Here's a question for all you Christians out there. (Or anyone, really, but I have a good idea what non-Christians would say in response to my question... Just keep reading and you'll see what I mean.)

The topic? Lies. Question? Are there good lies?

Now, I know every Christian's first thought is: Of course there are no GOOD lies! A white lie, so to speak, is still a lie. A lie is something that is in opposition to the truth. Now, here's an illustration: Let's say that you're good at repairing cars, but you don't like to make a habit of letting people bring their cars over for you to fix. You can do it, but you don't want to. It's just a personal hobby of yours. But you have a friend whose car has died and he needs someone to look at it and he asks you for help. You say: "Sure! Bring it over, it's no problem." But deep inside, you really hate the idea of people dropping off their cars for you to fix because they think they can get it done for free (or at least far cheaper). When you agreed to have a look at the car, against your secret thoughts and wishes, you're lying... Right? It IS a problem. You DON'T want to fix it, but you're going to be nice because it's a friend of yours, so you tell him it's okay.

Here's the part where I say I know what non-Christians would say: There's a global mentality out there that likes to believe that you can do whatever you want and say whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt someone else. If you lie to purposely mislead someone with a malicious intent, or you lie to keep something hidden from someone who needs to be informed of what's happened... That's bad. But if you lie to be nice to someone, then that's okay, because you're not hurting someone. According to them, telling someone it's okay to bring a car over to be fixed, when you are actually thinking otherwise, is okay to do because it's not actually hurting someone else in the process. In fact, you could say it's an attempt to keep the relationship. After all, friends help friends!

Personally, I subscribe to the idea of not beating around the bush. I tell things like it is. I see something, I'll form an opinion, and I'll let you know what my opinion is if you ask. You made a new website that I like? Ask me and I'll tell you I like it. You took a photograph of some flowers that you think is really great, but I think the composition is wrong? Ask me and I'll tell you that I think the composition is wrong. Introduce me to a new friend of yours and then ask me what I think? If I don't think the friend is a good choice, I'll let you know! I see no sense in hiding opinions just to make people feel good or just to maintain a relationship... Friendly, romantic, or otherwise. It makes everyone involved think they're getting to know the person, but what they know are simply lies so that person can fit in a little more easily. For example, let's say that you think homosexuality is wrong. It's a conviction that you (and a lot of other people) have, but it's not exactly a popular one to society in general. As a result, to fit in, you give the appearance of not caring one way or the other. In essence: You lie about yourself in an attempt to fit in. It's misleading, it's dangerous, and it only causes problems farther down the line.

People know me, though... The people I've met online know that I'm going to tell you exactly what I think about an issue, even if it steps on people's toes. I would expect nothing less in return. If I ask you a question about something, I would much rather hear your unbridled, ravaging and scathing opinion on something than hear you lie about it just to make me happy. If I think there's a problem, I'm going to flat out tell you exactly what the problem is. That's just my nature. If I make people uncontrollably upset at me and make them not want anything to do with me anymore? That's par for the course. I would rather be me and have a few friends who like me for what I am than have a bunch of friends who don't know me at all. In addition to all of this, I think it promotes a sense of trust, if you can believe it. By showing people that you're not afraid of telling them what they don't want to hear you make your praises all the more wholesome, because then they KNOW you're not just trying to get on their good side.

Now, people would think that doing something like helping someone out against your own is just the polite thing to do. Someone needs help, you don't want to do it, but you say you'll do it anyway. I guess there's somewhat of a fine line here... Between actually saying that it's no problem when it is, and just buckling down and doing something good when you don't feel like it. But I'm shooting for the scenario where people ask you do you something, you agree, and then they ask if you're sure and you say it's no problem (when it is). I'm shooting for the scenario where someone shows you an accomplishment that they're proud of and ask if you're impressed... And you say you are when you are, in fact, NOT impressed in the least bit. Of course, you need to apply some discretion here... If a child shows you a scribble drawing that they worked so incredibly hard on, you might not exactly be impressed with the quality picture itself, but you're still going to be impressed with their talents... You get the idea. (I hope.)

But that's my question... Is it wrong to tell someone something that isn't true to make them feel good? To be nice? To fit in? Is it lying when you do that? The Bible specifically says lying is wrong and not to do it under any circumstances because it's just... Wrong. It's backwards. It's untruthful. It paints the wrong pictures and leads people to believe something that isn't true. Is it being polite or is it lying?

A little over a year ago, I was watching Star Trek: Voyager, Season 6, Episode 20: Good Shepherd, and I noticed something funny on one of the LCARS screens. Remember that? Here's the image to jog your memory... (Note the arrow above the guy's thumb!)

Now today, in my mission to re-watch the Voyager series, I watched the episode once again and noticed another interesting phenomenon on the Delta Flyer's LCARS. This time, it's a monitor on the bio-bed. Here's what the computer looked like in its natural environment:

Looks normal... Now, check it out a few minutes later:

I'm not sure what happened to the continuity crew on this episode...

