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Sometimes I think I live under a rock, so this might be old news. That said, the old Looney Tunes cartoons are available on DVD.

Apparently you can buy the Looney Tunes cartoons from the 50s on DVD. ^_^

Golden Collections Volumes 1-3 from 1955.

Looney Tunes movie collection released in 1979.

The old ones are so much better than the new ones. Rawk.

I just finished a book that I've (literally) been reading for the past four months. Lately when I come home from work, I find it very difficult to stay home and veg, so I've either been going out, or I've been trying to enrich myself in some way. This means I've been reading quite a lot lately, both fiction and non.

I came across Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos earlier this summer when I was reading a Wired article about Amazon Top500 book reviewers and such. One of those mentioned was Newt Gingrich (the former Speaker of the House), and one of the books that he had just reviewed was this one. I read it over, saw that it got good reviews, so I requested it from the library.

I'm glad I read it.

Going through life you occasionally meet people that teach you to look at things from a higher level. Imagine you're in New York City, on the first floor of the Empire State Building. You can see some things, but not much. You go up to the tenth floor, and you can see a heck of a lot more. But continue all the way to the top, and you can see for miles in all direction, and you can see the city as a whole, in all of its parts. This is how this book was for me: it was eye-opening about why and how the United States and leaders of years gone past have operated in the ways that they have.

Strangely enough, it explained some parts of current foreign policy that seemed a little out of whack somehow. It explained the moral obligations of a statesman as opposed to the media, who has no obligation to anyone. This, as a result, explains why the media will seize upon many human rights stories, particularly when they are not stopped by the government, or especially if they are perpetrated by the government either directly by actions, or through inaction. It explained why it's not always possible or advisable to go charging into every situation.

It all boils down to self-preservation and prosperity. Just as humans are inherently selfish and interested first in themselves and their own success, so also a statesman must do the same for his country if he wishes to accomplish even altruistic goals. Every altruistic thing a country does is done for selfish reasons, not because it's the "right thing" to do.

I wish I could accurately describe the entire book, but these were the parts that largely stood out to me. It was fairly information- and concept-dense, though I found it a relatively easy and enjoyable read. Definitely check it out if you can.

I'm now reading Leadership by Rudy Guiliani, a book that I've owned for a few years but never actually read.

Woot woot!

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I dislike my family. Not the people in my family, but rather the fractured shell that my family has become. This dislike is felt most especially during the months of November and December. Holidays used to be my favorite time of year, but no longer.

A little backstory… My mom and I moved out of the house that I largely grew up in on my dad's birthday, July 20, 2001, almost a month to the day after I graduated from high school. That day was chosen — not out of spite — but simply because it was the only day that the people that would help us move were all available. I can still remember the last night in the house I grew up in, and the profound sense of sadness that I felt, and still feel, when I think about it.

My dad re-married last year. He married my buddy's mom: someone I've known since ~4th grade. He's a close friend, and she's a nice lady. I rather like having him as my step-brother, even though it's a largely superfluous title since we'll never share the same roof as siblings do growing up. Nonetheless, it is a relationship by marriage that I rather like.

However.

My dad married his mom on November 6, 2004. Which is my mom's birthday. Yes, my dad re-married on his ex-wife's birthday. Wonderful. However, it was not done out of spite — despite what my mom would like to believe — it was done because it was the only date that they could rent the place the ceremony was held at without waiting for another six months or so.

So there you have it. We moved out on his birthday and he re-married on my mom's birthday. That means every November 6, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Being in two places at once is difficult. And November 6 isn't even the holiday season yet.

The holidays come, as they always do, and once again I'm torn between two families. Where do I go? What do I do? Staying home with my mom reminds me of what we've lost: we're a broken family. Being with my dad and his wife's relatives reminds me keenly of how much of an outside I am, and precisely what I'm missing on those special days.

I don't like being either at being with my mom at home, and I don't like being with my dad and his family. Which is probably why I'll work 8-9 hours this Thanksgiving. This isn't fair to either one of my parents, but I always split my holidays between the two of them anyway, and Thanksgiving is my dad's holiday this year. Since he's got a family now, I don't mind skipping out so much, even though I know he'd prefer to have me there. But I don't care to be there. Or anywhere around here.

So I'll probably go work at the pharmacy, with friends to whom no emotional baggage is attached. This is a reason that I want my own family so badly — to have a place to be and to call home at this time of year. I firmly believe it is the people that make home what it is, not where you live or the lifestyle you lead. The only place I like being during the holiday season is with my Aunt and Uncle out in South Dakota, with my half-sister and half-brother. That's the only place that really feels like home during the months of November and December.

I love the people in my family. All of them, regardless of how they're related to me. But I hate what my family has become: we are now the thing I pitied among my friends growing up. I am fortunate that it happened so late in my life.

I hope it never happens to my children. If I ever have any.

This is what kennedye said on eJacqui's blog:

When I was younger, our cat at the time got hit by a car (whose driver then drove off, BTW; hey, if you're reading this, I hope you ended up with a giant brain tumor or something, you worthless fuck — but I digress.)

To which I answer… What would you have them do instead?

