Free Speach, Liberty, and Responsibility

Many people who want to punish free speech hold up the example of how “You can’t shout Fire in a Crowded Theater,” and according to some of my friends, now many are trying to use this example to impinge upon other rights as well. Well even according to Messrs Justice Douglas, and Justice Black, the speech in which one calls fire, and the resultant acts which descend from one’s speech are inextricably linked, and it is the resultant actions for which the speaker is responsible that he is tried. Yet if there is no resulting action worthy of being tried — perhaps because there was an actual fire, or perhaps because everyone ignores you — there is nothing on which to try the person calling out “Fire!”

Liberty is a two edged sword. One edge is called freedom, the other is called responsibility. For in order to gain and preserve freedom, someone in our society must shoulder the burden of defending our way of life. Those people are the armed forces. Further, anyone who exercises their freedoms needs to own up to the consequences of their action… because if we expect other people to bail us out of our mistakes not only are we demeaning ourselves, but we are trying to remove the freedoms of others.

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What is Net Speak?

Net speak, sometimes spelled netspeak, is a sub-dialect of English which uses replacements for words or syllables and abbreviations in order to speed the typing of common phrases or words. This is nearly indecipherable to those not used to the abbreviations and codes, but when used sparingly the meaning can usually be inferred from the surrounding context, and is simply a component of casual online conversation between netizens – citizens of the internet.

Like many things, however, it is best used in moderation, occasionally sprinkled into one’s speech. If used to frequently other netizens will not take the user of net speak seriously, and may shun them as being childish and unintelligent.

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My Triumphant Return – and What I’ve Been Up Too

Hello all!

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted here on My Blog and I’m rather excited to be posting again. Due to my move, combined with my new Job, combined with cleaning and sorting items, and being in various stages of “catching up” with things I needed to do to take care of my new apartment, as well as being ill a few times I’ve been a touch neglectful.

Also a constant annoyance is the huge amount of spam I have to slog through each time I come back to my blog, just to make sure that I haven’t missed one of the rare and special comments from a new commentator. Any time a new commentator decides to comment, or an old commenter changes their contact information / commenting name I need to approve their first comment before my blog lets them comment freely. As a result, I get many spam comments submitted for every non-spam comment.

Now, a bit more detail on what I’ve been up to while I’ve been away from my blog.

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Camp

“Camp”, also known as “Camp Value” or “Campyness” is a relatively wide spread slang term relating to the entertainment industry that a large number of people apparently don’t understand. While for members of other generations, this is almost to be expected, I have recently found a rash of my friends that don’t understand. For those of you out there that don’t know what Camp means, I’ll define it here, and then give some examples.
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Glitch’s Glitches

For those of you that don’t know, I’m one of those people that actually names his computers and other networked devices. I don’t mean that I just randomly assign names to differentiate the computers, I christen them with a name that reflects their qualities. For example, my main power-tower is named Kusanagi-Makoto.

Well, since my phone is capable of being hooked up to a Bluetooth network, and needed a device name, I included it in this trend. It’s a small device that I keep on me all the time, and includes a wide selection of built in tools. Remembering Bob’s little bracer side kick from the Computer Generated (CG) TV show Reboot, I named my RAZR “Glitch.” Unfortunately I couldn’t have come up with a more appropriate name.
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Scandal over the “Morning After Pill”

Recently a scandal has arisen out of the fact that some pharmacists refuse to carry, or sell the “morning after” pill. One such example is a group of 3 pharmacists who worked for an Eckerd’s in Denton, Texas. A young woman who was raped came to the pharmacy seeking a morning after pill. The three pharmacists working there that night refused to fill the prescription. Due to Eckerd’s policies on the matter, the three were fired.

In my opinion, this is exactly how this should work. The owner of an establishment chooses what products are and are not available for sale, and chooses whether their employees may, or will, refuse to sell particular products or not. If the employees refuse to follow these procedures, the employer then enacts disciplinary action such as docking pay, written warnings, or termination. This represents the basic freedoms to contract, associate, and do business that are underpinnings of our free market.
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Top Commentator Plug-In

I just installed the “Top Commentator” plug-in, that you can see on the sidebar of the blog. This plug-in will let people view just who has posted the most comments on this blog. In addition, any links that show up on this list will actually count as back links to other websites out there, which is another way to create a back-link to boost your Google rankings.

This plug-in came from the blog Personal Finance Advice, and is in wide use among WordPress Blogs.

Morality in RPGs

In some RPGs, D&D in particular, morality is a part of the game. You have shining paladins battling hoards of chaotic orcs… and chaotic barbarians fighting and defeating a despotic ruler to rule in their place. Spells, what classes you can become a member of, items, and so forth are all influenced by and also influence one’s moral alignment.

However there is a huge amount of debate over what kinds of acts, thoughts, personalities, et cetera fall under what alignment.

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Red Cross Training

Yesterday I spent my day getting trained by the Red Cross. In exchange for nine hours of my time, and a few hours worth of pay, I learned skills that may help me to save the rest of one of my family members lives. I’d recommend that anyone out there who can, take the class.

The full version of the class is for First Aid, Adult CPR+AED and Child/Infant CPR.

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