What it is, what some folks are doing, what it means to you, and what you can do.

The first spaceman says, “The dominant life forms on the Earth planet have developed satellite-based weapons.”
The second alien, who looks exactly like the first, asks, “Are they an emerging intelligence?”
The first spaceman says, “I don’t think so…They have them aimed at themselves.”

Great joke, but not mine.  Original post was here

I have a small Winchester “ParFive knife” I carry all the time, I took it from my pocket and flipped it open and we started a staring contest.

I’m not sure if he expected me to drop my wallet and run away, or maybe his flight-or-fight response took a second to kick in, but we froze there for a good while before he headed off toward the back of the parking lot at a slow jog.

Not interested in sticking around to see if he had friends or another weapon hidden wherever he was heading, I got in the car and got the hell out of there.  I called the cops once I was comfortably back on the road.

The words I keep hearing from friends are “you did the right thing” or “you handled the situation well”.  But none of that is true, I just got lucky.  He wasn’t as motivated to hurt me as he could have been.  He didn’t have a gun.  He didn’t have another “robber” with him.  He didn’t try to use that knife.  The more I think about it, the more lucky I feel.

With all of  the senseless killing over just about anything (or nothing at all), there is literally no reason that I am still alive.  I am convinced that if I had been a woman, or an old man, or just not holding a knife at that moment, things could have, probably would have gone much differently.

So now we get to the meat of the matter.  I have a concealed weapons permit and own a collection of firearms that allow me to carry just about anywhere, generally I choose not to.  Once in a while, the girlfriend and I will conceal guns and head out for dinner, or maybe a short shopping trip.  But, truth be told – we’re not expecting any trouble at the local Publix.  We carry because we can, not because we’re planning to need to.

A concealed firearm brings with it a huge amount of responsibility.  As a firearms instructor once said to me “there’s a lawyer attached to every bullet”.  More importantly, there could be a life attached to each one as well.

Would last night have gone any differently if I had a gun instead of a knife?  Probably not.  But what happens next time?  What happens if the parking lot is full of people?  What if there are kids getting into mom’s minivan behind the thief, do you trust your aim and endanger the lives of innocents?

I’m actually pretty upset with myself this morning. I had ZERO situational awareness. I had NO IDEA if someone was standing behind me, how many friends he may have had hiding out nearby, which direction he came from, or where he was headed after he ran off.

I was depositing a check at the ATM, not making a withdrawal.  I just keep thinking about 3 dollars and 30 cents. That’s how much cash I had on me. That’s what my life would have been worth to this guy. 3 one-dollar bills and 3 dimes.

“One of the most important speeches in recorded history was given by a comedian by the name of Charlie Chaplin.”

Thanks to the originator of this video.

More important (for the purpose of this blog) than the crimes themselves, is the motive.  Breivik posted over 1500 pages of his “manifesto” in which he describes the ”deconstruction of Norwegian culture and mass-import of Muslims“, encourages Christians to “embrace martyrdom” and calls for others to see him as “the savior of Christianity“.

In my years of study, I can’t remember a single time I’ve seen Christian crusaders cast as heroes.  Even in the oldest, most fundamental sects of Christianity, do you rarely even hear a mention of the crusades as they are almost universally an embarrassment to the church.  But that certainly didn’t stop Breivik from idolizing them.  In a twisted propaganda video he posted to YouTube just before the attack you can begin to see the depth of his devotion and eventual madness.

There can be absolutely no doubt that religious fundamentalism, weather Christian, Islamic or otherwise leads to murder, torture, and the continued suffering of the entire human race.

Thousands of years have passed in which we spend countless time, monies, and effort in effectively eradicating each other based on which “God” we believe in.  Haven’t we, as a human society had enough of pointless murder?  Isn’t it clear yet that genocide doesn’t “solve” any problems?  Why can’t we see that RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM is the cause of all of this pain and loss?

My regular readers are convinced at this point that I’m blogging about a fellow rider lost to a tragic accident, but they are wrong.  I apologize for the misleading sub-text.  After a 9 year battle, Dave’s body finally gave in to cancer last week.

Dave Brichler was a great guy, a good father, and a friend to many.  Just how many might surprise you, it certainly surprised me.  If the measure of a man can be determined by the number of people who grieve for him when he dies, then Dave was one of the greatest.

Goodbye my friend.

The 10 Most Important Things They Didnt Teach You In School

Why do we do this?  The answer, actually,  is quite simple.  It’s baked right into our DNA and psychology.

The “Good”:
Buddhists, Catholics, and other religious sects practice self-denial (even self-injury) in the effort to “connect” themselves to their God.  Human nature and basic psychology dictate that we are unable (or unwilling) to subject ourselves to stories of suffering, strife, or peril of our deities unless we too, can share the burden of self sacrifice.

The Bad:
People are human, that is to say, that we are imperfect by design.

Where there is no way, we will find one.  We don’t even need to get into the Catholic priests (again) to discover that Christianity’s view of sex is slanted.  But even seemingly “strict” religions, like Islam for example, where followers (who are almost always “fundamentalists”) are willing to “die a thousand deaths” to be holy has excellent examples of good-old human behavior.

“To deny our own impulses, is to deny the very thing that makes us human.”
- Andy and Larry Wachowski

The irony here is that our very nature of existence causes both the inability to be abstinent, and the self-edification to crave it.

Since we were kids, there have been literally hundreds, if not thousands, of stories about the Catholic church and the Vatican covering up the sexual exploitation, rape, and abuse of children seeking help, aid, or shelter from “the house of God”.  The Catholic church is poisoning your minds, controlling your money, and raping your children.  .  Someone please, burn this mess to the ground.

Oh, and to the Pope:
“Go fuck yourself“.  Protecting these priests who abuse children makes you equally guilty of the crimes.  You’ll surely burn in the hell your religion made up.

See the story here