need to start. Company after company have gotten in line for tax payers money to save their failed mortgage companies, banks, and so on. Remember Bear and Stearns, one of the largest global investment banks and securities trading and brokerage firms, got a huge handout of tax payers dollars. Blew that wad, and then sold out to JPMorgan Chase.

Having contributed a combined $1,842,297 to federal candidates, according to data gathered by the Center for Responsive Politics, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stepped up to the line asking for handouts. AIG is on the rescue list. This trend should never have started but at least these failing companies only “asked” for help. The big 3 went over the line and is attempting to extort the government and the American citizens.

I’m afraid I have to say two things, let them fail and arrest the big 3. But wont that kill the economy? Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm answers questions during a news conference in Troy, Mich., Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008. Granholm said that “the crisis in the auto industry is urgent”, arguing that “the national economy rests on this”. However this can not be farther from the truth. The Japanese’s own Big 3- Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and other prominent foreign car manufacturers are ready and waiting to fill the production capacity and demand vacuum left by the Big 3’s failure to continue dominating the North American market.

Another cause for this failing business, unions. Union workers get on average double to triple the wages of a non-union worker. If union workers are laid off, the big 3 are required by contract to pay 95% of their base pay during the time they are laid off. These among other costs not mentioned have to be absorbed by the companies which ultimately go into the sale of the vehicle.

So what do we have here: Car companies who charge us 3 times what they should be for the sale of a vehicle, Car companies who would rather (according to their bean counters) pay out on lawsuits for wrongful death caused by their malfunctioning vehicles rather than fix the defects because its “more cost effective” to pay the lawsuits than recall vehicles, Car companies who have fought for years not to produce more and more fuel efficient vehicles because there isn’t a big enough profit in the effort, (and the list goes on) and now they want our tax dollars to bail them out of their failing business?!?!

LET THEM FAIL! The answer here is simply that they need to file bankruptcy like every other failing business which isn’t an honorable thing to do when you fail, but it is the right thing to do in this situation. Suck it up and file.

My Fellow Americans, Call your Senators and tell them to STOP the trend. Its going to have a lasting ill-effect for the next 30+ years and our children will be paying the price.

Full figured women (busty) and the men who dismiss them

This post is opened for my friend Dee. Have a blast hon.

Free Porn Update

This is an update to my “Free Porn” experiment discussing prostitution at Free Porn – Totally 100% Free.

I stated in that post that I would be taking a two week average view at the end of October 2007 to compare how my viewership changes from the presence of the post. I didn’t keep to my word and as of today, seven months have passed (incredibly fast I might add) and I am shocked to find that the following stats from this blog proved me to be wrong. My viewership did increase to an average of 472 views per day but not because of the “free Porn” post.

Top Posts

Soul Mate Scam, 4,063 views

Free Porn – Totally 100% Free, 2,777 views

The Big Picture on Gasoline Prices, 1,967 views

Top Searches

dragons tail, dragon tail, totally free porn

Other search terms used to find The Dragon Tail:
the dragon tail gone wrong
dragons tail
sex for cash free porn
calculate a love prediction
100% free porn
free world wide sex
totally free porn
dragon porn
dragon name on dragon tails
average us gas prices per gallon from 1960
the dragons tail
“evil to triumph” “good men to do nothing”
“gas prices in 1929″
i dont have wireless need my1purelove pi

Needless to say, I am pretty amazed. I have to thank all my visitors who came to view “real content” versus those that got hooked by my experiment. It tells me a lot about the kind of people that are truly interested in what I have to say. Thank you all for your patronage and viewership. Without you, The Dragon tail would be just another blog in the organized chaos we call the Internet.

By the way, although I have been in a state of “grunge” lately, I will be posting much more frequently and hopefully as often as was the norm for a long time

Political Humor

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She decreased her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him

Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.   

 The man consulted his portable GPS and replied

You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 4119 feet above sea level. You are at 35 degrees, .07 minutes north latitude and 83 degrees, 18 minutes west longitude.   

 She rolled her eyes and said

You must be a Republican.   

