Geek Soap Box

From Wikipedia: “Sloth is defined as spiritual or emotional apathy, neglecting what God has spoken, and being physically and emotionally inactive. Acedia is a Latin word, meaning ‘carelessness.’ Sloth can also indicate a wasting due to lack of use, concerning a person, place, thing, skill, or intangible ideal that would require maintenance, refinement, or support [...]

“The only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide.” – US President Barack Hussein Obama, August 21, 2010, during his weekly radio address In the interest of full disclosure, I am taking the above quotation completely out of context, as it was in response to a recent Supreme [...]

In a way, I should thank the planners of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque — otherwise known as Park51 — for inspiring and rekindling my writing/blogging bug like nothing has since the 2004 Election. I guess everyone needs his or her own muse, no matter how revolting and life-threatening it may be.  Conquering Islamo-terrorists, John [...]

Did You Know? I confess I am not necessarily the most up to date on my Islamic history, so I was caught unawares of the true significance of “Cordoba House,” the original name of the Park 51 so-called Ground Zero mosque. Turns out, the Great Mosque of Cordoba reflected one of the highlights of the [...]

Various aspects of this post have been mulling around in my head for days or even weeks now; in many ways, it will be the perfect encapsulation of the story of the Death of the West, a tale of appeasement and surrender in the disguised name of freedom, both of speech and religion. I can barely [...]

It’s no secret, dear reader, that I blog lately with about the same frequency as appearances of the asteroid Apophus. Fortunately, I have buddies such as the Cranky Conservative to pick up my slack and churn out content that usually matches what I would have said anyway with far greater frequency and intellectual quality. Heck, [...]

Every so often, we the people are reminded of our civic responsibilities in this great society of ours and are called to serve a greater duty, a symbol of our individual, inalienable liberty. I speak, of course, of being called to jury duty. Nothing says democracy like spending a day or two sitting in a [...]

While on vacation this past week, I happened to become involved in conversation with an individual of, shall we say, a different political persuasion.  Now, this is rarely a big deal for me; growing up and living my entire life in a supermajority left-leaning region, I know how and when to pick my fights and [...]

In the interest of full disclosure, “House, MD” could be my favorite television show of all time.  The combination of pithy, sarcastic humor, witty banter, and grave seriousness match my own twisted personality nearly perfectly, and I can easily watch each episode time and again, one after another, without even remotely suffering from boredom or [...]

Seven Things I Learned While Watching 2012 1. It’s no Independence Day. I am a huge fan of one of Roland Emmerich’s previous works, Independence Day. ID4 was a nearly perfect reincarnation of the spectacular book and movie War of the Worlds, told for a modern-day audience. 2012 lacks every element that made ID4 so [...]

Mankind is simultaneously blessed and cursed by its unending intellectual and philosophical curiosity; the grand desire to understand how things work, and why we are here, drive all of our greatest achievements — and failures. To that extent, is there any “Big Question” more interesting, passionate, and frustrating than the one concerning our origins?  How [...]

It only took a mere $10 billion in costs and nearly a year of unplanned delays before the newsmedia and certain elements of the scientific community began to question the value and process behind Europe’s Large Hadron Collider — the vast underground, super-cooled electromagnetic tunnels underneath France and Switzerland that will allegedly allow for high-speed [...]

Does it chill anyone else out there to the very bone that NASA has started a program it tongue-in-cheekly refers to as “Singularity University?” In a spare one-room office at Nasa’s Silicon Valley campus, a small band of futurists is plotting to save the world. The means are not a revolutionary technology or a new [...]

I’m forever fascinated by the unending pull between science and the magical unknown. Is there a God in Heaven, or is our existence merely attributable to random, complex biochemical chance? Is the Universe finite and concrete or part of a larger 12-dimensional membrane bubble? Is there such a thing as “love,” or rather is it [...]

No doubt most of us — especially those off from work for 16 days and counting — are lamenting and fearing the impending return to the office that January 5th marks. I know, personally, I managed to accomplish diddly squat of my goals for the time off, and am still as stressed and as frazzled [...]

Another year has come and gone, my friends. 2008 definitely ranks as one of the quirkiest and most-difficult-to-gauge in recent memory. It started with great promise and hope; work provided me with many unique opportunities for growth and development coupled with actual occasional personal satisfaction and gratitude. It ended, though, with utter chaos and uncertainty [...]

Ireland’s largest online bookie, Paddy Power–and I make no insinuation either way over if this humble gambling blogger knew of Paddy Power before today–is now accepting wagers over proof of the existence of God. It began taking bets on the question that has plagued thinkers for centuries in September, to coincide with the switching on [...]

One of the most anticipated games of the year was set to arrive next week: Sony’s innovative Little Big Planet. A cross between a traditional platformer and a fully customizable experience, Planet has already received rave reviews and accolades for not only its gameplay but for its revolutionary embrace of user-generated content. Unfortunately, the world [...]

Human beings possess free will. For purposes of this intellectual/philosophical discussion, I will define free will as such: the ability to undertake any feasible action without consideration of the consequences of said action. Meaning, there are any number of reasons why your humble blogger does not walk outside his home and start randomly assaulting people [...]

When word broke last week that the former headmaster of my high school — someone I genuinely considered to be a mentor and role model back in the day — plead guilty in federal court to possession of child pornography, I wanted to say something here but instead let it go. We’ve all seen the [...]