Once again, I'm preparing a list of components to buy with my new computer... Up on the list today? Case fans. I'm looking at 120mm monsters that push 133.6 cubic feet per minute. These dudes really move the air. I'll need one or two for the processor heatsink, and a few to fill out the case, even though it comes with a healthy array of fans on its own. That in itself? Probably pretty boring for anyone who doesn't like designing computers as a hobby. You'd be surprised how much goes into planning air flow and power consumption. (When you get a bunch of fans, they become a considerable power drain that you need to factor in when you get a power supply unit.) But yeah, I won't bore you with all the lovely details... I just wanted to share the most amazing fan review I've ever seen:

Pros: Great fan, huge upgrade, took my on air temps from 74C down to 66C (overclocking).

Cons: Blows almost as much hot air as Obama...he's more like 150CFM. Get to work Scythe!

Other Thoughts: -@100% it's loud (of course)
-I can't set bios to 30% (for when not using all of CPU) or the fan seems to spin at 10% or something and the PWM sends crazy signals (like 41kRPM) to my bios, locking it up. 50% seems to work fine, I assume 40% will work fine too as we should be within the 1k RPMs that this thing can handle.

I think I found a fan for me... I mean, I was seriously considering it before I saw that, but I think that seals the deal for me. Ahh, what's better than computers or politics? How about computers AND politics? Pretty awesome...

UPDATE 1: The Wikipedia article for the Bush Doctrine has changed so much that my link no longer works, so I have adapted the link in this post to show the revision I had read at the time. At the time of this update, the article shows the four interpretations of the Bush Doctrine way up at the beginning instead of down at the bottom. If you want to see the current article, here's the link, but the link I offer farther down is to the archived revision that I originally linked to.

I made a mistake already... Can you point it out? People who know what "The Bush Doctrine" really is will know. If you don't know, then you're probably one of the people who think Sarah Palin is an idiot for asking Charlie Gibson what he meant by "The Bush Doctrine." Do you know what the mistake is? Let me tell you:

There is no such thing as THE Bush Doctrine. No such thing... Oh, there is A Bush Doctrine. "The" insinuates that there is a single defintion for "Bush Doctrine." There is, in fact, FOUR of them. All you have to do is look up the Wikipedia article for it and you can see the history of the term. The first instance of the term was used in February 2001 in reference to President Bush's decision to pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. The second instance was used in an entirely different context on September 11th when President Bush declared that nations were either with us in the war against terror, or against us. The third instance was used to argue that we have the right to preemptively attack anyone who we think might be a threat to us. The fourth instance, which is the common definition today, is the idea that in order to guarantee the freedom of our democracy in the United States, we need to aid and defend the democracies of other countries. There are, indeed, FOUR definitions of "Bush Doctrine." There is no "THE Bush Doctrine" and this is why Sarah Palin was entirely correct to be "confused" and ask Charlie Gibson what he meant by the Bush Doctrine.

Taken from the transcript posted on The Mark Levin Show:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush — well, what do you — what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that’s the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?

In fact, it was Gibson who was way off base here. He called it "THE Bush Doctrine"... And you should have seen the way he reacted to Palin not falling into the trap. He sighed and just barely contained his disgust before finally coming out to say that he was talking about the third definition of the Bush Doctrine! The one where we are allowed to preemptively attack whoever we think might be a treat. Once he clearly defined what he was talking about, Sarah Palin launched into what she thought. (Of course, if you read the transcript and watch the footage, you'll see that Gibson cut out a lot of what she said in response.) It's one of those (pardon the expression) damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't questions. If Palin went off and answered what she thought he was talking about, people would have pegged her with having no idea what she was talking about... Of course, even when she does the appropriate thing and asks what he's talking about, people STILL point and laugh and say she doesn't know what she's talking about. What's really amazing, though, is that the people who are pointing and laughing are only showing their own ignorance. Seriously... This information is on Wikipedia, for crying out loud. You really have no excuse. You remember when I mentioned that you'd probably be better off not reading the YouTube comments for Palin's ABC interview? I said that mostly in reference to the fact that there were so many obscene comments that were making fun of her over her questioning Gibson's "Bush Doctrine." YouTube brings out the worst in people as it is... You can only imagine the depth of horror that gets dredged up in comments about conservatives.