Proof that I need a new computer: 1658 3DMarks with all tests on default settings. For reference, my laptop is an Inspiron 9300, purchased the freakin' month before the dual-core editions were released. It's running Vista Ultimate 32bit, of course... Stock processor and video, but I upgraded the RAM to 2GB when I got it:

To put this all in perspective?

16,000 3DMarks is not unheard of on modern gaming systems running 3DMark06.

Wonder how well the family system works, hmm...

Looky! The English translation is once again up for pre-order on Amazon. It's hard to say if the date of May 29 is any more accurate than all the other dates since last October, but now's the chance to ensure a copy if you want one... And maybe since Amazon is taking orders, it means that they got a bit more proof that it's going to be released soon? One can always hope... Can't wait to actually READ what the book says, hah.

Allow me to be a patriotic America here for a moment.

The citizens of the United States? We're Americans. People who aren't citizens? You're NOT Americans. As a non-American, you are NOT entitled to tell us how to run our government. Feel free to give opinions, sure, but to think that you should have any sway in OUR elections is absurd and arrogant. If you want to influence our government, immigrate here, legally, I might add, and then by all means feel free to let your voice be heard! But if you live in Spain or Argentina or Egypt or anywhere that does say "United States of America"? Get the heck out of our politics. I honestly don't care if our elections "affect the world". All elections in major countries do that, and nobody seemed to be worried about the latest in the incredibly odd Russian elections.

Here's a note to all you American voters:

Don't let anyone outside the country influence your judgment on what's best for YOU. YOU are the one living here and YOU are the one who gets to decide what happens. I mean, sure, I have friends who live in Canada and England and a smattering of other countries, and I while I do think it's interesting to hear their opinions on American policies, I would not for a second vote for officials based on how it would affect them, just as I'm sure they wouldn't vote for their own officials based on how it might affect me. Now, of course, there's the whole issue with the Iraq War, which is something that directly involves another country, but I will still even go so far as to say that you shouldn't vote for what's best for an Iraqi citizen, you should vote for what's best for YOU and YOUR country. Government is not something to be "nice" about. It's a time to be patriotic (and "arrogant" and "narrow-minded", as I'm sure some will call it). It's YOUR government, not theirs. They have no say, shouldn't have any say, and you shouldn't vote to help them when it's no good for the United States of America... The USA is where they live, not you.

My personal opinion on the war, as an example? It's pretty obvious that a lot of other people think we're "mean" and cynical. (Even Obama's wife thinks we're a "mean" country.) They say we're where we shouldn't be when it comes to the war in Iraq, and they enjoy telling us how they would have done it. Well, I have something to tell you... They weren't the ones with the World Trade Center, were they? They weren't the ones who needed to defend themselves by going into Afghanistan, were they? Their country wasn't the country with the leader who declared that any and all people discovered to have aided the terrorists in their mission to destroy the World Trade Center would be hunted down just as fervently as the terrorists themselves. They weren't the ones who discovered that the former Iraqi government was giving refuge to the terrorists involved with the attack on the World Trade Center. We're over there finishing the fight that the terrorists started, because what country in their right mind wouldn't?

So, I'm sorry you non-Americans (and even deluded Americans, for that matter) think our war is so evil and unjustified. But honestly? I don't give a care, and nobody else should, either. We should only be doing what's best for the United States of America, and, right now, that's getting rid of the terrorists who destroyed and killed so many lives on September 11, 2001. Nobody else is going to help us? That's fine! That's your choice. I mean, those are your own countries. Your opinions have weight there, and if you think the war is unjustified, then don't participate. But to think that you have any right to try influencing another country's politics is beyond arrogant and beyond self-centered.

I'm sure some crackpot is going to fly by and deliver a quip about how America is trying to "influence another country's politics" with the war. But hear me out: We went in to eradicate the government who aided the terrorists we were hunting, because we said we would and Iraq didn't listen. We succeeded. The old, corrupt government has been removed because they were a threat to us and aided in criminals that we were hunting down because they ATTACKED us and instigated this war. Of course we're trying to influence Iraq's politics now... How is it in anyone's best interest for a country to invade, destroy a government, and then leave without repairing the damage? We're there to help the Iraqi citizens to recover now, and we're doing it the best way we know: With American Democracy. Of course it'll be tweaked and flavored a bit by the Iraqis themselves, but we obviously wouldn't try to set them up with a Monarchy or a Communist State! The invading country is just naturally going to try to show the conquered country how to form their own government based on what the invading country knows works... That, or the invading country could just annex the entire territory and consume all the resources and not bother putting so much time and money into helping the conquered country to stand on their own two feet once again.

Anyway, that's a major tangent and not what I was intending to write. I'd read this article from NewsBusters and it hit home with me because I've experienced people from other countries trying to tell me, directly, how the United States should work. How our Death Row is inhumane comes to mind. This from someone in Spain. How our DNA profiling for incoming travelers is absurd. This from someone in Australia. That's all well and good. I don't have a problem with you thinking differently, but I have a problem when you think you're entitled to tell us what you think because you have a say in how we do things. You DON'T.

