Fat Head

The production quality wasn't fantastic, it sounded more like a news piece than a movie, but it wasn't bad. I enjoyed it.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/196879/fat-head
you can watch it for free.
I would like to get a response. Does anyone know how credible the movie is?
It seems quite credible to me. 3 documentarians have done a 30 day fast food diet and lost weight just to prove supersize me wrong.
In this movie he points out that even eating a supersized meal 3 times a day does NOT equal 5 000 calories, as Morgan Spurlock's nutritionist said.
It starts out saying that "supersize me" was a load of crap and basically couldn't have happened the way Spurlock and his nutritionist said, so he called the representatives of Spurlock and they refused to show his food log. In fact they have /never/ released his food log to any media.

This documentarian does a 30 day fast food diet and loses weight
then after that he does a 30 day heavy saturated fat diet and his health actually improves
it's kind of funny.

On non-Mexican Hispanics

It kind of annoys me when Hispanics get upset when someone assumes they are Mexican.
I just watched a video in which it points out that there are 22+ Spanish speaking countries and only 1 is Mexico (obviously).
What they failed to mention is that Mexico is by FAR the most populated Spanish speaking country, so it's perfectly understandable to see why someone would assume that a Hispanic is Mexican.
Even if 112 million Spanish speakers isn't enough, in the US, the vast majority of Hispanics are Mexican, so once again, it's a completely valid assumption that a Hispanic might be Mexican.

However, let's forget all that and just move to decency. Just say "I'm not Mexican, I'm Guatemalan" or something and move on. Making a big deal out of it just kind of makes you look like a douche.


Darris over and out.

If God Can Operate Outside of Logic, Logic is Useless

Logic is absolute
The most basic logical statement, 1=1 is evidence that logic must be absolute.
If 1=1 is only true so long as God makes 1, 1, then it is not a true statement.
However, it must be a true statement, or else 1=~1 (not 1) which is a self refuting statement.
The only possible truth to 1=1 comes from the fact that definitive mathematical logic must always be true 100% of the time.

The argument that God operates outside logic is nonsensical. One oft used argument is "Can God make a rock so big that he cannot lift it". Those who say that God can operate outside of logic say that "God can make a rock so big that he cannot lift it, and then proceed to lift it because he operates outside of logic". However, this violates sense. If he proceeds to lift it, then he can lift it, and he did not make a rock that he cannot lift, this isn't to say that He can't, but to say that He did not, in this scenario.

Our entire understanding of the universe comes from the fact that logic is absolute. 1+1=2, 1+1 =/= 3. If 1+1=3, then 1 =/= 1 because 2(1)=2 not 3. If just one piece of mathematics is false, ALL of mathematics is false. Algebra is universally true or it is not true at all. Algebra is a method of expressing logic.

Every idea ever deduced. Every thought ever manifested in logic. Everything of that nature would be false if God has the ability to undermine logic.
If God created logic, God has bound Himself by a machine that will not release Him.


If logic is false, there is no such thing as truth.

Using logic we can come to the conclusion that 1+1=2. Without logic, there's no way to tell what 1+1 is. 1+1 could be equal to literally anything within or without numbers and it could be equal to nothing.
There is no way to tell.

It is for this reason that I believe that if God can undermine it, logic is useless. 

A Response

Response 1:
A friend said:
"but you have to first defend that issue before you can say anything about it, as socialism and a Marxism both reject that form of thinking. Also you would have to give the case of justification as to why pushing greed and capital as the ultimate goal is morally and even consequently right. To say that humans will always seek money is to beg the question that markets must always exist. which in marxs theory that's exactly what the endgame was: to eliminate the market."
I don't agree that I have to defend meritocracy if I am using it as the pre factum. Meritocracy is what I prefer. My argument is "if one prefers meritocracy, one should prefer the free market as the best form of meritocracy".
In that case, meritocracy doesn't have to be defended.
If you like, the reason I like meritocracy practically is because I find other options unfair. I prefer fairness ideologically. A total egalitarianism would be unfair because people who have contributed absolutely nothing; people who are not educated or... frankly, useful, would still have a vote. They would have just as much say as I do in whatever goes down in my society.
A totalitarianism with one ruler above the rest would be unfair because he has done nothing to attain a higher status than me or anyone else.
Rule by majority is unfair for the same reason. Why should the majority hold their decision above my head?
Oligarchy is unfair for the same reason, also.
That is why I prefer a meritocracy.

