War or Peace??............

War or Peace?????

Regardless of the reasons or how you choose to justify it, war is wrong, violence only leads to more violence..

Human history is filled with conflict, one fight end's and another begins, often times as the end result of sheer greed or a lust for power......

America has been engaged in a costly war for the better part of a decade now,... costly both in human life and national funds.

Our last president was a self centered, egotistical, ass, dead set on going to war, even making preparation's for the invasion months in advance, before seeking a U,N resolution! He falsely believed he had the absolute authority to do whatever he wanted..... regardless of the facts!!!!

Now U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is calling for a large increase in U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan an additional 40,000 or possible 80,00 more troops on the ground...........

Currently it is estimated that there will be at least 104,000 U.S and NATO troops in Afghanistan by the end of this year and at least two thirds will be American.

With thousands of American and allied troops already injured or dead, and thousands if not tens of thousand's of innocent Iraq and Afghanistan civilians needlessly killed, wouldn't it be far better to start pulling out troops instead of increasing there number's????

After nearly a decade of senseless death, It's time to put an end to Bush's war and bring our troops home!!

In a few short week's President Obama will announce his decision on General McChrystal's war strategy, and whether or not there will be any significant escalation of our troops in Afghanistan.

But now you can have a say in the President's final decision by telling the house representative's to support Rep. Lee's bill HR 3699 witch prohibits the increase in U.S, troops,.....and Rep. McGovern's bill HR 2404 witch calls for a long awaited military exit strategy from Afghanistan.

Too get in touch with your representative call the switchboard at 202-225-3121 and you will be transferred to your rep or senator's office.

For more info on this matter including a complete list of Rep's. and senator's,......and to help put an end to this war check out this site.
http://noescalation.org

Through violence, you may "solve" one problem, but you sow the seeds for another.
The Dalai Lama.

Insomnia......

Insomnia.....

Being a long time sufferer of insomnia, I consider it both a gift and a cures.... basically two sides of the same coin.


On one hand you can get caught up on some of your work, finish reading a good book try to learn a new language ( why not you have a lot of extra free time on your hands anyway) So in that sense the total lack of sleep can be somewhat beneficial in a way..........


On the other hand you go through life in somewhat of a daze now and then along with a heightened increase in fatigue due to sleep deprivation.....

But for the most part it is just really really mind numbingly boring,..... unless you find idiotic late night paid programs entertaining.(in witch case you'll be in a veritable paradise of mindless television programing).....


I'M REALLY REALLY BOARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apollo11.....40 years later

As long as mankind has existed there has always been within the confines of or minds, a deep seeded need for exploration.

Is there more to the world then what we see? ....What lies beyond the next horizon?

Hundreds of years ago mankind believed that the world was flat, and when someone would stand alongside the seashore watching a ship sailing away they assumed that if it went far enough , it would simply sail right over the edge of the world. they came to this conclusion after witnessing a ship sailing beyond the horizon and out of sight.

and yet the need for exploration continued.

Explorer's spent their lives traveling the glob over mountains, forest, deserts, and even beyond the vast reaches of the ocean, in pursuit of something new, something no one else had ever seen before.

Finally after hundreds of years of exploration it seemed that the last great unexplored frontier remaining was space.

At some point in there life, everyone who has ever looked up at the stars at night has wondered what it would be like to step foot on the surface of another planet.
at the end of the second world war there was a technological boom, computers were getting faster and faster with every passing year.

Then on October 4th 1957 something happened that triggered suspicion and speculation from around the world.

It was the launch of Sputnik, the Soviet Union's first low altitude satellite. At the time many believed this to be some kind of new weapon, keep in mind this was during the cold war and world tensions were pretty high.

The United States and Soviet Russia were the two great power at the time and it was the launch of Sputnik that triggered the space race with both countries vowing to be the first to put a man in space.

In 1961 came president John F Kennedy's historic speech to congress and the united nations, were he stated.........

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth"

Then on July 16th 1969 Apollo 11 was launched,this was the third maned mission to the Moon.

On July 20th 1969 commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Edwin "Buzz" Alden, became the first humans to step foot on the surface of another planet.....It was at this time Neil said those iconic words...

"That's one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind"

With the completion of the Apollo 11 mission, president Kennedy had keeped his promise of putting a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960's.

Back in the 1960's many people believed that by the year 2000 we would be living in space, in part that notion is correct, because there are a hand full of people living on the international space station right now.


It was the public's fascination with space travel that led to the popularity of shows like The Jetsons, Star Trek and Lost in Space.

Now here we are in 2009, exactly 40 years to the day, since the first maned trip to the surface of the moon.


and well civilian space travel dose exist short of being a millionaire, the average person will never get the chance to experience a trip to space.

and short of a revolutionary discovery in the creation of a sustainable zero point energy generator it doesn't look like were going to be seeing a personal flying car anytime soon either.....bummer i would love to own a flying car!!!