 The man replied

How did you know?   

 The balloonist answered

Everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.   

 The man smiled and responded

You must be a Democrat.  

I am, replied the balloonist. How did you know? 

 The man said

You don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to  solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow now it’s my fault.  

Welfare Addiction

Many times I have talked with friends about the idea an anonymous man had for trimming the fat from our welfare system. All too often we have heard how much of our hard earned money from the “working Americans” is going into the welfare system, and how few people actually deserve the check.

I wont go into how many illegal immigrants are earning money in America and not paying a single penny into the federal system that pays for welfare and other community programs. I will save that for another post. Right now is as good a time as any to start trimming the fat from the welfare system.

One way we can do that is to change a small way the welfare system works, and that is to require each welfare applicant to take a drug test during the submission of their application and to take a drug test once a month, on a random date, while they are on the program. The first time someone fails the drug test, they lose their welfare and are banned from collecting welfare ever again, ever. The money that would be saved from paying drug addicts to be on welfare would more than pay for the new testing, and the rest could go to people who actually need the assistance or other programs.

Now as it would happen, I was talking to a friend of mine that I used to chat with in public chat rooms frequently, and we agreed we had both seen many conversations of people that are on welfare, in a chat room. These people were supporting , of course, how necessary the welfare system is and how it helps so many people. A great many of us did agree it is important to an extent, however, how is it possible that a welfare recipient can pay for an internet connection and a computer, if they are on welfare? Welfare is meant to give assistance to those who can not afford the basic necessities for survival.

Access to the Internet and purchasing a computer, is a luxury, not a necessity. So it would stand to reason that the welfare department should be doing random inspections of the homes of welfare recipients, and a review of their utility bills to verify that no luxuries are being purchased such as internet access and computers.

The whole idea is not to enable an addict, even someone addicted to welfare. If someone needs Internet access to find a job instead of using their feet, then it isn’t an unsurmountable task to walk up to the public library and use their computers, or even go to the employment office and use their computers.

It’s time to stop funneling money into the hands of addicts through government programs. How can you help? Elect an official to oversee where your hard earned money is going, and stop electing politicians who thrive on special interest groups and padding their own pockets.

The Dilemma

Why is the question of gay marriage such a dilemma? To the majority of the world (85% Christian), it’s not, it’s simply wrong. Two issues arise from this dilemma. 1) Who are the lawmakers, and 2) why is it being debated? I am not going to address the first one (who are the lawmakers) in this post, but instead address the question of why is it being debated or contemplated at all.

From a religious standpoint the origin of marriage can be identified with the first two human beings, Adam and Eve. The father and mother of life. A man and a woman created in order to procreate and populate the world. A physical manifestation of God’s love. God outlined Adam’s duties and responsibilities to his wife, Eve, and also outlined Eve’s responsibilities and duties to her husband, Adam.

There is probably good reason why God didn’t create two men first and tell them to love one another as I have loved you and to go forth and procreate as well as not creating two women first and telling them the same thing.

Now Adam and Eve would be the symbolic origin of marriage, however, the sacrament of Holy Matrimony didn’t come into play until some time later. In the Old Testament, marriage is most frequently treated as a patriarchal institution for the perpetuation of the tribe. However, late in the history of Israel, we can see signs of a growing sacramental awareness in the creation stories of Genesis and in the prophetic literature. In the New Testament, all three Synoptic Gospels record Jesus affirming the permanence of marriage. In both Mark and Matthew, Jesus makes reference to Gen. 2:24 which speaks of the union of man and woman as part of God’s divine plan. Similar references are outlined in the Qur’an (Homosexual acts are condemned as unnatural. 7:80-81, homosexual activities are condemned as unnatural. 26:165-6, homosexuals commit abominations and act senselessly. 27:54-55).
One significant development which occurred in the Middle Ages, was the rise of ecclesiastical marriage ceremonies and legislation. Prior to this period, it was left to civil authorities to legislate marriages. The Church concerned itself with only the moral dimension of the marriage relationship. In the Roman culture, a marriage was legal and binding on the basis of consent between the spouses and their guardians. In the Frankish and Germanic traditions, a marriage was not considered binding until consummated by sexual intercourse.