I don't think I'm pushing for greed as the ultimate goal. Even if I was, I think that statement isn't bad. Pursuing greed isn't an inherently evil act. I don't say that humans will always seek money, I say that humans will usually seek power. I am not willing to assume that humans will not attempt to seek power. Power is attained through a number of ways and as long as resources are scarce, and people want/need them, there will be a market. It may be an illegal market, but there will be a market nonetheless. The only way to disestablish the market would be to disestablish the idea of ownership and to keep people from ever discovering it again would be the only way to keep the market from re-establishing itself.
I think we can agree that the reason people sell drugs and their body in prostitution despite them being illegal  is because of the profit motive.
When the socialism happens in Utopia, and Fruit X has disappeared, and one guy finds X, he has found something very valuable. Something that our most primitive part of the mind will tell us is trade-able. Suddenly this guy can get anything he wants as long as he keeps his X and there is a demand for X.

It is for this reason that I believe a market cannot be definitively destroyed. I believe a market will invariably reestablish itself so long as there is scarcity of resources. Since I don't believe the market can be destroyed, I think that we should be using a system which acknowledges that.

Response 2:
"Ah I see your view. However I dont think you can make all the claims you do. For one please explain how something based on merit can be fair at all. When your merit is almost never decided by yourself. Secondly to say that the market can not be destroyed is just not true as technology can and in some aspects has risen to the point in which we could provide what is needed to the people without the need of a market. In fact the only thing that holds a society to the necessity of a market is the individualist mindset. There are plenty of anthropological cases that show societies functioning in a society in which a market is not established. I don't argue that ppl want power but when the bases is meritocracy the inherit competitiveness creates a sense of threat in which the people must take the ideology that they need power or they will die. And its that difference that i see as a danger."

I think merit by definition must be decided by some standard. Obviously you can't just say "I deserve more".
I didn't say it as an absolute. I said as long as we have scarcity the market cannot be destroyed. I don't know what technology you're referring to, but there is a problem between providing what is needed and what is wanted.
If I have the money, why shouldn't I be able to get something that would be called a "want". How do we define "need"?
I think the inherent competitiveness creates a threat, yes, to the person providing it. They must compete to make the best product or to convince me that their product is the best. That sounds to me as more of a pro than a con. The competitiveness causes the people to be more comfortable rather than less because general population probably isn't competing within itself.

Response 3:

"you need to define merit if that's what your whole idea revolves around. and the concept of want *in the sense your using it* is again one of the individualistic mind set which again isn't a requirement of life or society. Also the threat is beneficial to advance technology and methods but it comes at the cost creating a perceived necessity for things we don't need. Therefore pitting people against each other rather then working together."
"oh and by technology i mean it in the broadest sense of the term"


I would define merit as what you have in a free market. If you manage to make $1, you have earned that $1 sufficient for me to say you merit that $1. If you do it by force or fraud, you still earned the $1, but now everyone hates you and the law will probably step in to take that $1 back.

So who then will define the difference between a want and a need? Would you suggest that we only allow clothing and food? Do you think that in a socialism, wants would disappear?
If a smart guy created a fantastic device in the socialism which wouldn't be seen as a need will we say that the device shall not be distributed because it's not needed? Why work together if it improves nothing?

I don't think we have technology necessary to predict the best distribution of goods.

Response 4:
"Well first off my alternative is a whole other story so to stay on topic i won't expand on my views. but with your first comment. what if someone is mentally handicapped or lacks the skills to earn any money at no fault of their own like wise when someone inherits money how has that merit been earned by anything more than chance and good luck and most importantly what part of any of this even remotely resemble fairness which was the justification you gave for why merit should matter. as for the distinction between want and need was not that of eliminating want but that you were using want in the sense that "i want something for my self with no consideration to anyone else". an alternative is "that i want something but i don't need it that bad in contrast to the cost to others, to make, ect."
"my point was simply that you were implying that there is no other alternative to wanting something"

I think if someone was mentally handicapped, they would certainly have charities to take care of them, however I haven't said anything about welfare. I have no problem with welfare, I just think that charities do it better. If you look at government as a charity, the amount of money that you put in that comes out to the benefactor is like 60% compared to the Red Cross which does it at 90%. I don't think the government has the right to take away inheritance, but I think as long as they do, a 100% inheritance tax would even the playing field while being evil. I don't have a problem with someone keeping their inheritance though. One person having lots of money doesn't translate to another person having less. I think your "that i want something but i don't need it that bad in contrast to the cost to others, to make, ect." is unrealistic. Who defines that? Who makes the cut off level at which you no longer can have that item?

