Citizens United vs FEC

Politically speaking I don't know shit about crap, or was it 'shit from crap'? Anyways, either way, it takes something big to crack the gates of my ignoramous kingdom, something blatant and not subtle... This recent Supreme Court ruling to remove limits on campaign spending is, like, bad right? Some egg-head at the Univ. of Wisconsin calculated that,

"The nation's four largest banks would have to allocate a mere one-tenth of one percent of their assets--$6 billion--to counter a campaign in which the whole of the U.S. labor movement spent all of its assets."

I'm counting on all fingers and toes here and the math looks bad... How can labor interests compete in a system where the corporate financial institutions have more buying power in wet fart than the unions have in their entire coffers?
We already know that politicians do exactly what their donors ask, so what becomes of our 'democracy' when those campaign contributions limits are waved entirely...? Geez, you don't need a liberal or conservative talking head to tell you this is not so good.

The real losers here? The teary-eyed folks who voted for our Democrat leaders with hopes of Hope in their dreams and 'Yes we Can' bumper stickers on their Toyota Pious-es. They really thought their interests would be represented by this new, blue majority and what do they have to show?

Ride Report: Jan 23

The past week was warm behind the norm; temps sat in the mid-upper 50s and it didn't rain. My ride desire was off the charts, so I did night rides Monday, Wed, and Friday... the Wednesday ride was crazy, I rode to the top of the mountain, to Whoopsie Woodle and then all the way back down to the top of Ridge. The view from the top, of the mountains basked in moon light was just epic and it made me think that if I could write profound things then this view would give me the appropriate inspiration.

Saturday, today, was mission was to head up to 'Natural Selection', the trail Nate helped me finish once he moved to Bellingham and 'cam' it. The cam turned out pretty good considering the somewhat beaten state of the trail. I filmed a little tour before the ride, so I'll let the shaky camera work speak for itself:



Also, the helmet cam of Natural Selection with pieces of some other trails too:

Cheese attack!

A coworker handed me a piece of cheese today and said 'try this, its strong.' Without really thinking I tossed it into my mouth and bit down... immediatley my senses were overcome by a taste that can only be described as putrid. What I wanted to ask, but didn't, was how ugly was the Frenchman whose ass this piece of white hell was pulled from? Usually I will give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to tastes; different strokes for different folks, but no human likes this cheese, its just not possible given our natural biology. Some may 'claim' to like this cheese, but only because they are being snobby and trying to prove some vague sense of superiority by eating something that literally tastes like ass. I don't like those kinds of people, they're the same thin-lipped types who claim to like The White Stripes' music. Don't do that people, a turd is a turd, just admit it ok?

I don't know the name of the cheese; just that its french, but based on the mouth-rape I just suffered I think we could make an argumented for justified war on the Surrender Monkeys. We'll bomb their vinyards and build breweries in the still smoldering ashes. We'll slaughter the cows that made the milk for this cheese and send the beef to McDonalds for use in Big Macs. Then, during an especially dark and cloudy night we'll secretly steal their fancy cigarettes and replace them with menthols! Take that Frenchies!

We've been watching...

I used to have this fantasy which I know some can relate to, where I would be living my normal life and one day perform some act of great dexterity like catching a fly between two fingers, or splitting a gnarled piece of wood with three perfectly placed strokes, or catching a dish right as it falls off the counter only to feel a firm hand on my shoulder and a deep voice voice resonating behind me: "We've been watching you candidate Shields, please come with us." I would then be whisked away in the back of a Black 7-series to some bad-ass training camp where I'd spend 6 months being trained as a one man Army, Jason Bourne style; they'd teach me to do all kinds of stuff, how to fight, hot-wire cars, hack into computer systems, and convince beautiful women to sleep with me simply by lowering my brow and pointing... It'd be so awesome. I'd be a mercenary who played by his own rules! 'They' would give me the missions, but I'd be the one calling the shots because of course, I'd be the expert. I'd leave devastation in my wake and broken hearts in port cities around the world, I'd be both mysterious and hyper-intelligent, I would play chess with old Jewish men and after placing their king in check mate they'd shake their heads and look up at me in disbelief, but I'd already be gone. My hands would be registered as deadly weapons in 9 different European countries and I'd have a really cool pair of glasses.