Throughout the Church’s history, theologians have been somewhat skittish about the religious significance of the marriage institution. The attacks of the Albigensians and Waldensians on the goodness of sexuality, much like the Gnostics and Manichaeans of an earlier time, led the Church to speak explicitly of the sacramentality of marriage. It was included as a sacrament in Pope Innocent III’s Profession of Faith in 1208 and was listed definitively by the Council of Trent in 1563.

Now, I don’t know a single religion that recognizes or condones gay relationships or marriages, but I only say that because I can’t name one that does. There might be one out there somewhere, but there is always an exception to every rule.

Now for the social and legal ramification and basis of the socially acceptable union of a man and a woman. It is generally accepted that our civil laws are based in whole or in part on religious laws (i.e. the ten commandments, the bible in general). However, I see two significant reasons for the civil marriage (outside of religious grounds) and that is the importance of identifying a person as a “naturally born citizen” of a particular country, born of two citizens married in said country. The other issue being the legality of having sex as it pertains to the illegal act of sex called prostitution. This brings to mind a number of interesting situations. Outside of homosexuality being wrong to 85% of the population that has a Christian or religious upbringing, if gay marriages are made legal ( as has been the case in a couple of states) they can’t bring any children into this world (between two men) as natural born citizens. Obviously two gay women married to each other can bring a child into the world as a natural born citizen but wont be a product of their marriage, since one or both would have to be impregnated artificially or have sex outside the marriage constituting a natural act of heterosexuality. The only other option is to adopt a child.

It’s interesting to note that most prostitution is between a man and a woman. How often do you hear or read or see a situation where a man pays for sex from another man and is arrested for prostitution, or a woman paying another woman for that matter? Heterosexual prostitution, yes, child pornography, yes, rape of a woman by a man, yes, rape of a man by another man?(usually restricted to prisons) rape of a woman by another woman? Where are these stories?

There are a whole slew of issues and problems and situations that are going to be created from legalizing gay marriages just from a civil standpoint. Obviously from a religious standpoint it is and always will be wrong in the eyes of God. Probably a darn good reason for that. God said it’s wrong. Who am I to put myself above God and say otherwise. How much of an idiot would I have to be, not knowing what comes after this life, to take the risk of superseding, preempting, or rescinding God’s law?

Now, the judges, politicians, lawmakers who make a ruling from a legal/civil standpoint, what must be going through their minds if they are at all religious? Supposing there is nothing after this life, how important is their career or their job or their social status to use it to preempt God’s law if that judge or politician or lawmaker is a Christian or religious and takes that risk?

We all talk about separation of church and state. But how in the world does a judge, a governor, a president or ANYONE separate their religious belief and upbringing from civil law, especially if the law is in contradiction to the religion? This certainly sounds like a conflict of interest in view of the fact that civil law is based in whole or in part on religious law.

Get Involved – Become a social member of Dragon Tail

Go to http://dragontail.ning.com and become a member of “The Dragon Tail” social network then get your network badge and wear it proudly. (found at the bottom right hand column)

Destroy Information on the Internet

Find out everything that’s being said about you online and get rid of the content you don’t like.

Next we DESTROY… This is where we go to work for you. Our trained and expert online reputation specialists use an array of techniques developed in-house to correct and/or completely remove the selected unwanted content from the web. – ReputationDefender™

Does this sound alarming to you or maybe impossible?

Using our network of websites & forums we dominate your name or business!
PROTECT YOUR NAME FROM HARMFUL INTERNET POSTINGS!

We specialize in moving those negative listings aside and replace them with positive information about you or your company! Dont be held hostage by negative Internet listings. - DefendMyname[.com]

How is this possible? How does a company remove anything you have published, from the Internet?

Do you have a Myspace, Facebook or Hoverspot account? A recent survey of hiring managers at CareerBuilder.com found that about two-thirds of the them rejected an application after performing a web search on you.