Response 5:
"You can't claim its unrealistic when that form exist in several societies. Also again you didn't answer my question. In a "fair" society the handicapped shouldn't be limited to only taking money from Charity my claim wasn't their well fair but rather them being treated as fair because they are human beings. In a "fair" society everyone should have the same chance at doing what they wish, but this becomes impossible in a meritocracy as almost every factor that determines ones merit has nothing to do with choice but rather luck. I Guess the bottom line is that in a meritocracy it becomes a very hard case to assume that it can be fair, as fairness implies that its a society that is just .Justice is essentially based on the idea of equality. In contrast meritocracy is based on the exact opposite as it only gauges what you can do with what you've been given rather than being given a "fair" chance"


I don't know which society you're referring to, so please tell me. I didn't say they shouldn't be treated fairly. I feel that I did answer the question. Since money would be a measure of merit, welfare (as a system, not as a concept. As in we give them money so they can have a share of the wealth.) would give the handicapped a voice in the meritocracy of a free market. Some fairness is sacrificed, it's true, but we also can't justify taking too much say from a more productive member of society.
The problem with the argument that everyone should have the same chance at doing what the wish is that no society could provide everyone that chance. In a socialism, the person would still be handicapped and still unable to do as they wish to the extent that their disability hinders them.
I disagree that it has "nothing to do with choice but rather luck". I liken that argument to one of poker. There certainly is an element of luck, but only a newbie would suggest that there is no strategy or that it is ALL luck. In fact, I would say that it is mostly skill but luck still plays a part. A society can be just without making everyone equal in every way. Making everyone equal in every way is impossible so long as there is scarcity in ANYTHING. An attractive person would have the resource of attractiveness that an ugly person does not. Justice is based on equality before the law, not just equality. That means that no matter how rich or attractive you are, the law still applies to you in the same way that it applies to the ugly poor. I think you're taking my pseudosociety farther than I am suggesting.
There would still be grants and welfare and other things to even the playing field, there would just not be extra taxes on the rich or regulations that preemptively attack for wrongdoing.

Response 6:
"any collective society in which a market is minimal or even non-existent. where social roles are done for the sake of society rather than self. historically this has been the case in many collective society and continues to this day. Also the problem with your money ->merit is that it inverses the relationship between the two variables for those who receive welfare. the reason being that a persons merit is now determined by their money rather than their money being determined by their merit. which again lends it self to a very unfair description as your now saying their worth is determined by how much we decided to give them. which is even more unfair than saying that your social worth is defined by how much you can make. Also again a semantically confusion when i talked about justice, i meant it in the moral sense and in the appeal to moral laws. in other words when you said a fair society i assumed you meant a place where everyone gets a shot at being what they want to be. by the way this is much different from a society that give everyone what they want. all im talking about is an equal opportunity to attain what they desire, Im not with marx on the idea of complete self actualization however the opportunity is one that would seem fair for everyone to have. as for me taking the claim too far, maybe I am, but the truth is if you want defend your point, you should be capable to show how it is logically derived from some sort of moral theory. and furthermore I think people need to understand the full implication of their political beliefs......and I also like to debate and enjoy your responses as so far they have been good arguments"

I would like a specific example, I can't think of a society in which market doesn't exist. The minimal one is irrelevant because I said it is unrealistic to expect a zero market, not a near-zero market.
You are correct that welfare inverses the relationship, but I disagree that that's a problem. They no longer receive money as per merit, but then that just means it's not a 100% pure meritocracy, it doesn't suggest that the system will fail (not that I think you're suggesting that). I think we should give them the average if they're on welfare, in that case, how is it more unfair that PART of their worth is determined by how much we give them? I think a meritocracy gives the highest amount of people the chance to attain what they desire, the people just have to work for it- it's not a hand-out. I think my moral theory would be individualistic. I can't ever determine that everyone in society has to act in a certain way, but for me, the society would be free so that you could choose how to act. My individual moral theory is that I should help people but not to the extent that I hurt myself. This allows me to improve while not leaving my fellow man starving in the dust. If everyone did like that, I think we would still see a general upward trend in the standard of living.
I appreciate arguing with you because you make good arguments and don't start flame wars. You should check out debate.org.