But... the hand on the shoulder never came, there was no deep resonating voice either. I'm still not playing by my own rules and the women aren't swooning. The only beatings I learned to administer were... well, you know. I did move within the past year, maybe they didn't get my change of address? If so, I've needlessly murdered a lot of flies..

Ride Report Jan. 16

Friday night I rode. It was a half-good decision, half-bad decision. The entire previous week it had rained, and needless to say the mountain was in a muddy state. During the day this just means you go slower, but at night it means you can't see the trail AND you go slower. it was good though, all in all, I rode Ridge Trail, up to Polo, over to Intestine and back down to Ridge. A solid XC-night ride.

Saturday I rode again. My efforts to go fast were severely hampered by sore legs, soft trails, and a bad case of swamp-ass (not the taco bell kind, the type where you carry 29 pounds of mud on your butt) nevertheless I pushed onward and had a good time. I was able to helmet cam SST, bonanza and the bottom of ridge. I won't say the videos are anything special, given the conditions (and the aformentioned swamp-ass), but I offer them to you dear reader, as a visual meditation of the best kind, the bike kind.

An update...

Well, I guess it's about that time. I've moved, yet again, back to the Big Island. I'm working hard at two jobs, going to school full time and attempting to keep up with my internship at the State Historical Preservation Division office, all the while, juggling baby, mama and biking as much as possible. It's a lot to keep in the air at once, but I'm actually feeling pretty confident about the position I've put myself in.
Short term, obviously is a second degree in Anthropology, specializing in Archaeology and Cultural Resource Management. Classes this semester include Human Evolution, Geology of the Hawaiian Islands and History of Anthropological Theory- all of great interest to me. Day two in Geology and I'm kicking myself for not majoring in it... maybe sometime in the future I'll come back for more.
Long term, I've got grad school on the horizon for next or the following fall. Hopefully in Pullman, WA, but it's a tough one to get in to.
My immediate concerns are to ride as much as possible while doing well in school and playing with Audrey.
As for the riding, I came back only just in time to save the trail from complete obliteration. I had a sense that I was the most recent rider that had graced its paths nearly two years prior. Finally today, I was able to clear the very last of the trees from the college trail and only after some minor re-routing was I able to navigate around a fallen Banyan tree, but only after twisting my machete into scrap. Unfortunately I was not able to procure video evidence of all the misgivings of the trail in its original condition, I was able to capture some essence of the neglect it has endured in my absence.

No True Scotsmen: The moving goal post fallacy

Mel: All Scotsmen love Haggis
Ethan: My uncle doesn't like Haggis, and he is Scottish
Mel: Well, all true Scotsmen love Haggis

The problem in our politically correct world is the infatuation with this kind of thinking. When the term of dispute can be redefined in an ad-hoc manner, then we might as well be standing on political and ethical quick sand. When a Muslim terrorist says 'I want to blow up the airplane because Allah commands it', I tend to believe him. Liberals will tell us that he is confused, his theology is unrefined, he is not a true 'Scotsman'. They will tell us that the Islamist extremist concerns are political in nature, not religious, and that if he just had some of the nice things that we in the West have he wouldn't be so upset. I smell bullshit... I can think of only one human-created method of thought that allows for the existence pious hatred like we see in Muslim terrorists: faith. Yet we are called intolerant bigots for denouncing faith, by both the conservatives (who are faithful) and the liberals (who are pussies).

No society or individual has ever suffered for an overabundance of reason. Nobody has ever said, "Boy, that Mr. Bates sure isn't doing himself any good by thinking so logically!". Yet what system of thought convinces people its a good idea to murder abortion doctors, or inhibit free speech? What virtue, prized above all others in our society turns off the '1 + 1 = 2' section of our brains? Thats right.