As soon as I had heard that companies are claiming to be able to do something like “remove” or “destroy” information on the Internet, a red flag went up. Our country is based on certain inalienable rights, of which freedom of speech and freedom of press are just a couple. So how are these companies able to relieve you of those rights? The answer is, they legally can not.

The first company I quoted (ReputationDefender), doesn’t even have a phone number that you can contact them with, stating “…we are in Beta and we are keeping our costs low, which allows us to keep our prices low.“ Prices? Oh yes, there is always a price, and in this case its $10 for you to find out what information about you they can find and then its $30 for them to do something about the information they find about you, if they can do anything at all. Then they claim to destroy information published on the web. If that doesn’t scream SCAM!, nothing does. I personally challenge them to destroy this post about them without hacking into my account.

The second company is a little more careful with their wording, and to an observant reader, disclose how they accomplish “squelching” any information about you on the internet. The process is simple, but completely unethical. DefendMyName will utilize the technology in search engines such as Google, along with their numerous forums and websites to post repetitious “good” information about you to ensure only the “good” information ranks highest in web search results. This is organized abuse at its finest as well as an unethical business practice. The company will only negatively impact the Internet and make it harder for researchers and folks searching the web for information, to find what they are looking for and force a longer sifting process. This type of flooding the internet with repetitious information is in essence suppression of information, oppression, and propagandizing.

I am sure you were thinking it so I will overstate at this time, yes, there is a price for the service.

Dragons and Angels

A recent search engine phrase brought a reader here. The search phrase was from the Ursula Le Guin pro-fantasy manifesto: “Why Are Americans So Afraid of Dragons?”

Of course I had to look this up as well and found an article that was more appealing titled “Why Are Americans So Afraid of The Golden Compass?” which had more interest for me. (read article here)

The Golden Compass is movie adapted from a trilogy of novels by author Philip Pullman called “The Dark Materials.” Philip Pullman is a self-proclaimed atheist, [big deal] and his trilogy published by Random House is categorized as “juvenile fiction.” So why are so many people getting their proverbial panties in a bunch over this movie and the books?

This is the intent of Philip Pullman to further his money making machine. What’s wrong with making money? Nothing. Mr Pullman has sold over 15 million copies of his trilogy “The Golden Compass”, “The Subtle Knife”, and “The Amber Spyglass” world wide. Since it is common for books to become movies, the first book was released as a watered down version movie on Dec 7th, 2007. So far nothing is wrong with this activity.

Mr Pullman claims to be an atheist but his writings and interviews touting his atheism is severely contradicted by the fact that you can’t attack or kill something you believe doesn’t exist. Pullman represents God as a decrepit and perverse angel in his novels, who captures the dead in a “prison camp” afterlife. one character, a fallen angel, tells another character in the book “The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty – those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves – the first angel, true, the most powerful…”

Pullman’s writings contradict himself as we all know the first angel, the most powerful, was cast out of heaven and was known by many names, the most common ones being Satan and Lucifer. In later interviews with Pullman he states that two characters in his last book [The Amber Spyglass] kill God. The contradictions are endless as the two characters in the last book kill the fallen angel, the most powerful angel, which was in actuality, not God.

Books of the trilogy have sold more than 15 million copies around the world, with Northern Lights [released in the US as "The Golden Compass"] winning the Carnegie Medal for Children’s Literature in 1995 and in 2007 being awarded the ‘Carnegie of Carnegies’ for the best children’s book of the past 70 years. The Amber Spyglass, the final book of the series, won The Whitbread Prize in 2001, making it the first children’s book to do so.

In conclusion, what do we have?  We have a guy who writes books, who claims to be one thing, then contradicts himself in writing and interviews, trying to make as much money as he can using the resources at hand such as capitalism, commercialism, controversy and press, and trying not to be a “has been” overshadowed by the works of J.K.Rowling in the mean time. All summed up, big deal.