Response 7:
"I think if you accept the inversion of the relationship and you accept that meritocracy then you are accepting another form of morality all together. individualist would not have any room for anyone else. the only time someone of that form of thought can justify spending money for other on moral grounds is when it comes at no cost to self. otherwise you can only justify that charitable actions are only being done for selfish reasons alone which is not what you ment when you refereed to "your fellow man". another thing is that the inversion of the relation separates and removes them from the same form of society that you have declared as fair. which then in turn makes your fair society only to those who you deem were born with the means to create their own merit. In other words only those that can make money have any value in society and for the rest shall be arbitrarily given a value and nothing more. Dont get me wrong your idea is valid and this world may be better off in some ways if everyone belived it. but thats true about almost all philosophy.but i don't think its sound and consistent as it seems to hold to contradictory viewpoints.you want to claim that freedom is the ultimate virtue but you want to also appeal to justice as the most important. so to clarify which do you personally think matter more?"


I disagree that an idividualist would have no room for anyone else. Individualism is choice for the individual. If in my free market system, people decided to get together and live socialistically, there would be no problem with it. Why not? That is their individual right to create groups with collective rights. I think your analysis that someone can only justify spending money for others when it is at no cost to self is flawed. In the system I proposed, money is not the only form of showing merit. It is not the only form to show value- therefore if a Christian decided to give $100 to charity, he would be fulfilling himself individualistically, just without money as a measure.
I agree that it is not fair that these people are separated from their ability to contribute meaningfully so society, however that is not a card that was dealt by the system, rather it was a card that was dealt by nature, however, to make it more fair; to make it as fair as possible, we give them welfare. With welfare they still get a vote in how society goes. They still get at least the average ability to make a decision on the direction of the economy.
You misrepresent that there are myriad things that have value. Money is just the most quantifiable one. You can have value without having money, but you can't have money without having value. It is true that won't have as much money as a man who could make money above the average, but I have already said why that's as okay as possible in the previous paragraph.
I value freedom more than justice, but I think that freedom can lead to justice, and I don't think they contradict.
Justice and freedom can co-exist.

Response 7:
"dont have much time gonna do bullet points this time
1: "In the system I proposed, money is not the only form of showing merit" is the opposite of" I feel that I did answer the question. Since money would be a measure of merit" assuming you meant there are other it still don't change my argument just imagine someone who was born with very little things that create merit.This actually brings me closer to my point which is parallel to Rawls theory of justice
2:if a christian gives money and it fulfills him intrinsically its been done for selfish reasons. which was my point. and is still consistent with an individualistic philosophy.that exactly my point you can't justify doing it if it don't do anything for you or give you some value
3:freedom implys inequality in assets, opportunity, money, ect..Justice implies equality,regulation, and control. they can co-exist but one always matters more than the other.
4: you saying that the system didn't give them the disadvantage has nothing to do with the society being fair. In a just society would it not be the fairest thing to provide those who through no fault of their own have been screwed by nature?"


1. Someone is born with few merit-givers, so we give them something that essentially shows false merit. They don't merit it by ability, but they still get a fair say in the direction of society. Welfare.
2. If that's the case, I don't understand your problem with a complete individualism. Who cares if I profit from helping you so long as you are helped?
3. We have already agreed that we disagree on what justice is. I believe justice is just equality before the law. Economy is outside of the scope of justice. I don't believe it is just to have equality, regulation, and control, I believe that it can be just- but it doesn't necessitate justness.
4. Yes, it would be fair to provide for them. That's what welfare is.

On the Free Market Compared to Alternative Systems

Supporters of the free market don't say "everyone should try to seek profits" they say "people are going to try to seek economic power (profits), and we should acknowledge that."
Alternatives to the free market require that the government either distort the market or try to make the market go away. Socialism, the generally accepted opposite of the free market, tries to ignore that people will attempt to have more economic power. The greedier the person, the more they will do to make that attempt. In Soviet Russia, people would climb the governmental ladders to have that privilege. In corporatism, they would have the government pass laws that protect their profits.

In a free market, people will be forced to compete to gain their profits. If someone wants to gain any level above me, I would much prefer that they have a fight to get to that position.  The free market is a decentralized meritocracy.