But all and all 40 years of space exploration is an extraordinary achievement,.....i wonder what the next 40 years will bring???

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.....

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.


I've been a fan of this series for awhile now, and i love the books.

I went to see this movie yesterday,....and i gotta say it's definitely one of my favorites in the series, Order of the phoenix is a close second though.


Pour Dumbledore.......


The special effects were cool, and at the rate people are going to see it, this movie mite actually surpass the Dark Knight at the box office.

I can't wait to see the next film!

Anyway the movie was cool, if you haven't had a chance to see it yet , I highly recommend it!!!

Drawing's....Abstract, Landscape, and self portrait......

Drawing's.......

Ever since i was a kid i've always loved to draw!!

People, places, animals,.....whatever.

Recently i started a few commissioned tattoo pictures.

I think they turned out pretty good.

Some of them will be posted in my gallery on deviantart sometime within the next week or so.

http://www.mikel01.deviantart.com/

Back in school i was never really all that academically gifted, not that I'm not at least moderately intelligent, just never really been all that motivated about school lol.

But art was always fun, and it was my favorite subject......out of all the different ways to use art, drawing was always my favorite, though painting is a close second,... also recently I've gotten into photography....but i haven't done much on the subject yet.

Basically art is just an outward expression of your own thoughts, fillings, or ideology,....that's what i love about it, there are no wrong or right answers your work is yours and you diced when it's finished, and as long as your happy with the way your work turns out then it's a success.

The drawings at the top of the page are a self portrait of me from a couple month's ago, an old country cottage, and an abstract drawing i did a few years ago.

Wall-E......

Robot's in Italy.......

Here is a real life Wall-E on the streets of Italy,.......Well kind of.

This robot is bigger and not quite as agile as it's movie counterpart.

But unlike Wall-E, This robot is real and may be traveling down a street in your neighbourhood someday soon,......Maybe.

The robot is called a DustBot, and it's job is to collect trash and sort through the garbage and separate the organic, recyclables, and waste.

It also has an on board sensor that measures air pollution, sulfur dioxide, ozone, nitrogen oxide....etc.

It can be called to a location with a cell phone and go door to door. to collect trash.

DustBot is electric powered and energy efficient.

It's part of a 3.9 million dollar research program and if successful, could end up saveing thousands of dollars in revenue and hundreds of gallons of gasoline annually.

At the moment its reaction time is too slow for it to operate in a large traffic area, but hopefully in a few years they will have all the bugs worked out.

and these robots will be put to work.

Rock's and Fossils.

Rock's and Fossils.

When i was a kid i use to love digging for crystals and fossils!

I grew up in Montana, so there was never a shortage of rocks laying around.

Every stone you break open could have a crystal or fossil of some kind inside.

Or it could just be a rock lol.

But that's what makes it fun you never know exactly what your going to find.

If you ever get the chance you should definitely visit Montana.

Awesome people, Amazing scenery, cool camp sites, and hiking trails, and great fossils and crystals!

Places to find crystals.....

Crystal Park.

Dig your own crystals.

Sapphire mines by Phillipsburg.

Dig your own Montana sapphire's.

Goal's

@@@@My first oil painting "Night Scene."@@@@

Goal's.......

Earlier today i was looking back on some of my previous goals from when i was younger...(Not that I'm actually very old yet lol,) but i started thinking have i actually accomplished what i had set out to do....and if not how exactly have my goals changed over the years. When i was younger i always loved to draw and paint... i still do lol, and i thought how cool would it be if someday i was able to become a famous artist. So i practiced as hard as i could, drawing whenever i had the time and eventually taking up oil painting, after some much needed practice i finished my first landscape oil painting when i was 10. It was called Night Scene. It's a painting of a night time winter landscape. It turned out better then i had expected it too. I soon finished more paintings....This eventually lead too some attention i was put in a few newspaper's in MT, TX and FL. as well as a two news interviews on tv. It was fun for awhile but i tend to be more of privet person, i don't really like a lot of attention, so i decided to stop painting for a while i still paint now and then but not as often as i use too, now i mostly just draw.

So in one respect you could say that goal was a success.

It was a success because after all that hard work i managed to achieve at least to a certain extent a small amount of fame all be it only localy but never the less it was still kind of fun......and even though the things we dream of as children tend to change as we grow older we must always do our best to make our goals a reality!

I now have a hole new set of goals, and hopefully i can accomplish them as well.

I think that no matter what your dreams or goals are in life you should always try your best to accomplish them, nothing in life is worth having in less you earn it, and you only have your self to blame if you should happen to fail. However some people tend set there aspirations a bit to high and in that respect they are bound to fail.