In fact, as if to highlight the dimwittedness of the mainstream media, there is an article I heard about on The Peter Heck Show... It's an article written for CBS News titled: "The Sarah Palin Phenomenon Is Doomed". Among other things (which are lies, of course), he attributes Sarah Palin's stardom to... You guessed it. The mainstream media. Don't believe me? Take a look-see:

This is how the world works in the age of 24/7 news cycles. Whether the subject is Britney Spears, Michael Jordan or Sarah Palin, we inevitably raise stars to mythic levels, out of all reasonable proportions. Then we knock them down.

Jon Friedman dares attribute Palin's "phenomenon" to the mainstream media unnaturally and artificially raising her standing with the public. He says it'll be nothing but a matter of time before they knock her down. His words... Not mine. He claims this despite the fact that, since Day 1... Since the day McCain announced Sarah Palin, the mainstream media has subjected her (in Peter Heck's words, if I may borrow them) "to a full body cavity search." Seriously! They've done nothing, since Day 1, but dive deeper into her past than anyone else in this campaign... They've dredged up mock scandals and flat-out lies that are constantly debunked and proven to be wrong. The great thing is that most of what the left accuses Palin of, we're able to use against Obama in such a way that it STICKS. The media dredges up left-wing blog lies and brings them to the public, they get debunked and everyone goes "wait, didn't Obama do something like that?" and then the media has a moment of "oops, forget we said anything" and then goes on to the next round of lies and false scandals. The fact is, unless she makes a huge blunder in the future, there's nothing they have on her, period. There is not a thing that they've been able to find that's managed to hurt her without costing the media and Obama's campaign dearly. But that's not all... Farther on down the page, Friedman manages to make fun of Palin's response to "THE Bush Doctrine"... As in, once again, singluar definition. And I quote:

Specifically, Palin seemed to have little idea about the Bush Doctrine, in which the U.S must spread democracy around the world to halt terrorist acts. When Gibson put it to her and asked if she agreed with the doctrine, she answered, "In what respect, Charlie?"

Some analysts have suggested that Gibson knew more about the Bush Doctrine than the vice-presidential candidate.

Friedman didn't even use the same definition of the Bush Doctrine that Gibson did! Outrageous... And then he goes to insinuate that Palin knew squat. Look... Friedman believes that the Bush Doctrine refers to the latest rendition of the term: The Fourth Bush Doctrine. The one where they say our best hope for securing the safety of the United States is to spread and defend the democracies in other countries. That's the fourth definition, not the third that Gibson himself said. Remember, he said the Bush Doctrine he was referring to was the idea that we can preemptively attack anyone we think is a threat to the United States. That's SLIGHTLY different than "spreading democracry around the world." Some analysts have suggested that Gibson knew more about it, indeed... Well, you know what? "Some analysts" were WRONG. This just goes to prove that not even the mainstream media can keep the same definition of the Bush Doctrine. How is Palin (or anyone else for that matter) supposed to answer a question that's so ambiguous? The answer: Ask what they mean. She wasn't inexperienced or confused or stupid... She was doing what any person who knows about this should do: Ask what they mean. Clarify which definition is being referred to. That's not stupid, that's being sharp!

Sarah Palin is WAY more sharper and experienced than anyone who's laughed at her for being confused about the Bush Doctrine, period. Funny how those people are claiming she's unfit to be Vice President. Looks like she's passing all your tests with flying colors... Isn't that a good thing? No. Not to the liberals. They utterly can't stand this woman and they're going to do whatever it takes to crush her. It's amazing how everything they've thrown at her has backfired with epic proportions. They're killing themselves with the ammunition meant to kill her... It's fantastic!