Ron Paul Media Blackout

I'm sick of it.
Watch this video and if you're not at least a little upset, I'm ashamed of you.
Apathetic pieces of crap.
Seriously.
I'm not beating around the bush anymore.
If you have seen these evidences of a media blackout on Ron Paul and you continue to watch that media, you are (a)pathetic.
Your media lies, if not outright, then by omission.
Stop watching it, or continue to be only pseudo-informed so you can impress your friends at dinner parties with your knowledge of how (the media tells you) Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya are going.

Shawnee... I'm disappointed in you

Apparently, my county, Shawnee, KS has decided it will no longer be prosecuting any misdemeanors because they don't have the money.
At first, this sounds pretty awesome, they don't have money, so they'll get out of our faces and let us live.
Apparently though, they are also stopping prosecution of ACTUAL crimes (where a victim exists).
Instead of stopping the prosecution of nonviolent drug "offenders", they have decided that domestic battery is not worth the money to prosecute.
Topeka, KS only has 5 city prosecutors and apparently none of them have any recent experience in prosecuting domestic battery.
If lack of money is the excuse, why don't we at least start off with not prosecuting things that aren't even crimes?!
There is no victim in a vice crime.
I propose that we stop prosecuting prostitution and drug sale/use.
That would also save dollars in that police would no longer be wasting money doing ridiculous sting operations so they can feel cool and James Bond-y.

What do you think?
Leave an interesting comment or blogger my blog post.

No More Superpowers

    Our young country has some maturing to do. Freedom of speech, representative government, individual liberty, they all sound great to us. So great that we often feel that we should go around the world killing people (long term damage of their individual freedom) in order to "free them".

    I often think about our status as superpower and I have decided it's unnecessary. We can leave the world alone. Let's say we invade China and we free the hell out of their people! YEAH! Now they have a destroyed economy with a destroyed infrastructure! Do we know for certain that they share our Western culture? Our love of individual freedom? If we can't assume that our neighbor watches the same movies as us, what makes us think we can assume that another culture shares our values? What a superpower does is it uses its incredible influence to make the world as close to it as possible. Why do we need that? Wouldn't multiculturalism (one of the many and changing keystones of our country) be a better model for the world?

     Often times, crime is used as our basis for insulting the sovereignty of other cultures. In the States, the age of consent is usually 16 years old, but it does go up to 18 in some states, we have decided therefore, that the rest of the world should follow suit. We in the West have decided that all countries must raise the age of consent to stop sex tourism, even though those countries were obviously okay with it or else they would have raised it themselves. Some people might disagree with me on whether or not that is wrong, but what about this one. Some countries have very low tax rates because they have very small governments. They boost their economy by encouraging corporations to set up shop in their country, but OH the West will have none of that, because the corporations will be leaving Western nations, and we just love to tax the bejeesus out of them. So, obviously, we blacklist all the countries below a certain tax rate as tax evasion isolationist nations.

Of course! Do whatever you like, it's your country... unless we don't like it, obviously.

     Well I say let the Dutch be Dutch, let them ride their bikes even if the federal congress decides to outlaw bicycles.
     Let Iraq be Iraq, let China be China.

We don't need to tell people what to do. Would it really be so bad if we had a world without a bully telling everyone what to do?

My Favorite Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Thomas Jefferson is easily one of my favorite founding fathers.
When I read his quotes it reminds me just how the same we are. The modern world isn't facing much difference from Jefferson's. I especially enjoy his views on education and firearms because he refutes what a lot of liberals love to say; "The founding fathers didn't imagine a world where..."
They weren't primitive. They were well learned in history and a lot of them didn't even get a formal education. 
That said, please enjoy some of my favorite Thomas Jefferson quotes. I have underlined the ones which I think most apply to the problems of today.

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.
(later in the quote, though, he does provide for keeping the super rich from being a threat to the state)

"No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]" (in quotes because it's from his 3rd draft of the Virginia Constitution)


I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. (*COUGH*drug war*COUGH*)


I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. 

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.  

To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.
(The Supreme Court doesn't decide whether something is constitutional, they decide what will be considered constitutional, there is a big difference. They can be wrong. This is why we have jury nullification)

Most bad government has grown out of too much government. 

It is better to tolerate that rare instance of a parent’s refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings by a forcible transportation and education of the infant against the will of his father. 
(Although he did provide public school, it was not mandatory.)

