-news
****7/30/02 9:06 PM- Violence doesn't work. Thought it may seem that recent public consensus is aimed towards vengeance and war, the opinion of many intellectuals appears to be quite the contrary. Click Here to read Howard Zinn's excellent column in The Progressive entitled Violence Doesn't Work, a prime example of liberal intellectual opinion on the matter. Another excellent source of intellectual anti-war opinion is Noam Chomsky's 9-11 pamphlet, portions of which I've posted below.
Q: What are the consequences for the Middle East? In particular for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
A: The atrocities of September 11 were a devastating blow for the Palestinians, as they instantly recognized. Israel is openly exulting in the "window of opportunity" it now has to crush Palestinians with impunity. In the first few days after the 9-11 attack, Israeli tanks entered Palestinian cities (Jenin, Ramallah, Jericho for the first time), several dozen Palestinians were killed, and Israel's iron grip on the population tightened, exactly as would be expected. Again, these are the common dynamics of a cycle of escalating violence, familiar throughout the world: Northern Ireland, Israel-Palestine, the Balkans, and elsewhere.
Q: My impression is that these attacks won't offer us new political scenery, but that they rather confirm the existence of a problem inside the "Empire." The problem concerns political authority and power. What do you think?
A: The likely perpetrators are a category of their own, but uncontroversially, they draw support from a reservoir of bitterness and anger over US policies in the region, extending those of earlier European masters. There certainly is an issue of "political authority and power." In the wake of the attacks, the Wall Street Journal surveyed opinions of "moneyed Muslims" in the region: bankers, professionals, businessmen with ties to the united States. They expressed dismay and anger about US support for harsh authoritarian states and the barriers that Washington places against independent development and political democracy by its policies of "propping up oppressive regimes." Their primary concern, however, was different: Washington's policies toward Iraq and towards Israel's military occupation. Among the great mass of poor and suffering people, similar sentiments are much more bitter, and they are also hardly pleased to see the wealth of the region flow to the West and to small Western-oriented elites and corrupt and brutal rulers backed by Western power. The immediately announced US reaction was to deal with these problems by intensifying them. That is, of course, not inevitable. A good deal depends on the outcome of such considerations.
The above selections are by no means the most significant parts of the pamphlet, which was taken from a set of interviews conducted with Chomsky in the month following the attack, but in the interest of brevity that is all I will post today. I am not entirely finished reading the pamphlet, and thus I will most likely be posting a few more things from it as I finish. If you are interested in this issue, please check out the link to Infoshop News and select 'Focus on Afghanistan'. I would love to have you contribute to the site's anti-war effort by researching the issue and submitting an article or opinion piece for the front page. That's all for now.
****7/24/02 3:16 PM- An Explanation. [anti-war statement originally posted here]
****7/12/02 11:17 AM- If you're wondering why I haven't updated the site, or if you're too busy telling me to "UPDATE UR FUCKING SITE" to even wonder, last week I was gone camping, and today I'm leaving for North Carolina. I'll be gone for about a week, so you're going to have to sit tight in the interim. Since the trip is about 95% likely to suck, perhaps I'll have time to write something for the site while I'm gone, in which case there will actually be some content when I return. Here's something to tide you over while I'm gone:
Now quit pestering me you pathetic morons.
****6/20/02 3:21 PM- More Geeky Star-Wars humor! Today I have a new SW: Episode II comic for you, I reorganized the sidebar and got rid of the mixes page, and I added some screenshots to the Counter- Strike page. The artist of the moment is Eminem, someone not everyone is a big fan of, but who I think has some good music. I suggest that if you haven't heard them already, you download The Way I Am and 'Til I Collapse. Enjoy.