No other way to say it... They're just crap. We're not "allowed" to question Obama being raised as a Muslim. We're not "allowed" to bring up the fact that he, for 20 years, attended a church with a blatantly racist pastor preaching there. We're supposed to buy into the fact that, even though he went to the church for 20 years of his young life, Obama never agreed with his pastor. (As if we're supposed to think that something this controversial wouldn't force Obama to leave? People leave churches over less.) The media is trying their absolute best to keep all this covered up and restricted, but then what do they do to Governor Palin? Why, they conduct "behind-the-scenes exposes" on how her Pentecostal Christian upbringing might poorly influence her judgments in the office.

What absolute bull honkey. You're going to try to tell me that Palin's Christian background might be scarier than Obama's Muslim and racist background? Really? After telling me that Obama's church and childhood isn't what we should be addressing? You're going to hold us to a completely different set of standards while you go out and do whatever it takes to find something bad about Palin? Outrageous. What pure, unadulterated bias, favoritism and hypocrisy. I am becoming increasingly disgusted with the mainstream media over their treatment of Sarah Palin. At first I thought it was funny... Sad, but funny. But this is getting ridiculous! How can anyone in their right mind think this is acceptable? I'll tell you what... The people who think this is acceptable AREN'T in their right minds. Nothing is sacred to them. Because conservatives and Republicans hold themselves to some kind of standard and liberals and Democrats don't, they think they can tell us how to act and then go out and violate those very rules themselves. I want it to be very clear that I'm not upset because Palin's church is being investigated, it's the fact that the media went out of their way to tell us that Obama's church should NOT be investigated. I think that this stuff needs to be done... Someone running for such high office needs to be examined closely and OBJECTIVELY and TRUTHFULLY. But it's not being done. The Republicans are, once again, being held to a far stricter and deeper scrutiny than the Democrats are. It's always been the case, but this year it's especially telling. You'd think that with all the dirt that they try to dump on Palin that doesn't stick that people would realize that she's an absolutely awesome candidate. We know exactly what McCain and Palin are like because there's no media screen to defend them. When we try to ask Obama about something, the media steps in and takes the dirt for him and we never see what he, himself, is like. Absolutely preposterous.

If you ask me, I think the mainstream media knows they're on their way out. They know they've lost every ounce of their objective reputation with the country at large... The media outlets have been losing shares for a long time now. News is migrating to the Internet, where people can get the news they want, when they want it, from wherever they want and from who they want. They can get liberal trash opinions if they want, they can hunt for that source that's truely objective, or they can find a source of news that flavors everything with a conservative opinion. The Internet is opening doors to a whole new kind of media and it's really showing during this election. It was just beginning to show in the 2004 Election, but it's really showing its colors during this election. By the time the next election rolls around, state elections or federal, I think the mainstream media outlets will have lost all influence simply because people are starting to notice just how hard they're working to get a Democrat in the White House. True objective reporting at major networks is dead, plain and simple. All you have to do is turn it on and wait until they talk about Palin... They know she united the Republican party and they're absolutely terrified of her... So much so that they have absolutely no qualms about dredging up liberal lies and conconcting scandals. When they find out that we're not quite so stupid and start pointing out that Obama has more scandal than Palin on these issues, they suddenly go hush-hush and try to bury everything before pulling out the next set of lies and scandal and everything repeats itself.

Pretty soon, folks, if it hasn't happened already, they're going to run out of things to hurt Palin with. In fact, since they've been pulling out lies about her from the very beginning seems to insinuate that there's nothing in her past that can be used against her. Lie after lie, scandal after scandal has been debunked and, more often than not, been used by Republicans to show some gaping hole in Obama's policies that haven't been addressed before because the mainstream media is acting as his personal body shield. When something gets twisted back toward Obama, the media tries to cover it up and you don't hear them making the same accusation about Palin more than a few times. Inexperience? Out the door. "Troopergate?" A lie. Bridge to Nowhere? Debunked. Book banning? False. Latest ones are "Jesus was a community organizer and Pilate was a governor" and "Palin is a Pentecostal Christian." Do you honestly want to go there? Do you really want to equate Obama to being the messiah once again? Not only did Jesus not incite riots or push anyone to do any political change, Pilate went on record saying that he would leave the decision to crucify Jesus up to the people. Did you even bother reading the story? You're saying Palin is like Pilate, when, sure... Okay. Go ahead! She's been saying all along that she wants government back in the hands of the people. That's what Pilate did, in essense. But seriously... That's only if you want to keep pressing that particular argument. Honestly, after having fought so long for separation of church and state, the Democrats sure have worked overtime addressing their religious factors. It's a poor attempt to woo Christians who actually know what the Bible says... You only demean yourselves. Palin is a Pentecostal? So what? Obama was a freaking Muslim, his father a radical in Africa, and his "Christian" preacher a radical anti-American racist. Do you REALLY want to go there? You better think very carefully before you start pointing at Palin. The demons you're hiding might make themselves known.