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.


And probably my favorite for today:

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.



The government doesn't give us rights, we have rights, the constitution is there to protect those rights from the tyranny of government.

Are There Only Two Types of Government?

I recently heard the argument that in the long term there are only two types of government, the oligarchy and the republic.

In a totalitarian dictatorship in which a dictator has total power, he still doesn't make 100% of the laws, he always has a group of delegates who at least advise him on what laws to make.
That is an oligarchy.
In an anarchy, the majority rules which makes it a convoluted democracy which eventually leads to a group of people with high influence making all the rules; that is also an oligarchy.

In a republic, the majority opinion is basically irrelevant. Republic means rule by the law. So even if 99% of people think that jumping on one foot should be illegal, it's not.

I think the republic is the freest form of government and I think that when politicians say "we're going to spread democracy" they should be looked down upon.
If we are going to spread a type of government, it should be the republic. Democracies fail abhorrently.

Tell me what you think about this either by responding on your own blog or in the comment section below.

On Left and Right

I hear a lot of people saying the "extreme" left and right are bad and that we should find a happy medium. They support this idea by saying Hitler was far right while Stalin was far left.
I think that is ridiculous.
If my definition isn't off, left means lots of government while right means little government.
On a scale of 10-0, 0 would be anarchy and 10 would be totalitarianism.
Nazi Germany had a totalitarian government, that is NOT right, that is LEFT.
The USSR had a totalitarian government, also left.

The Punk Patriot: The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is Invisibly...

The Punk Patriot: The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is Invisibly...: "The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is willing to put the lives of thousands at risk, entrusting Uranium Conversion to unskilled temp labo..."

"We're losin' money"="They must be lying!"

Or, they could be losing money in that section while, as a company, making profits. Companies are usually set into sectors.

How unqualified are the temp laborers?

I don't like hearing only one side of the story. We should ask Honeywell what they feel. We should know if there is anything that we aren't being told.

The union leader talks about how the people coming in are inexperienced in the handling of their chemical.
I'm sure not EVERY worker is a union worker. I'm sure that at least one person knows how to train people.

It is the right of the company to hire whomever they choose.

It seems silly that he would go inform shareholders that the company spent $70 million in kicking them out, because I'm sure, if they had a profit motive, that they would be making/saving money by kicking them out. They may "dance around" the question, but it seems to me that saying that is being biased. It is saying "I know the answer, they just won't admit it." That's arrogant.

I should make it known that I believe it is the right of the people to get together and form a union.

On Demons à la Catholics.

So why is it that demons always speak Latin? 

What mechanism caused all of the eternal evils of the underworld to band together and learn Latin?

I mean obviously Catholics can talk to God in Latin because I imagine He'd be able to understand any language. So, why aren't the demons speaking in super old demon-speak that Catholic priests can't understand, or if they plan on communicating, why don't they use another language? What's with all this "jesus rex interfectus est!"
Why can't they man up and learn English? 

Seriously. Is there some mystical reason why all the demons happen to speak the language that is only marginally known outside academic circles because it happens to be the language of the church?

If I were a demon, I would learn Swahili or something. Why would I, as a hater of the church, conform to their language choice?

It's preposterous, Catholics. Change your story. I know you're great at retconning. I think it also helped when you didn't allow people to read or own a Bible in their own language for fear that they'd "misunderstand". Right. 

Grapes

I have a problem with grapes.
They start off deliciously as you pick the finest of the bunch, but after a while the tastiness begins a spiral downward! Then near the end your picking around trying to get the best ones and inevitably failing a few times; getting mushy/sour ones instead.
My last grape is almost always distasteful.

Why I Conlang

Conlang is the term conlangers use to refer to a "constructed language".
It is the complement of a "natlang" or "natural language".
You may have heard of Esperanto, in the conlang community, Esperanto is referred to as a "auxlang" because the language is trying to bridge gaps and be easy to learn. It tries to be a lingua franca or an auxiliary language.
There are also artlangs, languages which intend to be artistic, and the converse, englangs which intend to be efficient and logical. An example of an englang is lojban, a language based on predicate logic.