****6/14/02 12:21 PM- Happy upcoming Father's day!
****6/13/02 9:19 PM- Had a hilarious conversation about Jesus today. Read it on the sidebar.
****6/13/02 12:47 PM- Rant! Rant! Rant! As you all are well aware of, I am a very skeptical person, and I usually do not accept something as true without solid evidence to back it up. However, recent events have called into question some of my most basic core beliefs. This morning two very odd things happened to me. First, a very large daddy longlegs spider appeared in my shower, and secondly, an 'Inspected by 26' sticker was discovered on the left side of my penis. Now, I've never been one to buy into NeoPhreak's crazy theories of UFO's and men in black suits, but I've been watching a lot of the X-Files lately, and besides, the evidence was all there. Crawling into your mouth in your sleep (NeoPhreak: "Did you know that you swallow over 10 spiders every year?"), laying eggs in your brain, and INSPECTING YOUR PENIS FOR THEIR TERRIBLE EXPERIMENTS, the conspiracy of Spiders, these seemingly benign household friends and pets- is coming to full fruition. Since the dawn of man, spiders have walked among us, seemingly innocent and unconcerned with events around them, but little did we know that these beasts are actually maniacal and sentient. Humanity has become blind to one of the cruelest conspiracies that the insect kingdom has ever known, rivaling the Red Ant Rebellion and the third War Of the Killer Bees. Spiders have been using humans for decades, perhaps centuries, as lab rats and test beings. Spiders abduct us in our sleep, removing us from our beds and taking us to their massive underground laboratories. Here, they proceed to inspect our every appendage and body part, crawling into every orifice and performing cruel tests. They crawl into our mouths at night, sometimes laying eggs in our brains for their own mind-control purposes. They are currently conducting genetic testing in order to engineer a race of super-slaves with the DNA of both Spiders and humans, super-slaves who will soon rule the world, finally bringing the Spider's agenda into full realization. We must fight to stop this vile conspiracy from succeeding in it's goals. How many more will it take before the truth is known? Ten? Ten thousand?- more 'Inspected by 26' stickers left behind with the very spiders that did this Inspecting? Don't let the government slave-drones and their egg-filled brains tell you that we're crazy, for WE KNOW THE TRUTH! WE MUST FIGHT! On a lighter and less life-threatening note, the Spider's have instructed me through their telepathic egg-link to update the poetry page, so I've added a poem there.
6/6/02 4:53 PM- Haven't had much time for the page lately, what with finals week and all, but Brendan gave me this comic, so I figured I'd post it. Also, I've added a picture of NeoPhreak and his hiz-o's to the pictures page.
5/31/02 11:05 PM- Although I had not realized it, during the page's move from Tripod to Earthlink, a number of Dreamweaver's generated links were misconfigured and broken. I found this today when test-browsing through the site, and so I've fixed as many of the links as I could. Please, if you discover another broken link, let me know as soon as you can by e-mailing me so I can fix it as soon as possible.
5/30/02 8:46 PM- As you can well see, I got to playing with my new copy of Photoshop, and have finally gotten rid of the tired and crappy buttons and logo. I also added a new logo to the poetry page, and I plan on doing some more graphical sprucing up in the next few days. If you're interested in a copy of Photoshop 6, I'm sorry, but I could never pPoWsWt6 0a0 Rs7e1r0i5a4l6 7h-e9r4e8.