It just makes me sick... I hope people realize what's going on here. Republicans have been the brunt of media bias for a long time, but I think this year it's become crystal clear to everyone. Anyone who thinks otherwise is plain blind and ignorant. The liberal Democrats and the mainstream media are out to crush this threat to their grand agenda and they will sacrifice anything and everything in order to do it. The great thing is that this person to be crushed will bite back, and then the Obama campaign and the mainstream media will stumble back and whimper and cry that the McCain campaign is being so mean and spiteful. "How dare you attack Obama's person, you hateful, bitter, gun and religion clinging people?" It's like the bully in the school yard... They'll go and push and hurt and cause as much mayhem as possible because they know nobody will stand up to them, but then the new kid shows up who's dealt with oil tycoons and corrupt politicians. She knows how to deal with these types of people and she goes after them... And then the bully runs, crying to the Principle because some mean kid is hurting him, cleverly leaving out the parts of the story that show the bully inciting the situation. Only this time, the new kid in school has rallied the other kids and they're all witnesses to the true events.

Alright, I think I've got my point across. I'm done ranting... I should go watch X Files or something.

We all know (at least those of us in touch with reality) that interviews get edited... I don't know why, personally, but I know that they are. Personally, I would like to see the entire interview to make judgments for myself! I'm sure a lot of people are in the same boat as me... Enter Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. She was interviewed, for the first time, by the abhorrent, biased, callous, detestable, extraneous (how many nasty words can I come up with that go down the alphabet?) Charlie Gibson. I was pretty upset when I noticed just how hard an interview he put to Sarah Palin right off the bat, when this guy didn't press Obama on anything remotely the same. We all know the media is biased this year, but this is outrageous. There's even been mainstream media opinion that the interview was too harsh and clearly biased after having done Obama's interview so lightly.

Apparently, there were three parts to the interview conducted by Charlie Gibson. One was aired on Thursday, September 11, on World News... Second was aired on Thursday's Nightline, and the third and final was aired on Friday's World News. At least, according to this article, which also scolds Gibson for his clear intention to trap the "inexperienced" Sarah Palin in some lie or hard corner. (Never happened, though... She, several times, even used his name with a certain tone that reeked with: "Come on, Charlie... Don't be so naive." She ate him alive... Sarah Barracuda is living up to her name after all.) As I've said before, I don't ever watch TV, but I saw three articles that reviewed the interview and exposed Gibson's crazy questions and attempts to press her into saying things she doesn't mean to say... We've got an article for each part. Part 1: "Gibson Accuses Palin of 'Hubris' and Seeing Iraq as 'a Holy War'", Part 2: "Gibson Pushes Palin to Concede Global Warming 'Man-Made'", Part 3: "Gibson: Economy 'Sick,' Makes Palin Affirm Conservative Social Views". No other way around it... He went in, guns a-blazin', with the purpose of making her look like she had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

With all that background, I wanted to see the interview for myself, so I managed to find "Part 1" of the 3 part interview on YouTube lastnight. It's split into two videos... So... Essentially Chapter 1, Verses 1 and 2! The other 2 interviews are also on YouTube, but I'll just link you to them, since they're not really what I want to talk about. In fact, I got distracted covering the history... The point was to show you how much they cut out of this interview. There were things that could be left out, sure, but there were things that SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN. But, first, the videos. Be prepared to want to hurt Gibson if you watch them, though:

