Hey all you party people!

Well, I'm sorry it's been a while since the last post. Hm . . . about a week, eh? Fair enough.

It's been an interesting week, I must say. Have I mentioned that I'm just not suited for working in the corporate world? Oh yeah.

Well, in any case, on to the events of the week.

Anybody follow that news about the Canadian journalist who died in Iran? She's taking pictures of a "facility" that's off limits to international journalists, and gets taken into custody. Two weeks later she dies of a major head blow. The Iranian government's response? "Maybe she fell." Yeesh, don't they sound like the ultimate abusive parents.

In other news, my hometown paper recently printed an article about the "dangers" of violence in video games. Hoo boy. Why do people get so concerned about video game violence? I mean, they'll take their 8 year olds to see "The Matrix," let them watch WWE matches until they're blue in the face, and play with bazooka weilding action figures and toy guns that shoot foam balls and arrows, but video games are suddenly too violent for their children's mental safety? Give me a break!

First off, if video games are going to make children violent, then so are the movies, TV shows, and other toys that stimulate their imaginations and occupy their waking thoughts. Nothing about video games makes them any more dangerous of effective a form of media than the music or whatever else kids or teens take in. I guess objecting to Huck Finn being read at school just became boring.

My other point is that, despite the fact that video games are no more likely to make kids violent, parents still have a responsibility to protect their kids from things they're just not ready to handle. We all can agree on that. So then, how about the TV? How about the movies? Will parents be responsible about what their kids are taking in? Hey, those video games . . . be responsible. Seriously, these games have a voluntary rating placed right on the cover. Look up what the ratings mean, check out screen shots and reviews of the games, do some research! Don't just pass the blame and expect someone else to clean up the mess. I'll be pretty upset if my favorite hobby gets ruined by a bunch of lazy, irresponsible parents, and I won't be alone.

Well, that's about it. Maybe I'll have something more important (i.e. less nerdy) to rant about next time. Until then, here's a neat news site you should all check out:

www.worldnetdaily.com

Enjoy,
Hal

Greetings technocrats.

Here's the part of things where I share what's on my mind with y'all. Let's get controversial.

Lately, I've been hearing a lot of people spewing off about how President Bush is such a liar. This is a very interesting claim. Sometimes it's in regards to the weapons of mass destruction, other times it's in regards to that nasty little CIA note about African Uranium. Let's look at both of those.

So, Bush is a liar because no weapons of mass destruction have been found. To that I say "yet." Besides, let's think of it another way. We've had people with far more credentials than President Bush talking about all of the nasty weapons that were sitting around in Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War. Now, enter George W. Bush. Since nearly the day he entered office, he has made a point of keeping the pressure on Iraq. As soon as things calmed down in Afghanistan, the issue came up in the UN security council about making Saddam come to terms with his crimes. That started quite a while before U.S. troops entered Iraq. In fact, there were several months of debate in this country, Bush flying around the world trying to drum up support for military action, and ultimatums against Saddam (which is rather sad for those poor folk who accused Bush of "rushing" to war, eh?). Now, by this time, Saddam has pretty much known a U.S. led invasion was coming for a good long while. Again, we've had people who should know, and had seen the evidence first hand, telling us for years that Saddam has very bad weapons. He made no serious attempts to deny that. At this point, as I see it, he would have two choices: Use his weapons against the invading forces; or hide them, and make his rival look foolish. Why he chose not to do the first, I couldn't say (for that matter, I guess I can't really prove he didn't use them on our troops). But a recently translated document from Iraqi secret services showed that Saddam, in case of a successful invasion, wanted his closest troops to loot, pillage, and destroy the infrastructure and people to make things difficult and embarrassing for the invaders. Saddam had years to hide or pass off his weapons. He obviously wanted trouble to follow his opponents long after he would leave power. Would it be unreasonable to think that maybe Saddam hid the weapons some place we haven't found them yet? Gave them to terrorists who had already left the country? Given them to another country in exchange for sanctuary?

I don't think so.

Next, the whole Uranium thing. First, Tony Blair made it clear that he stood behind claims that his own intelligence agencies had been finding clues of this. Besides that, in the past, Saddam had been shown to be attempting to acquire Uranium from African nations. Israel had to destroy the Osirak nuclear reactor to keep Iraq from attaining weapons grade radioactive material (experts agreed afterwards that if it hadn't happened, Iraq could have been a nuclear power within 3 years, and that was something like 5 or 7 years ago). So, Bush lied? That is a bit of a zealous overstatement. Going much further than the facts of the situation allow, I'd say.

But then again, what do I know? I'm just a conservative observer of all this.

Hal

Hello everyone.

This is just a little experiment. I thought it might be fun for a while to share my thoughts on things with the world. Well, it will probably be just my few bored friends who read this stuff, but either way.

For the strangers who actually stumble upon this and care to read any of this, here's a little about me: I'm a 20 year old college student at Illinois State University. I've been a Christian for 7 years, and my faith is the center of my life. Consequently, anything you'll read on here will be a product of my very conservative, Christian world-view. Otherwise, I'm mostly a nerd at heart. I watch cartoons in lieu of "real" television. If it's between the horde of "reality" TV shows and cartoons, I don't think there's much of a contest.

Stay tuned, everyone. The fun stuff is yet to come =Þ

Hal



BTW, visit my campus ministry's website, at www.baptistcollegiateministries.org