Editorial comment:  As the author of this blog, it is my firm belief that parents have always been and always will be responsible for how their children are raised and their development into adulthood. Pullman is not breaking the law, and he isn’t forcing anyone to buy his writings. Many Christian and non-Christian groups are advocating not patronizing Pullman with a boycott of his materials which only blinds us to the nature and content of his material which reduces our understanding and knowledge of what is good or bad about the content.  How can an individual say something is good or bad unless they have taken the time to read or view it for them self and make an informed decision on their own about the information?

My belief is if you decide to read or view the material or allow your children to do so, then it is our obligation as good parents to be fully involved in the comprehension and understanding of the material and to use the material as a teaching tool for whatever your values and morals prescribe. If some people decide to blind them self and/or their children from the content, then that is perfectly fine as we all should be doing as we believe. One of the great things about America is having that right to choose as we wish.

Norton Removal and PC Tuneup

Happy New Year 2008! I hope everyone had a great holiday season this past Christmas and New Year.

Being that this is the first post of the new year after a lengthy vacation for me, I feel it is important to start off the year with a useful post to just about every PC user out there.

Anyone that has bought a new PC has probably seen a Symantec created Norton product pre-installed on their machine. You didn’t have a choice of having this product, just like you didn’t have a choice of which version of Windows operating system installed on your machine. You got the latest release and get no choice of previous versions instead.

Like myself, many people are annoyed, frustrated, and unhappy with Norton products for various reasons. Some folks will subscribe and others will be automatically subscribed to Norton products when they purchase a machine, and others like myself will not subscribe at all and immediately uninstall (or try) any Norton products.

It is not commonly understood or known that Norton products severely degrade a Windows operating systems performance, however it is visible to a great many people how slow their systems become after a short time. This is due to a number of reasons most especially because Microsoft Windows still does not handle system resources properly after all these years of being on the market, and also because of utilities (like Norton) that bog down your system resources while trying to perform its tasks in the background. Other reasons are not defragmenting your hard drives with a reputable defragmentation program or at the very least the Windows defrag program, as well as a cluttered system registry (which Windows lacks the ability to keep clean and in top condition on it’s own) and an improperly sized virtual memory or page file.

With a Norton product installed and an expired subscription, you will get annoying reminders to renew your subscription because you are at risk if you don’t. If you have performed an “add/remove” of a Norton product, you may think that all is said and done. However, certain portions of those programs continue to run in the background,use system resources and load at start up even after being uninstalled because a Norton product is never fully uninstalled until you get the Norton Removal Tool. The soul point of todays post is to provide you with the link to remove any Norton product from your machine so that you can once again enjoy better performance from your machine. To do so, *clicky* this link: Symantec Home & Home Office Support to choose the Norton product you want to remove and download the tool.

After you have freed your system from the bonds of sluggish performance of a Norton product, you may be wondering what you can use for protection. I like Trend Micro for their Internet Security and PC protection. If you would like to use their free computer scanning system over the internet, visit Trend Micro Home and Home Office HouseCall. They also have a page with four of their best free programs for security of your computer and internet use called Trend Secure (here). This page also includes the HouseCall scanner.

My recommendations:

1. Never use or have active, more than one virus protection program at a time. You can have more than one program installed, just don’t activate or use them at the same time.
2. Never have more than one spyware/malware/greyware program running at the same time.
3. Since no one program for virus protection and spyware/malware protection is ever going to be 100% accurate or the “endall” of protection, I recommend having and using different kinds independently of each other, periodically.
4. Keep your system registry and your system as a whole tuned up frequently with some utility such as PCPitsop’s PC Optimize or similar program.

PC Pitstop is another what I call “can’t live without” pc resource for maintaining an absolutely top notch computer. You can perform a free scan of your system (even anonymously if you wish), read extremely valuable information about spyware and malware and you can download programs to install and maintain your own system. PC Pitstop “scores” you against their database of visitors and their machines so that you know how you rank compared to your friends machines.

If you have any questions at all or would like to relate your experience at PC Pitstop, or discuss any other items in this post, please leave a comment here. The only truly stupid questions are the ones never asked so please ask. I guarantee at least one other personal will learn something from the information, but was afraid to ask.