If you're as astute an observer as I am, you quickly noticed the clear cuts where they trimmed things out... You can hear sometimes where she's hasn't finished her sentence, but they cut her off, plain and simple. They didn't even do it cleanly. Some even say that the intention of the clear and rough cuts was to give an aura of unprofessionalism... I don't know if I'd go that far, but I do think that they just don't care as much about Sarah Palin's treatment as they did Barack Obama's. But it turns out that what they cut out were things she very much intended to be heard. The stuff he cut out was rarely his own questions, but almost always an answer that just destroys his attempts to show her as inexperienced. Sure, some things cut out were cut out because they were just the two trying to get on the same page, and some were entire questions and answers blotted out, but it's safe to say that NOTHING should have been cut out. It was all important and it all showed how professional, calm, collected and EXPERIENCED Sarah Palin is.

Here's a transcript that the Mark Levin Show provided us all of the REAL interview. (Here's the NewsBusters article that alerted me to Levin's transcript.) The uncut interview... Some of your are movie-goers. Consider this a peak at the way the movie was supposed to be seen, before the director went in and changed it. (Think of it like the fabled "Han Solo Shot First" fiasco in Star Wars.) After watching the video and comparing it to the script, you can't help but wonder exactly how crushing Sarah Palin would have been had they left all that intact. Gibson had no choice but to cut out some of these amazing answers... He interviewed her to test the waters and see if she could be tempted into two-faced opinions, but she couldn't, and then he tried to hide it as best as he could without being too obvious. That failed... It failed when people watched it and saw the rough cuts like that... Clearly cut off in the middle of a sentence. You can tell her words weren't naturally stopped like at a period! She was still holding her words like people do when in the middle of sentences. That's absolutely pathetic, Charlie. If you were afraid to look like a moron in front of the entire nation, you would have been better off keeping the entire interview intact. That would at least give the illusion that you were concerned with objective reporting. Clearly this is not the case. As the first comment on NewsBusters says: "Bias is exhibited not only by what is reported, but also by what is not."

That concludes what I wanted to mention, but, as promised, here are the links to the other two interview segments, which are split up into multiple parts due to YouTube's time constraints:

Segment Two: Part One

Segment Three: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

Do yourself a favor and watch them, but I would advise against reading the YouTube comments beneath them... Nasty little inconsiderate, clueless and disrespectful morons the lot of them. If you want a laugh at how blind they are, feel free, but I know some of you don't appreciate being exposed to the darkness of the liberal left, so I'm giving you fair warning. Also, as we now have proof of foul play with this interview, I would take things with a grain of salt. Not with what Palin says, but with how Gibson cut the interview to shreds and adds his own questionable tidbits to the introduction. Still, I think she clearly aced the interview and the Democrats and the mainstream media are both still terrified of her... But they dredged up the already debunked "Troopergate scandal", the already explained "Bridge to Nowhere" fiasco, and the fact that she charges the state government for traveling and lodging costs for her family... Let's completely forget that it's far, far cheaper the way she's doing it, after having sold the governor's jet and all that. "Technically allowed but frowned upon" my tail... How much would the state have to pay if she lived in the governor's mansion? That would all be paid for by the state and would be acceptable, but... It's a mansion. It's going to be more expensive than just living at her own home. Of course, we could ask what Alaska thinks about her doing that... Oh wait, did I hear the introduction say themselves that she has an approval rating of over 80% and that she's the most approved of governor in the entire country? Well, I guess that answers that.

So... I'd heard of this video floating around about a soldier from Iraq who filmed a sort of open letter to Barack Obama to tell him and everyone else why he's voting for John McCain. It's been out for a couple weeks... I'm not really one to watch YouTube videos, but I've recently started to do that more often in an attempt to watch debates and flubs and gaffes that the mainstream media is too embarrassed to air again, and I decided to check this video out, since it was mentioned on the Rush In a Hurry email I got today. So glad I did! Comments will be closed, since the poster of the video said they don't want any disrespectful comments and, frankly, neither do I! Also, when you watch, the fellow will turn and walk away from the camera... It took me two views to notice, but I want you to pay close attention when he does. These guys (including the man in the video and John McCain) deserve every bit of the respect and honor due them. To question them on it, as the liberals are so apt to do, is just outright despicable. (And here some people seem to think that graduating from Harvard puts them on par with these heroes.)

