V

"There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth -- not going all the way, and not starting."

- Buddha

"Problems cannot be solved by the level of awareness that created them."

- Albert Einstein

"A man should first direct himself in the way he should go. Only then should he instruct others."

- Buddha

I just recently saw George Carlin's new HBO special: It's Bad For Ya.

It seems age only seems to help Georgie. At 70 he continues to drill the truth into everyone with the use of laughter. There was one piece of this special that was of particular note: his rant on rights. Amongst all the world's chaos, crises, and concerns, the one thing that few seem to notice, or care about, is our very own rights. Carlin goes in depth on the rights of a people, and the people that formulate these rights.

WARNING: I will never censor any content, especially quotations. Every word has its meaning and its use, and in order to accurately express the true emotion in thought requires, at times, words that convey even the harshest tone. With that said, if you are still bound to the obedience of your parent's will for your well being, or are not permitted, by your state laws, to view media rated PG-13 or worse, then you should stop reading now. If you are so close-minded that you reject anyone or anything that contains "dirty words" then you have come to the wrong website.

And now...without further ado: GEORGE CARLIN!!! (*Applause*)

"Boy everyone in this country is running around yammering about their fucking rights. "I have a right, you have no right, we have a right."

Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, shit like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional. But if you think you do have rights, let me ask you this, "where do they come from?" People say, "They come from God. They're God given rights." Awww fuck, here we go again...here we go again.

The God excuse, the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument, "It came from God." Anything we can't describe must have come from God. Personally folks, I believe that if your rights came from God, he would've given you the right for some food every day, and he would've given you the right to a roof over your head. GOD would've been looking out for ya. You know that.

He wouldn't have been worried making sure you have a gun so you can get drunk on Sunday night and kill your girlfriend's parents.

But let's say it's true. Let's say that God gave us these rights. Why would he give us a certain number of rights?

The Bill of Rights of this country has 10 stipulations. OK...10 rights. And apparently God was doing sloppy work that week, because we've had to ammend the bill of rights an additional 17 times. So God forgot a couple of things, like...SLAVERY. Just fuckin' slipped his mind.

But let's say...let's say God gave us the original 10. He gave the british 13. The british Bill of Rights has 13 stipulations. The Germans have 29, the Belgians have 25, the Sweedish have only 6, and some people in the world have no rights at all. What kind of a fuckin' god damn god given deal is that!?...NO RIGHTS AT ALL!? Why would God give different people in different countries a different numbers of different rights? Boredom? Amusement? Bad arithmetic? Do we find out at long last after all this time that God is weak in math skills? Doesn't sound like divine planning to me. Sounds more like human planning . Sounds more like one group trying to control another group. In other words...business as usual in America.

Now, if you think you do have rights, I have one last assignment for ya. Next time you're at the computer get on the Internet, go to Wikipedia. When you get to Wikipedia, in the search field for Wikipedia, i want to type in, "Japanese-Americans 1942" and you'll find out all about your precious fucking rights. Alright. You know about it.

In 1942 there were 110,000 Japanese-American citizens, in good standing, law abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had was...right this way! Into the internment camps.

Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most...their government took them away. and rights aren't rights if someone can take em away. They're priveledges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of TEMPORARY priviledges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list get's shorter, and shorter, and shorter.

Yeup, sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize the government doesn't give a fuck about them. the government doesn't care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety. it simply doesn't give a fuck about you. It's interested in it's own power. That's the only thing...keeping it, and expanding wherever possible.

Personally when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true: either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all."

"Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."

- Confucius

I recently came across a blog post by Simon Quellen Field, whom found a wonderful gem of news, nearly a year ago, regarding research done at Wake Forest University School of Medicine that has discovered a unique breed of mice that contain "anti-cancers". Technically speaking, the mice's white blood cells enable their immune system to fight off cancer.

The study found that the mutation is inherited in subsequent generations, leading to a notion that the mutation may be caused by a single dominant gene.

"That gives us hope that there's one simple switch that you can throw somewhere in the signaling pathway to turn on this tumor-fighting behavior," researcher Mark Willingham says.

If this were to be true, then a drug could easily be formulated to trigger this tumor-fighting switch.

Maybe it's just me, but this sounds a lot like the start to a real version of the X-Men movie. That said, I'll wait for the expedited-cell-rejuvenating mutation followed by a nice Adamantium dip.

"The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease."

- Voltaire

"Let go of the past! Let go of the future! Let go of the present and cross over to the farther shore of existence. With your mind wholly liberated, you shall come no more to birth and death."

- Buddha

"Learning without thought is labor lost."

- Confucius

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."

- Mark Twain

"Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience."

-Oscar Wilde

"Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage."

-Confucius

"Mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing - a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average mind."

- Albert Einstein

"Heaven means to be one with God."

- Confucius

"The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to."

- Chuang Tzu

"Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!"

- Henry David Thoreau

"... nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced."

- Albert Einstein

There is no mystery whatever - only inability to perceive the obvious. 'All Else is Bondage; Non-Volitional Living'

- Wei Wu Wei

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

- Confucius