Art is to art history as conlanging is to linguistics.
I like the idea of creating a language because it's a challenge. It forces me to think about things in a different way.
Some languages are created to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis which contends that our language determines, at least in part, our culture.
Studies have been done that found a native Spanish speaker and a native French speaker will talk to forks differently. A Spanish speaker will talk to the fork as if it were a man and the French will talk to it as if it were a woman. The study concluded that this is because in Spanish, "fork" is a masculine word (tenedor). In French it's a feminine word (fourchette).

When you create a language, you have to decide how to solve certain problems that other languages solve in other ways. For instance, Spanish has only one word for "miscarriage" and "abortion", in both cases the word means "terminated pregnancy" but the difference is whether the "aborto" was intentional or accidental.
Or how a Spanish speaker says "I feel bad" and "I feel heat". One means "I feel as if I'm bad" and the other means "I sense heat". In Spanish this is solved with reflexiveness. They say "me siento mal" for "I feel myself bad" and "siento calor" "I feel heat".


Some people conlang for their books. It is very unlikely that in a fantasy world or on another planet everyone speaks English. So, like J.R.R. Tolkein, they create languages. The linguistic elements of languages in The Lord of the Rings is fascinating. I'll paraphrase a quote the source of which I can't find right now.
"The aesthetics of the language is why Aragorn became king and was renamed Elessar Telcontar instead of a Nazgul becoming king and being renamed Sauron"
Nazgul just sounds evil, Aragorn sounds ancient and Elessar Telcontar sounds regal.
Aesthetics is an important part of a language.

Currently, I'm devoting all my spare time to a conlang I call "thoiteg", I'll be writing a post about that soon.
And when I'm done with thoiteg, I think I will create a language which is based in legal theory- so in my fantasy world everyone understands the law because their language is the law. 

Dearest grammar Nazis,

I've never had a problem with people misusing words, I could always tell by context what they mean. Occasionally, just for fun I will tell someone that their sentence REALLY means something else, but only if it's kind of funny. I certainly don't get mad when people misuse words when the meaning is obvious and clear. So I have written a letter to the grammar Nazis asking them to kindly quit it. 

your vs. you're

If you see someone say "your crazy" or "your an idiot", and you get upset because they misused "you're" then you either want to show off your knowledge (arrogant) or you're not as grammatical as you think.

If the possessive "your" is followed by an article ("a", "an", or "the") or an adjective, it means "you are" if it's followed by a noun, it is possessive meaning belonging to you. 

 

there, their, they're

When someone says "there here" do you think they mean "their here" (nonsensical), "there here" (two locations), or "they're here" (obviously makes the most sense).

If the "there" is followed by a location, it means "they're". If the "there" is followed by a noun, it means "their". If the "there" is followed by the verb "is" plus a noun, it is locative saying that a noun exists "there is a cat", if the phrase is followed by a preposition, "there is a cat on the TV" it tells you the location of the cat that exists. If the question is "Where?" the answer is "There."




Who vs. Whom

This one is, perhaps, the easiest. When "who" is used accusatively, they mean to say "whom". However, they don't want to be pompous like you, so they say who. In the common sentence "Who are you talking to?" the correct phrasing would be "To whom are you talking?" or, if you're of the school of thought which doesn't think that prepositions should be avoided at the end of the sentence, "Whom are you talking to?"
The same goes in reverse. If someone says "Whom are you?", they are probably trying to be grammatical and failing, if you correct them, you risk being just as pompous as they are.

In conclusion:
You don't have to pretend you don't know what they're talking about because they didn't use the proper form. You obviously understand if you know an inkling of grammar.
This really isn't hard, grammar Nazis. Stop showing off.

A Black Norse God

So, I just found out that one of the Norse gods in the new comic book movie "Thor" is going to be black.
At first, that just kind of made me laugh, but there is apparently a big boycott going on of the movie from people who are of northern European descent. The guy who plays the god defended himself saying "Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra" and I thought "Valid point, one-to-zero against the Europeans" but then a Danish website shocked me by saying that Cleopatra was totally white and the myth that she was black was started by Islamic Nationalists.

Of Macedonian and Egyptian descent.

The people opposing the movie have also argued that there would be a HUGE whiplash if someone tried to make a movie with white Zulu warriors or a white Malcom X.
Personally, I think that the Malcom X example doesn't really apply because his fame is directly related to his race, so a white Malcom X doesn't really make sense. I'm not an expert in Norse mythology, but I don't think that they got their power from their white skin or anything. 

Either way, I wouldn't be offended at someone making a comic book movie incorrectly. It kind of makes you look silly.