5/28/02 3:24 PM- Memorial Day weekend was an interesting and somewhat frustrating experience overall. Over the weekend I mostly enjoyed my new cable connection, updating the website and playing plenty of Counter-Strike. I decided to migrate back to Linux... downloading first Debian's net-install edition, which failed to properly detect my internet connection and almost permanently messed up my Master Boot Record, and now Slackware 8.0, which unfortunately is having some serious troubles with my mouse. Alas, I think that I'm going to either return to good old RedHat or download the full Debian iso's so I can continue to feel elite. Over the weekend I also made my first, and probably last, trip to the Futureball Paintball & Pig Farm out in Whitmore Lake. I've offered up a sort of review; read more about it on the paintball page. On Memorial Day itself, I was woken up at the ungodly hour of ten in the morning to experience the unique displeasure of the Memorial Day Parade. I was granted the privilege of standing outside in black clothing while watching a slow-moving line of old people, old people with guns, and slightly younger people carrying musical instruments limp past in the street. Overall, the most pleasurable part of the parade- which could have been compared to seventeen massive hemorrhages combined with having your testicles violently removed- was the knowledge that I'd never again have to don a woolen uniform and play a musical instrument in the midday heat. After the parade I returned to a house desolate and barren of all "contact with other human beings" (also known as the internet), as I was unmercifully barred from the computer room so it could be painted. I spent the entire day sitting around the house, watching The Muppet Movie (again) and old episodes of the X-Files. Upon rejoicing in my reunion with the computer, and looking forward to that with the rest of humanity (again, AKA: the Internet), I found to my horror that the cable had ceased functioning. After unplugging it to paint the room, and plugging it back in again, the modem was getting little to no signal. In the shock and horror of aforementioned realization, all rationality was abandoned, and I hastily took a wrench to the coaxial cable- tightening it into the wall and nearly breaking the jack. Luckily, although my haste had done nothing but allowed me a 102 byte (that's right, no typo: byte) per second connection to the inter-web, upon calling Time Warner, the signal was reunited with the modem and glorious data now pumps vigorously into my processing unit. ...and all my ex-girlfriend's say that I'm a geek. In other site-related news, I've launched Sarmed's Happy Informative Poetry Which Residually Evokes Calm Karma corner (S.H.I.P.W.R.E.C.K.). Here you will find many a great poem to spice up that droll and uninteresting suicide note you've been meaning to write. But seriously, this is some really good poetry, so check it out.
5/26/02 0:38 AM- I had forgotten to add the aforementioned poem to the poetry section, it's there now. Please ignore what I said about Photoshop last update, as I was able to obtain and install a copy just a few minutes ago. This should be a huge boon to the page, as now I can do my image editing in Windows like the true 1337. I'm out for the night-- hopefully more stuff tomorrow.
5/25/02 7:55 PM- Free at last. Welcome to the new location! As you probably already know, since I am now an Earthlink cable subscriber, this page will finally be free of tripod.com's pop-up ads. I know that the site's address is a bit hard to remember, what with the tilde and the underscore, and so if you are willing to endure a pop-up ad (a relatively small one, at least) you can also access this page from http://www.digitalanarchy.zip.to, or alternately from http://zip.to/digitalanarchy. For those of you who enjoy good poetry, I've added some to the poetry section and will soon be announcing "Sarmed's Happy Rainbow Poetry Corner: Just Kill Yourself Already", a section with some great angst-packing, depressing poetry. I've read through a lot of his stuff, and most of it is very good, so look forward to that on Tuesday or Wednesday. I've updated the paintball page with some important information, so check that out if you're interested. I'm looking for a copy of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro... if you think you could find me one, please let me know. I'm aware of a pretty good FTP server with some good software on it, so if you are interested, IM or e-mail me and I'll give you the IP. Come play Counter-Strike with me! I've added a CS page with information about some great local servers that I play on as well as some good Counter-Strike links, so check it out.
5/13/02 3:03 PM- Today I added four new pictures to the page, courtesy of Becca. I'll have some more content for you soon.
5/11/02 5:44 PM- Just as caffeine is the great inducer of motivation in geekly matters, RPG's are the great inducer of procrastination. Lately my life has been sucked away by Morrowind, an excellent 3D RPG that hit store shelves last week. Now that I have completeted the game's main quest, I'm able to return to the online world, at least enough to bring you this really half-assed update. 've updated the Freedom Paintball Information Center with some pretty bad news you all should read, as we may not be able to play at the field anymore. Everyone who can, print up and sign the waivers, I'm going to be collecting them soon.As you probably all ready know, Eminem has released a new album, along with a new video for the single Without Me. The video is hilarious-- I suggest you download it. Nothing like Osama Bin laden hip-hop dancing to white rap for some low-grade laughs. I'm going to add some poetry later on, maybe tonight, and if you want Episode II tickets, give me money monday or call me or something. My life is pitiful.