I've had several cats killed by cars in my lifetime, and I've been heartbroken each time. In my family, cats are members of the family, a step above a mere "pet."

Anyway, if someone hits an animal, and you live in a neighborhood where there is more than one house — as is the case with me — what do you do? Go ring everyone's doorbell until you found out whose dog/cat/parakeet it is?

It doesn't matter what the circumstances surrounding the accident are. The animal is dead, and there's nothing you can do about it. What if someone has someplace to be in a hurry? What if they didn't even know it happened? What if they just didn't care?

In short, what would someone accomplish by sticking around after the fact besides being the target of your wrath and sadness? It serves no purpose.

Don't get me wrong, I'd feel terrible if I killed an animal with my car — shit I feel bad when I hit a frog in the road on those humid, rainy nights — but if I hit your pet, I'm probably not going to stop, because it doesn't do me, or you, any good, aside from providing a dumping ground for your anguish. Which I frankly don't care to be no matter how the accident happened. You probably wouldn't stop either, because I don't know of anyone who wants to be on the receiving end of someone else's anger. Particularly if you don't know the other person and/or how they'll react.

The "decent thing" be damned. It's safer to continue on your way. It's easy and fun (and I suppose therapeutic) to make up fantasies about how the person who hit your pet was a horrible person and deserve death, but the reality is that they're probably a practical person who's looking out for #1's best interest. Which is something you can't really fault anyone for doing, because doing the "decent thing" always comes secondary to our own well-being, and/or the well-being of our superorganism.*

* Which explains why suicide bombings are perfectly logical in some fundamentalist circles.

Every once in a while I like to go into my room, turn my music up loud and just Be. Music so loud you can't think about anything because it surrounds you, bathes you, and penetrates you. Typically I do this with powerful music, preferably with few or no words: Beethoven comes readily to mind. So does some of DJ Tiesto's music.

One of the things I want when I build my house is my own office. Refuge might be a better word. A place that only I go. Speakers built into all of the walls so the washes over you from every side, with my desk near a wall, but more towards the middle than against the wall. A large plasma TV on the wall facing my desk displaying visualizations from the music. I want the ability to dim the lights in the office without getting up.

A place to play my music and hit the "reset" button on my mind away from the rest of the world. My own Chamber of Sound and Silence insulated from the rest of the world where everything moves at the pace of Music.

I can almost do that now, but the ambience isn't quite right. Someday.

It's nice to hear some rational comments coming from a religious institution regarding the religious war over the theory of evolution. I can't say I'm surprised to hear it coming from the Vatican given their history of persecuting scientists, and their pro-science stance makes me wonder if in 100 years or so, those people we in the science world are so ready to dogpile on as "backward fundies" will revise their stances on things like Intelligent Design and the theory of evolution. (Which are not mutually exclusive.)

"The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future," [Cardinal] Poupard said.

The Cardinal had some strong words for science as well, advocating that scientists should not forsake all ties to religion.

"We know where scientific reason can end up by itself: the atomic bomb and the possibility of cloning human beings are fruit of a reason that wants to free itself from every ethical or religious link," he said.

I must take issue with the Cardinal's implication that morality stems from Judeo-Christian faith, because pagan religions certainly have their own sets of morals that often mirror Judeo-Christianity's fairly closely. Regarding the atomic bomb, I believe that was an inevitability, and that the mutually assured destruction the Bomb offered was as much a deterrent to war as it was a weapon to make war. Exploring certain aspects of human cloning offers benefits in the form of novel treatments and cures for diseases.

Anyway, back to science. Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, (Science, Theology and Ontological Quest) re-affirmed the late Pope John Paul II's 1996 statement that evolution was more than a hypothesis because of the proof available which supports the theory. Cardinal Poupard goes on to explain the Vatican's interpretation of the events in Genesis:

"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".

The Vatican's position mirrors most scientists' belief that ID should be taught in a religion or social studies class rather than the science classroom, because ID is not science. It is faith.

It's very hard to make me cry. Well, sometimes. I think it's easy when it comes to happy things, and that's what happened tonight. I was watching the last half hour of Extreme Makeover Home Edition where they remake people's homes. This one was a two hour special where they redid a three-story house in a handicap accessible fashion for this one family. It was pretty amazing. I can't really describe what they did, but there was an elevator, special refrigerators, tables, showers, bathtubs, a pool. Unbelievable. I think the kitchen had like four sinks alone with extra wide areas around the island so wheelchairs could fit.

Each kid had their own bedroom tailored to suit their needs and wants, and many had their own customized bathroom. It was pretty amazing.

Then they showed the pool in the backyard. And then they paid off the family's mortgage. Then they started a $300,000 trust fund so the kids could go to college. Then they gave the family a car.

It was completely mind-boggling, and I realize ABC can probably afford to do all this while still being profitable, but the fact that they went as far as they did was just amazing. Something like 2,000 volunteers took care of everything. It was just unbelievable.

I didn't cry, but I almost did. I'm hoping a torrent site has it somewhere so I can watch the first 90 minutes.

From Visions of Science's 2005 awards, specifically, the BBC (click for fullsize).

It's a picture of a cancer cell beginning the process of metastasis.