Ted Nugent in Concert

This is an example of right-wing conservatives that are approaching the line that distinguishes fanaticism and insanity; the distinction is almost imperceptible now.

Religion, War, Conquest, and Terrorism.

Since the 6 year anniversary of September 11, 2001 is coming up, I thought it would be appropriate to address some of people's opinions and misconceptions about terrorism in our country. Please read my thoughts and opinions with a grain of salt, but also with an open mind.

Arrogance:
It astounds me that people don't look a little closer on why we (the United States) were the targets of these horrendous acts of terrorism. We weren't attacked because the Taliban (Afghani terrorists, not Iraqi terrorists) couldn't think of anyone else to bomb. They didn't just spin a globe and pick the spot where their finger landed. They had a grudge against us; we provoked them into attacking us. Now, before I lose some of you, I don't mean we, as a country, walked up and kicked them in their collective shins. Well, not exactly. The point is this: the United States and Americans in general are viewed as the *most* arrogant people on earth. What would happen if you worked in an office where one of your co-workers would shout, "Hey everyone! I'm better than all of you fuckers!" as they walked in every day? Chances are, by the end of the week you would have killed them and eaten their heart to gain their powers (kudos Lewis Black). If any of my dedicated readers have been to Canada, odds are good that you have experienced this firsthand. In Canada they kill each other less, they can drink at an earlier age, their news is boring, and they almost universally view Americans as arrogant bastards. Granted, I'm not excluding me from this stereotype; indeed, I'm probably the most arrogant and stubborn person you could meet.

Religion:
As if this weren't enough, many other countries see us as a "Christian Nation." Hell, I know quite a few of my fellow Americans who believe this as well. First of all, this country was founded on the principle of free religion. That was basically the reason most of the early settlers came to the Americas. Seriously. Just because God is referenced a couple times in some of our earlier documents does not mean that the Founding Fathers intended that this country be a Christian one but just forgot to tell anyone. For that matter, just because the Founding Fathers did something does not mean they were right. So even if they had intended a Christian nation (which I will go out on a limb and say they did not), I would argue that they would be huge douchebags for it.
If that didn't convince you that we should stop that "Christian Nation" bullshit, here's another little nugget of goodness: labeling ourselves as a "Christian Nation" has a whole new bag of shit attached to it. For those of you who haven't heard the term "Jihad" outside of Team America: World Police, the word is of Arabic origin with its most common connotation meaning a holy war. Holy War. People of one religion killing those who believe in a different faith in order to convert, destroy, pillage, take over holy cities, gain the favor of the Church, steal holy artifacts, and the like. Sounds a little bit like the Spanish Inquisition and the Holy Crusades. Which brings me to the word "crusade" ...meaning a war with religion justification. Yes, my friends, "crusade" and "jihad" mean very similar things (in essence, the same thing), although crusade generally has nicer connotations (not altogether deserved). Indeed, often the Crusades are seen as heroic adventures to spread the word of Christ (and to capture, recapture, or attempt to capture Jerusalem). Unfortunately for many people (the Turks, Egyptians, Muslims, Albigensians, and others), this often mean death, slavery, torture, and indoctrination. Doesn't sound fun, eh? If you don't want to be judged by others for the things your religious predecessors did in the name of Christianity (some of the most widespread and atrocious cases of genocides and mass oppression in history) perhaps you'll think twice before offending someone of another faith. I definitely am not knocking those of the Christian faith, as some of the kindest people I know and some of my best friends are Christian. I prefer to judge people by traits and attributes aside from their religion. That's exactly why I don't want to have the "Christian Nation" label applied to me as a citizen.

Now, on to the Good Stuff for those select few readers still with me. The point behind this all is this: If we present ourselves as both arrogant bastards and a Christian nation, we should expect to earn the ire of terrorist groups with religious extremism. There is no point in naming ourselves a Christian nation besides pissing off dangerous terrorists and oppressing those Americans who aren't Christian (myself included). In fact, in a 2001 US Census Bureau study, out of the 256.5 million responses, only about 208 million were considered Christian. Another 7.8 million were considered belonging to other religions, and 29.5 million were non-specified (atheist, agnostic, secular, humanist, ect). (11.2 million did not answer) This shows that perhaps 80% of Americans are/were members of one of the many Judo-Christian religious denominations, but there's a very large minority there that deserves to be represented as well (and have a country to call their own).