You need to find a good balance between what you hope to accomplish and what your current skill level is then work your way up, Do that and you can do anything.

Wolves......

Wolves.....

Hard to believe its summer time already.

It fells as if this year is going by way too fast.

Normally summer vacation should be a time to have some fun with your family and friends, Go on a trip or just hang out....whatever works for you. lol.

Unfortunately this summer marks a turning point for our country's national parks.

Because of recent changes in the law it is now legal to carry loaded gun's in the parks....in my opinion this is a very foolish thing to allow sure they say there are measures in place to prevent accidents. but there is all way room for errors in even the most well thought out plans.

The only thing this new law has accomplished is putting innocent tourists and locals in danger, because some gun toting fool fills its necessary to pack a gun in a national park....pathetic

This foolish law also makes it easier for poachers to start illegally hunting animals in protected areas.
poaching has been going on for a long time anyway but with this new law passed, It's just opening the gate to an even bigger problem.

On top of all that we still have a hand full of low life extremists like Idaho Governor C.L Butch Otter, Idaho's Ant-Wolf Coalitions Ron Gillette and Alaska's Governor Sara Palin who would like nothing more then to see wolves dead. and unfortunately if they get there way it will mean certain death for dozens if not hundreds of wolves in the Yellowstone area and the greater Northern Rocky Mountains region..... not even wolf pups will be speared in the coming slaughter.

Palin an avid enthusiast of aerial hunting....a practice that has been illegal since 1972, not to mention a sickening and barbaric sport... and i use that term loosely. (Since hunting in it self is not actually a sport per say but rather just the slaughter of unsuspecting animals.) Aerial hunting begins when one or more of the hunter's board a small plain and circle the area well the rest of them go into the woods and scare/chase the frightened animals out into the open, at which point the hunters in the plain "being the avid sportsmen that they are" begin shooting at the terrified animals usually hitting them in the back or gut and then proceed onward to kill even more innocent animals well leaving the already injured one's to suffer a slow and painful death. At one point Palin was even offering a bounty of $100 dollars for the hind leg of a wolf as prof of its death. Within a few days of legalising this cruel sport at least 66 wolves were killed.

Now the Alaskan Governor is taking things even further by approving the use of snares traps and lethal poisonous gas's in an attempt to kill even more wolves not just one or two but an entire pack pup's and all.

Help tell the Governor and her dimwitted followers that enough is enough.

go to the site below and "Sign this petition." to help try and put an end to this stupidity.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/579425122

Thanks for reading this and please tell your friends and family's to sign as well.

Michael.

Save the Tongass National Forest.

The Tongass National Forest.

For decades now the logging industry has been doing untold ecological damage to the environment by over logging and clear cutting entire forests.

Now the Tongass Nation Forest our nations largest national forest and one of the oldest large growth forests in the world is coming under attack again by the logging industry one company imperticular the Sealaska Native Corporation. This company is going directly to congress in an underhanded attempt to transfer even more public land to private control in order to clear cut the forest and further there own greed.

Not only dose this undermine the efforts of the local conservation groups but if the logging company gets there way they will destroy not only a large portion of this pristine forest but they will also be responsible for the devastation of the homes and habitats to hundreds of spices of animals.

The Tongass is an amazing place to visit with large camping areas, caves lakes, glaciers, hiking areas, and spectacular views.

We can't afford to lose even more of our valuable public land to the greed of large cooperation's

Sign this petition and tell congress not to allow even more environmental devastation to our public lands and national parks.

Petition
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/555964930?z00m=19766067

Thanks for reading this post and please tell your friends and family to sign as well.

Art.....

Conventional Art, Modern, Cubism, Abstract, Expressionism......

There are many other different styles of art besides the ones listed above, but What is art really?....

The simple fact is that art is one of the most basic and fundamental forms of human expression as well as one of the oldest. From primitive paintings on the walls of ancient caves to the work of the modern masters of today. through the century's and the millenium it has changed in form and style may times but the one thing that remains the same is the basic human need to express our creativity and find a way to preserve our work for future generations.

Art is a product of the human mind both simple and complex.

Art like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Because there is no right or wrong way to express your creativity. Art can be anything from the simplest crayon or pencil drawing to the most elaborate and detailed painting or sculptor, as long as your happy with the way it turns out in the end then your work is a sucsess.

So go get a pencil and paper or whatever..... and start creating your own masterpiece lol.

Michael.

Philosophy?.......

Emergent property is a term used in philosophy, but what exactly is an emergent property? and How dose it relate to the way we function not only as individuals but humanity as a whole?

I see the definition of emergent property being more individual, it is not something that you can just label as this or that, it's more,...... it's something that you experience and since we all experience the world around us in our own different way....the definition of an emergent property can have as many different meanings as there are people on this planet...