You know me... I'm tolerant of Apple. But just barely. I got an iPod because it was the only decent replacement for my old Diamond Rio PMP300. If the Zune was available at the time, I probably would have purchased it, instead because, as I've already said: I'm just barely tolerant of Apple.

If you make a habit of reading my Twitter posts, you would have come across a very unpleasant thought about iTunes. There I was, minding my own business... I wanted to listen to some music, so I decided to open iTunes because since I have an iPod, I might as well process my library into iTunes as well. I had playlists, podcasts and almost half my music library rated. I had album art for every single piece of music I had in the database, and I very much enjoyed listening to the Top Rate and Most Played auto-playlists, and I was looking forward to poking around! I open iTunes and it takes an awfully long time to load... As in, more than usual. iTunes is a freakin' mammoth of a program. If you don't believe me, just take a look at the RAM footprint of this thing. For all the flak that Windows Media Player gets, even WMP uses half the RAM that iTunes does. (And doesn't do what I'm about do tell you.)

When iTunes finally shows up... The entire library is blank. Zip... Nothing is in it. It's a perfectly default iTunes. There is not a single song in the library. Somehow, without any errors or any indications as to why it happened, iTunes decided to ERASE all the information I had in it. Luckily, it didn't go ahead and wipe out the actual music files... Only the iTunes library files. I check the folder and the latest backup it created was from a year ago, almost to the day. You know how much has changed since then? The library I had this month is nothing like what I had a year ago.

This happened two weeks ago and I'm still steamed about it. I haven't gotten around to restoring the music yet because, hey! Guess what? If I sync my iPod again, it'll erase EVERYTHING and then proceed to resync EVERYTHING. 33 gigabytes of music removed and reuploaded to the iPod because iTunes decided it would be fun to erase the library without any warning. No errors, no dialog boxes, nothing. It started up and was empty... It's as simple as that. I am now officially less than tolerant of Apple. For all the gloating snobbishness that Apple fanboys (and even Steve Jobs himself) shoves out onto the Internet, you'd think that they would have at least streamlined iTunes as a program, and definitely not let something like this happen. At least... I would think so. But no, Apple is too busy telling you how privileged and honored you are to use their applications. (Remember that big interview with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs on the stage at the same time? It was last year I believe... Maybe the year before. Jobs himself said that Apple products on a Windows system were like having a glass of water in Hell. Too bad it's just another one of his reality distortion field-reliant lies. It doesn't work on Windows users, mister... And when iTunes goes and does something like this, it makes it all the more easy to laugh at your mass-delusions.)

So I am now taking this time to relocated my music files to my Linux server and then mapping the network share to a drive letter (M:\ for music, if you wish to know) and to look into alternative music players. Actually, I've already decided on Windows Media Player to have everything ready for when I get a Zune, but I need to look into third-party applications to sync music to my iPod. There's a Windows Explorer program that you can sync music with (using the context menu on MP3 files), but there's a WMP plugin that's looking far more promising. I would much rather have a WMP library sync'ed than me having to manually right-click folders to transfer.

So I'm sure everyone knows by now that California, in their infinite wisdom, overturned the voter's wishes and overturned a ban on same sex marriage. Somehow, the liberals see this is as a blow to conservatism. Let's go over the facts, shall we?

Actually, there's only one. Look:

Proposition 22, the initiative overturned Thursday, passed in 2000 with the support of 61% of California voters. But recent polls have found the state's voters are now evenly split on same-sex marriage.

The liberal courts overturned a voter support of 61%, which was passed in 2000. Did you catch that? The LA Times only just barely did... They managed to tack that little paragraph down on the very, very bottom. It means that the liberal courts don't care what you, the voting citizens want. All that work? Poof! Gone because a judge thought it was in his best interest to nullify something the people wanted... And, somehow, the liberal media thinks this is bad for CONSERVATIVES? Talk about delusional... If anything? This shows people exactly how cavalier the liberals are with the courts. They have no qualms ignoring you to advance their agenda.

You know, polls matter squat. They're unofficial methods of testing the water. What matters are the people who bothered to turn up to vote. But we all know how people enjoy not bothering to vote and then complain and whine when things don't go their way... But let's say that this issue does become a point in the elections? With an even split like that, it could very well make or break a campaign.

It's kind of like what's going on here in Indiana, only we're not so far. Our government hasn't released the bill for voting, yet, and they're perfectly ready to let it stall out and not even let people see it. Why? You know... Why do they do this? If they had any reason to think that the people would vote FOR same-sex marriage, they'd release it and use it to smash us conservatives with the raw numbers. But they're not... They're hiding behind their courts and filibusters and postponing the bill long enough for it to die without seeing the light of day because they're afraid that the people WANT A BAN and to their political agenda, that's simply unacceptable.