4/23/02 3:18 PM- Standardized Testing, for the homogenization of brain activity. I find myself brain-dead after taking the ITED tests today... and I really don't feel like writing much of anything. I found today's Russell line to be particularly witty and insightful, hopefully you'll enjoy it too-- yes, even the Christians should like this one. The artist of the moment is indisputable, I'm sure none of you would dare argue that Nirvana is awesome.
4/21/02 4:26 PM- Crazy Weekend. As you can see, NeoPhreak finally wrote his long-awaited update to the site, so if you haven't read it yet, read it now. This weekend has been nonstop for me, so I haven't had a chance to update the site myself. Today I launched The Thought Emporium's sister site, Freedom Paintball Information Central, for news regarding the local paintball field that we have established for use near my neighborhood. If you play with us there, I urge you to check it out, as it contains contact information, dates to play, a waiver form, and directions directly to the field. Also, the news section includes some very very important news regarding our situation with the county, the city, and the neighborhood regarding our field, as the shit really hit the fan this weekend. If you weren't here your self this weekend, I insist that you to read it now.
4/20/02 10:09
PM- Why hello there oh impatient ones. I’m sorry about the whole
not updating for something around 67.528 million years thing. This can
be blamed on the fact that I am a stupid lazy fat ass. And my grades,
lack of motivation and appearance seem to agree. But you didn’t
log on to our content-packed site to here my excuses for getting drugs
at pharmacies did you. You didn’t did you? Because that would be
really nice.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “Morgan, what do you think
about the Indo-Pakistan conflict and who do you think should gain control
of Kashmir?” Unfortunately, I will not answer your question. Why
not? Mainly because up until just until now, I was convinced that Kashmir
was some sort of seasoning, similar to oregano, or ram’s blood.
I imagined somewhat like this:
Small boy: Mother! This new York Strip tastes rather bland.
Mother: Well then, try new Kashmir!
Small boy: Hey, doesn't that stuff cause hallucinations?
Mother: No son, that’s LSD.
Small boy: Why don’t we get some of that?
Mother: (sourly) Because the man keeps holding us down.
So, while we recover the corpses from my derailed train of thought,
I will tell you something undeniably witty and funny. Prepare yourselves.
OK.
My house has many more bugs than the healthy recommended amount. (That
being zero.) Not a day passes without me seeing thousands of tiny, most
likely deadly, spiders hanging from the ceiling. Sure they look innocent
enough, but sometimes when I stare at them, they stare back in a way
that seems to say, “Why hello Morgan! One of these days we are
going to land in your hair and bite you until you kill yourself by smashing
your head against a brick wall so your head opens up and we can feast
upon the oozy goodness that is your brain matter.” This wouldn’t
be as creepy if they didn’t drool while they say it.
But I must admit that I have some respect for spiders. They are able
to go ages without moving. The only time they use muscles when they
are eating each other, or lunging at my fingers. I can relate to these
things in many ways. I only move when I eat or…um...eat. And I
also have to commend all types of bugs for being able to live in such
an inhospitable areas such as:
1. My house
2. My basement
You already know I have spiders, but that’s just on the main floor
and the upstairs. The basement is centipede turf. Now, spiders are pretty
damn frightening, but they only cause minor pant wettings. Centipedes
on the other hand, cause me to flush out all bodily fluids.
I remember doing a report on them in third grade. After doing extensive
research on the many ways they can kill you (one of which being simply
by making contact), I was deathly afraid. The worst part was that I
had to find some and take them into school. You can just guess the hilarity
of this endeavor. Every time I turned over a rock or log to find actually
live fucking centipedes I would shit myself silly and start running
around like a pig on opium. And now, they have control of my basement.
Many social events have been ruined by these loathsome creatures. Band
practices, orgies, billiards, satanic rituals, and basement social clubs
have all ended with me shitting myself and screaming like a baby.