Emergent Property's can manifest themselves in people as well as nature.

For Instances i fill as though emergent property can in some ways be a good representation of our everyday lives. By that i mean there can be so many things that at the time appear to be nothing more then just random happening's but are still some how more then often connected to the bigger picture for example, The last time i was in Austin i went to check out this large colony of bats one of the largest in the country, I've been there a few times now and it's always an awesome experience. When you see all of these bat's literally thousands of them winding their way through the sky each one individually flying in a seemingly random pattern and yet still some how the same general direction as part of a larger entity. It's really an amazing sight. This also reminds me of people in a way, everyone of use living our lives as an individual with our own hopes, dreams, and goals that we wish to achieve someday and yet all to often forgetting that we to are part of a larger entity.....The human race and that even our most seemingly unimportant and insignificant tasks as an individual can have a profound effect on not only our lives and the lives of the people around us but also the rest of the world as a whole.

The study of the patterns in the stars as well as those in nature could also be thought of too some extent as an emergent property.


Some people may even consider our very consciousness as somewhat of an emergent property of the brain, in a way that makes sense. If anything history has shown us that human imagination, creativity and ingenuity is ever changing, we have put people in space, on the surface of the moon and to the farthest corners of the earth all based on collective ideas and in the pursuit of knowledge.

If consciousness is an emergent property of the brain then the evolution of the human race must be the result of this property working effectively.

However a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. The same goes for people....

The collective IQ of any large group of people is that of it's lowest member.

I.E...Mob mentality from the days of angry villagers wilding pitchforks and torches to modern day riots. Even the most intelligent person in a group can succumb to there most basic primal instincts if pushed far enough, just as a seemingly intelligent person can be convinced to try drugs or alcohol when under pressure from there pears.

Dose an individual in a mob have anymore free will then a bee in a swarm.... you decide.

I would like to think that if i where ever immersed in a mob mentality that my reaction would be that of a rational person....so that i could take a step beck from the brick or pipe and then intelligently assess the situation properly, and if enough people could do this then the mob itself would have no power unfortunately it would seem that whenever a large group of people gather for whatever reason there is almost always disorder and dissension this trend seems to occur even when supposedly highly educated and intelligent people meet for symposiums and conferences

Maybe that's just human nature....

Perhaps it is the emergent patterns of humanity as a whole that really enable us to identify those among us with the greatest potential. It is the people who defy the patterns and the trends that tend to stand out from the crowd. In the past this process has sometimes made them pariahs, however in the long run it has always been the people who defy the status qua who make the biggest impact.

Knowledge and the written word....

The written word .........

Knowledge can manifest it self in many wondrous forms Art, Science, Music, Philosophy...... but one of the most abundant is through expression of the written word.


Writing can be an amazing tool for self expression if used properly or it can be used to spread lies and slander..............guess it just depends on the person doing the writing.

However i still believe the written word is truly an amazing creation. From its earliest conception in ancient Sumaria to the modern day it has continued with a steady evolution throughout history, ever furthering our knowledge of one another and the world around us. It is truly astounding how far we've come. Currently it is estimated that there are at least 6,912 different languages spoken throughout the world. However there is no real way of actually knowing how many there really is because there's so many different variations on the same words and some times the same words can even have different meanings depending on on what language your specking and what region of the world your in. There are also hundreds if not thousands of dead languages throughout history that most modern writing and spoken language evolved from.

Though it is still a widely debated subject of "who was the first to develop the written word"... Most people still credit the Sumerians for it's creation. there where stone tablets discovered that date back to about 3,500BC this tablets pre-date cuneiform The Sumerians also invented pictured hieroglyphs / pictographs this hieroglyphs where the basis for what later became cuneiform, Cuneiform is the earliest recorded form of written language dating back to about 3000BCE.
(Unless you count the cave paintings that depict the every day lives and history of ancient man created by the caveman, technically its still a written language.)

The written word is a truly amazing creation. Allowing us to not only document our thoughts and ideas and communicate and share our creations and our creative thoughts with not only one another but the entire world, and weather you use this tool for something productive like creating music, poetry or great literature, or decide to use it for something shameful like spreading lies and slander its your choice. It could also be interpreted as an interesting representation of our personality's.

As far as the evolution of writing , I think it's amazing how far we've come as a species.

From the times of ancient man carving hieroglyphs into the walls of structures and on small clay tablets thousands of years ago where only a small group of people would ever see it. To the modern day where we now have the ability through the Internet a truly phenomenal tool for creating and sharing our thoughts, ideas, and vast amounts of knowledge with the entire word with little more the the touch of a button or the click of a mouse..........We really have come a long way!



Well that's my post for today i will try to keep this blog updated frequently hope you all enjoy and fill free to comment lol.