Anyway, without further ado, the video:

Oh, for some reason, I just remembered I never gave you folks a picture of my Uru shoes. Behold:

Uru hiking shoes! Size 10.5 EE Redwing Shoes... You know, in case you wanted to know what size my feet are. EE means the widest size they got. My feet are flat and wide... Hurts to walk and hard to find footware that fits. But these remedy both problems in one fell swoop. I made sure to buy the special padding, too, so that's extra goodness. Now all I need is that violet purple Myst hat with that white Myst Island shirt and I'll be ready to climb ladders in Kadish Tolesa. Figuratively speaking... Because... I hate heights... And if Kadish Tolesa was a real place, I would go back to Relto in a heartbeat after seeing the gaping pit of darkness and despair that you have to creep around in that first room with the mechanical pattern wheel telescope thing. Of course, Relto would probably be just as bad... Tiny island high up in the sky with nothing but roiling fog on all sides. At least water gives the illusion of no drop... At least you float in water, too.

Yeah, I would not do well if Uru was real. Though the D'ni cavern... Underground? Dark? Perfect.

Alright... I have a confession to make. I was wrong. About what, you ask? Oh, nothing about my political views... Don't worry. Those are spot on, as usual. No, I was wrong about Wikipedia's stance on sources. You know, the one where they say they only accept verifiable sources, which so happens to be published sources and not self-published sources such as blogs and forums. I just wanted to say that in an odd moment of "shoe on the other foot" (paw?), I realized that their way of treating information is the way I treat information.

Quick story: Had a comment on my Patriot Day post... From a radical liberal. He even spouted the leftist trash that President Bush is a war criminal. Wow. Didn't think I'd attract one of those folks.

(The comment in question, by the way, is currently in the moderation queue because the guy pretty much pasted other blog posts in an effort to prove the point of the first comment... In fact, all comments, for the time being, will be held in moderation, whether you've been previously approved or not. The reason for this is that, in a lapse of judgment, I left the comments open for my Patriot Day post hoping that someone would come along and share positive thoughts. Of course, this is the Internet... People who agree with you don't comment. (Except Jesthar did for the Patriot Day post, yay!) Only the people who have a problem with you will! Thus, until further notice, all comments are moderated as a sort of experiment... I'm trying to find a balance. I don't like having obnoxious comments sit there in the open while I formulate an idea of what to do with it. I'm still debating whether or not I should even respond to it, since it's pretty much just a rough copy/paste job from two other opinion blogs... It's really, really long and really, really boring and it doesn't have sources... Which leads me back to the original thought!)

Morton (the name provided by the fellow) splattered a bunch of liberal spew from other blogs on this comment of his... I took one look at it and choked on the cookie I was eating. Chocolate chip cookie, actually. Yum. Anyway! I started to read it... I did, I swear. I read every comment posted here, even if it doesn't make it to the public for one reason or another. I found the two links he had buried in the thing and I went to visit them, too. One was pretty much the blog of some self-professed journalist who went on and on and on about "common truths" that "wouldn't be colored by his opinion" regarding the Iraq War. It started off true enough... But quickly degenerated into paragraphs of things I'd never heard of before, things that couldn't be called anything short of a rumor, and things that were obviously colored by his opinion even after he said it wouldn't be. In short, it was a blog... Blogs make no bones about having bias. They have no editor... They have no third party out there to hold them to a sense of accountability. I read this post and the very first thing that came to mind, having been through an English Composition course in college, was: "Where are the sources for these so-called common truths?"