The spiders also have problems with the centipedes. Sometimes at night
you can hear “Pedes rule!” and then a faint “Spidys rock!”
but I could swear I saw a female centipede running around with a male
spider. But Yoda forbid the day these two devil spawns join forces and
take over the house. Either way I'd better stock up on Kashmir. --NeoPhreak
4/17/02 4:08 PM- You wanted the best? You got the best! The greatest band in the world... Today the artist of the moment is KISS, one of the most ass- kicking metal bands of all time. I don't care if you don't like their stupid costumes, I don't care if you don't like their greasy hair, Kiss' music is downright fantastic. Don't agree? Download Detroit Rock City or listen to their greatest hit's CD... as Donna would say, the riz-ock my siz-ocks. Today's Russel quote is on morals... there's a few pages discussing the above points in the essay, but what I've selected is pretty much the marrow of the argument. Still to come: religion, cathloicism vs. protestantism, war, and freedom! W00t! A non-theist interested in which nontheistic religion or philosophy suits you best? Wonder which cult you should join, or perhaps which pagan or jewish sect fits you most? Check out the religion section of selectsmarts.com test page and find out! In case you were wondering, my closest match for non-thestic philosophy was Rationalism... which I doubt comes as much of a surprise =). Anyway, I'm off for now... gonna go play some Counter-Strike or something. Late start tommorow... huzzah!
4/16/02 3:44 PM- Riding the lack-of-content train to... where the hell are we going? Well, I'm writing this update for the second time, as Dreamweaver tends to crash during FTP transfers... but I won't complain. My apologies to all of you yet again, nine days without an update is much too long. I am a horrible monster and I pray for death. Last week was a bit tough and confusing for me, however, so any content I may have posted would probably have been angst-filled and angry, so you may have avoided some unnecessary pain. Moving on, today's quote of the moment is a selection from What I Believe, an excellent analytical essay by Bertrand Russel... there are quite a few selections I made from this essay that I'll be posting in the next few days (I'll try to change the quote daily). One of the things I enjoy most about Bertrand Russel is his straightforward and almost satirical style, which you can see in today's quote... coupled with the intelligence and insight found in his essays. What I Believe is an analysis on the illogical way of things today, and covers many aspects of society, as you will hopefully see from the quotes in the next few days. Although I agree with most of the points in the essay, Russel puts a very large emphasis on technology as a means to achieving a higher freedom, without facing the reality that developing higher technology has done nothing but discourage autonomy and mechanize the men behind the machines themselves. I wish I could post the entire essay on this page, but since I cannot, I'll merely have to encourage you to read it, and let me know what you think. Russel is almost reminiscent of the psuedo-philosopher George Carlin, with less of an aim towards satire, but possessing a lot of the same simple and straightforward style. He's a hard man to argue with. As you can see, the artist of the moment is Pink Floyd, a band I've too often overlooked in the past and really just recently gotten interested in. Last night I picked up a copy of The Wall, and listened to it through today. The best thing about The Wall is the fact that it utilizes a veritably untapped medium-- a music album, to tell a story, much like the soundtrack to an unpublished musical. The Wall moves seamlessly from track-to-track, telling the story of a boy (or a man, perhaps), who feels opposed and unaccepted, lashing out at those he loves, and eventually building a Wall between himself and the outside world. He finds himself trapped, however, and is only released when he's forced into the light by his oppressors. Artistically and beautifully portraying teenage angst, emotional oppression, and the control of parents and teachers, The Wall is more than just an album, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I can certainly say Pink Floyd should have had the spot earlier, but they have it now. I moved a few news updates to the archive, and I'll try to keep the front-page small and fairly consistent from now on. I'm still trying to convince NeoPhreak to contribute to the site, but I'm not about to tell you to hold your breath. As a matter of fact, don't. Those who were are dead all ready. If you have Counter-Strike, drop by clan [MOSS]'s server where I hang out sometime at 209.240.4.253:27015. Good admins, good players, good ping (server is in Ohio), and good maps. Hopefully my creativity will resurface sometime and I'll think of some real content for you, and post it sometime this week, now that I don't have so much to think about. That's all for now.