Taxes:
If you're looking for someone to knock, how about the country we're paying much of our taxes to? If your vote is decided due to your reluctance to pay taxes, here's the results of tax breaks and not paying off our debts: we're paying about 15 cents per dollar just for paying interest on the loans that we've accrued. Much of this is going to China, who could pull their support from the US dollar (which they're threatening right now) and not only send us into a crippling depression, but bring the world's economy to a standstill. Their purchase of our debt is a very smart move on their part and allowing our debt to grow is very stupid move on ours. We've become dependent on China, who's population, contrary to ours, is largely made up of "non-religious" people (study by Dentsu Communication Institute Inc). China has become one of the world's greatest super-powers by being pragmatic and rather than entangling themselves in petty matters, they have pulled their country up by it's bootstrap (forgive the cliche).

The Bottom Line:
Here's the bottom line: Why do people insist on blaming all of their misfortunes on terrorists, the Middle East, and Middle Eastern religions? We'd be much better off if we took a more introspective approach and tried to fix our own flaws. Instead we gloss them over, succeeding only in putting us at a disadvantage and angering other countries/people. All I ask is that you, my dear reader, take some time to think about this. Live and let live, treat others as you would be treated, and have some tolerance. These rules weren't supposed to just apply to people you like; if you allow yourself to see the good sides of other religions and peoples, it makes it easier to see your own flaws.

Basic Internet Browsing Tips

I, like many people I know, end up releasing my latent anger issues/homicidal tendencies on my computer after about 5 minutes of Facebook and MySpace ads. Now, keep in mind that this solution is not only imperfect, but as MySpace is so polluted with ads, it can cause rather debilitating effects on your life. Here are a couple ways to drastically reduce the number of ads on said websites.

The first things I want to make note of before I begin are as follows:
1) A few of the ads will still show up, despite your best efforts.
2) Every once and a while you'll have to block new ads.
3) This won't remove Facebook news feed ads.
4) Nothing is perfect.

Now, to the good stuff:

First, if you don't have the Mozilla Firefox internet browser, download it here.

Second, download and install Adblock Plus here.

Then when you want to block an ad (photos), right-click on the ad and select "Adblock Image..."

Note: This doesn't work for everything...only images. Interactive ads, unfortunately, are impossible** to block using this technique. See Below

This should take care of the image forever now...every time you come back to the page (or any other page with the same ad), it won't show up.

Note: I also suggest using "Block images from xxxxx.com" and "Adblock Frame" if possible.

When you block images from a specific web address, you'll block more than just that image; often this will take care of most, if not all, of the ads from a specific site.

When you block the frame, you'll take care of the whole area where that ad is displayed, which means you'll block any ads that are put specifically in that spot on the webpage. You may have to block more than one frame in the same spot to take out the are completely, but it is REALLY worth it. If you have trouble getting the frame to stay blocked, try deleting everything after the ".com/" part of the address. (Especially if the address has "ad" or "ads" in it somewhere, like "http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/creative/msn/120x600new2.html". When you delete the rest, it should be "http://ads.ak.facebook.com".) This way you should be able to block a lot more ads, since you're getting anything else coming from that address (which is now less picky about what ads it blocks). You do want to make sure you aren't going too general though...you don't want to block things that aren't ads. ie: don't block "http://wisc.facebook.com/home.php?", since there's no "ad" or "ads" in there anywhere.

Warning:
This next option removes some functionality of your browser depending on your internet usage tendencies, so use this option only if if doesn't affect your internet usage.
If you really want to crack down on the ads, you can uninstall Adobe Flash Viewer, which will take care of most interactive ads. This solution and I have a love-hate relationship; while it does eliminate most of the obnoxious ads out there (instead it just bugs you about installing the plugin at the top of the screen), many websites also use Adobe Flash for their main pages. If you run into this problem, you'll have to reinstall the plugin.

Those of you who are hardcore enough to pursue this route, go here to download the uninstall file.

If you would like to reinstall the plugin for Adobe Flash, often the website will display a bar over the page that you can click on. Otherwise, go here.


**Sometimes you are able to block ads besides images if you use the "Adblock Frame" option. If you take out all of the layered frames on a website, it will often be impossible for any ads at all to show up here.

Welcome

Welcome to Musings of the Disenchanted.

I intend for this blog to be a sarcastic and sardonic representation of my view on the world, including heated displays of my political outrage, useful and helpful tips for keeping your computer updated and clean, the latest music I've been listening to, movies that I have taken a liking to, as well as other little tidbits I care to throw in here and there.

Please leave comments to my posts if you agree, disagree, would like to correct something, or just want to add your thoughts.

"Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star."
-Confucius