I said that to myself... Literally. And then skimmed over the rest of the article looking for sources that weren't there and then I checked out the second link which was also an opinion piece. It had sources, but not sources for the claims that would prove Morton's point. More liberal spew without anything to back it up. Which is sort of why I haven't even bothered to post it... They're not even his ideas. He lifted them from other blog articles (from last year) and dumped them in my lap to read and sift through on my own. Not the way to get your point across... I can understand handing someone a link from a reliable source and telling them to read it, but handing someone a link to someone's opinion is NOT something I can understand. This is, in fact, what I mulled over in my head while I was taking a shower. (Which is how my phrase "Showertime Speculation" came into being.) I was thinking about how I would react to this post and then... It hit me. Morton (and the bloggers he linked to) considers these points to be "common truths" that don't need sources to verify the claims... The thing is, I'm someone who needs facts before I'll even consider changing my mind. Don't even try to convince me of something unless you have undeniable proof on your side or I won't change. If you've attended any seminar from the Institute in Basic Life Principles, you'll know what I mean when I say that I have the spiritual gift of Teaching... One of the perks of being a Teacher is that once you believe something, nothing will sway you unless you have comprehensive proof to the contrary. I won't take anyone's opinion as truth... I just won't. It's unacceptable to me.

And then I realized that's what I said was so insane about Wikipedia... They they don't accept "common truths" and that you need a verifiable source. They hold themselves to a strict standard so nobody's opinions get in the way... (Well, that's the theory. Mainstream media is considered a verifiable source and their opinions clearly get in the way of their reports, but that's another story entirely.) It's easy to think you're in the know of something important like Spore's DRM and to think that it's a perfectly fine thing to put in the article... But the fact is, someone else might not believe you and if you don't have hard evidence to back you up, then you're out of luck. Now... I still think Wikipedia has some problems with the sources thing. I mean, clearly Spore has nasty DRM and you can actually test it for yourself and find out it's true, so I still take issue with that. But the foundation behind my arguement was flawed... I made it too broad and I was wrong. For things that can't be tested on your own and for things that can't be witnessed on your own, you need verifiable sources to prove it... And that's what Morton neglected to provide, and that's what the other bloggers neglected to provide: Verifiable proof. It took someone trying to disprove me so I would go and look at the evidence they were providing to startle me out of one of my own beliefs. In all definitions of the phrase, the shoe was on the other foot!

So there you have it... It's incredibly difficult to sway my opinion on something, but it's not impossible. I'm not above fallibility, and if given the right information, I will change my mind on things. And just for the record, TW tried to defend the stance of Wikipedia earlier today... (Or yesterday now, I guess.) But I have to say that he wasn't presenting his idea very well, either, so I wasn't buying it. Which raises another point... If there's something that's true, but you can't relay that information in a strong way, then you might as well not know anything at all. Which is something worth thinking about for Christians especially, who are notorious for claiming all sorts of things about the Bible, but when they're questioned about it, don't know exactly how to answer for whatever reason... Even in that case, even if they know the truth, they may as well not know anything if they don't know how to tell people. I recall that in a sermon I heard some time ago... Or maybe from Peter Heck... Maybe both! I don't know...

In conclusion, I've retracted my opinion on Wikipedia's policy on verifiable sources, though I still think things that can be tested by any single person should have different rules... But for things that can't be witnessed in realtime, the policy is quite solid, because that's what I adhere to. After all this, I still haven't decided to post that comment or not... I recall having someone paste a bunch of jargon like this before and I held it back for the very same reasons. I don't think it's fair that I'm here, coming up with my own ideas and spending sometimes hours to come up with an intelligent post and response, and someone slithers in (most likely without any intention of returning) and deposits a bunch of unverifiable blog entries from other people, takes a shot at my character, and then slithers off again without any real discussion going on. I'll tell ya' what... This is my blog. I try to be fair, but sometimes I think people cross the line and I get fed up. I'm all for healthy discussion, but if you're not going to put any effort into what you write, then I'm not going to dignify it with a response or even let your comment grace my site. Like I said earlier, I don't like it that hateful comments are left floating out there without a response... It's not that I don't know how to answer it, it's because I either haven't had the time to research and think or because I don't think it's worth answering to begin with. I actually read and research and formulate my own opinions, thank you very much. I don't regurgitate some baseless opinion from another site across the Internet. Honestly, one of the articles Morton linked to me had a source to The Daily Kos... Seriously. The Daily Kos is probably the epitome of unverifiable, self-published diarrhea of the mouth. What a source to use to try to convince me, a conservative, that President Bush lied to us about the reasons for the war. If you're going to use a biased outlet, you'd be better off using Rush Limbaugh instead.