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| Click to magnify. |
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All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
The real definition of insanity from The Wrong Dictionary
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All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Half a Million Secessionists Impotently Petition White House
By Will Conley
As of Tuesday night, Nov. 13, 2012, more than 500,000 Americans have signed online petitions at the WhiteHouse.gov petition portal, requesting permission from President Obama to let their states consider seceding from the Union — including a few hundred from my home state of Minnesota.
That the number of signatures on the Minnesota petition at the time of this writing is commensurate with a concurrent petition to let a university have their Injun mascot back is illustrative of the fact that the secessionists' bark is louder than their bite. Also, that apparently only racists ever petition the White House. (Not true. Joke.) (Wait, Will, how can a bite be loud? Well I suppose if it's a really gnashing, cartoony-sounding bite...)
The maps below — which I created merely to shock and frighten you — show how the United States would be carved up if the election-losing crybab- er, secessionist movement ever managed to drag their states into a civil war. The first map represents the state of the petition situation as of Monday night. The second reflects the massive surge in popularity just 24 hours later.
But don't polish your muskets just yet. The secessionist movement is little more than a temper tantrum thrown by a small minority of the roughly 314 million people whom the U.S. Census Bureau deems Americans. A few points to remember:
Conclusion: It's very, very safe to point and laugh at these clueless wannab- er, brave revolutionaries. Your comments, whether sane or idiotic, are welcome.
Sources:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57548572/states-petition-to-secede-from-union/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/12/petitions-to-secede-are-filed-for-23-states-since-/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/secession-petitions-gain-steam-article-1.1201439
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/petition-to-secede-states_n_2120410.html
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
Maps created with the assistance of:
Defocus Blog: http://www.defocus.net/visitedstates/generate.html
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All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.
As of Tuesday night, Nov. 13, 2012, more than 500,000 Americans have signed online petitions at the WhiteHouse.gov petition portal, requesting permission from President Obama to let their states consider seceding from the Union — including a few hundred from my home state of Minnesota.
 |
| Click to magnify. |
That the number of signatures on the Minnesota petition at the time of this writing is commensurate with a concurrent petition to let a university have their Injun mascot back is illustrative of the fact that the secessionists' bark is louder than their bite. Also, that apparently only racists ever petition the White House. (Not true. Joke.) (Wait, Will, how can a bite be loud? Well I suppose if it's a really gnashing, cartoony-sounding bite...)
The maps below — which I created merely to shock and frighten you — show how the United States would be carved up if the election-losing crybab- er, secessionist movement ever managed to drag their states into a civil war. The first map represents the state of the petition situation as of Monday night. The second reflects the massive surge in popularity just 24 hours later.
 |
| Click to magnify. |
 |
| Click to magnify. |
But don't polish your muskets just yet. The secessionist movement is little more than a temper tantrum thrown by a small minority of the roughly 314 million people whom the U.S. Census Bureau deems Americans. A few points to remember:
► The petitions do not reflect the will of the state governments in which the petitioners reside. Governor Perry of Texas, for example, expressly does not support the Texas secessionist movement, even though in the past he has hinted at his sympathy with the movement in an effort to garner more votes.
► Anyone can start a petition. You only need one person to start a petition and thus "represent" a state.
► If a petition receives 25,000 signatures, all that means is the president is legally obligated to respond in words to the petition.
► Most of the petitions are copycats of one another and do not reflect separate spontaneous movements to secede. That means most of the secession rhetoric is bandwagoneering, and most of the petitioners couldn't have spelled the words in the petitions independently let alone comprehend the full meaning of those words.
► It's a safe bet that there's at least one These-Colors-Do-Run quitter in each state, so I guesstimate all 50 states and the District of Columbia will have petitions by the weekend. That means that if a secession movement could even remotely succeed (it can't, not in this police state), then the whole country would have to secede from itself. It would be like a kid threatening his brother to take the ball and go home — while the two were still standing in their own back yard.
Conclusion: It's very, very safe to point and laugh at these clueless wannab- er, brave revolutionaries. Your comments, whether sane or idiotic, are welcome.
Sources:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57548572/states-petition-to-secede-from-union/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/12/petitions-to-secede-are-filed-for-23-states-since-/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/secession-petitions-gain-steam-article-1.1201439
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/petition-to-secede-states_n_2120410.html
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
Maps created with the assistance of:
Defocus Blog: http://www.defocus.net/visitedstates/generate.html
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All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Towards a Better Living Reality Through Language
All human verbal language is mental programming. When you type, write, or speak, you are causing your audience to make a copy of the message in their own minds. Some minds are more open than others to linguistic programming; others have more Byzantine spam blockers, anti-virus scanners, and password-protected firewalls. But those very security measures too are mere languages, just slightly more sophisticated. If you speak those languages and understand their contours, you can navigate or bypass them, write new programs, and rewrite existing programs.
Many of the programs we write in each other’s minds are useful and help us in our lives. Some programs are detrimental to the overall performance of the mind, or coax us to do things we otherwise might not. Others are benign or neutral. We are programming each other at all times. We all influence the direction of each other’s very will, the objects of our desire, and even the power switch on our volition. When we use language to transfer concepts, those concepts can turn to action, and thus we help to determine the fate of the human world and, by extension, the rest of the natural world.
And just what is a concept? How big is it? What color is it? The answer is concepts have no size, no color, in fact no physical attributes whatsoever. Even the printed word is merely a placeholder for concepts, which still we cannot see with our eyes or touch with our hands. From this nothingness, from this conceptual world that exists only in our minds and moves in our languages, we produce a somethingness in the physical world, the measurable world where agony and triumph and the dirt of daily doings occur. Thus language is not just programming, but alchemy. It is the dead mud from which the living, breathing, skin-slick swamp frog spontaneously generates. Language is medieval science proven correct.
Language is an inexhaustible resource. That is, you have access to an infinite amount of language and thus can influence the world infinitely by controlling the minds of others through language. One thing you can do with language is awaken the mind to itself, to show itself where it twists and turns, where its weaknesses lie, how it can be turned against itself. You can arm your audience with the self-knowledge necessary to protect itself, grow gracefully, and take such shape as can advance the spirit and the body towards a better living reality.
Is this frightening, the idea that we can control each other through language, or that we are being controlled through it all the time? Is it disconcerting to admit that language has such power and that we utilize it whether we want to or not? Not after you’ve admitted it to be true. If like X-Men‘s Wolverine you were born with a titanium skeleton and retractable knives in your hands, would you want to know it? Of course you would. And wouldn’t you want to use it to do good? Most of us would say yes.
So let’s set aside for the moment the idea of pure free will. We are all programmed zombies to some extent. Let’s try to be aware of it, and let’s try to learn as much as possible about language. Let’s see how free we can make our wills, by understanding and even celebrating the ways in which our will is not free at all, but subject to the predilections of others’ use of language. Read much. Write some. Think. Cultivate inner silence, so that we can hear the true nature of the words when they do arrive.
Language is power over others and self. I wish you good luck in your quest to master it.
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All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.
Many of the programs we write in each other’s minds are useful and help us in our lives. Some programs are detrimental to the overall performance of the mind, or coax us to do things we otherwise might not. Others are benign or neutral. We are programming each other at all times. We all influence the direction of each other’s very will, the objects of our desire, and even the power switch on our volition. When we use language to transfer concepts, those concepts can turn to action, and thus we help to determine the fate of the human world and, by extension, the rest of the natural world.
And just what is a concept? How big is it? What color is it? The answer is concepts have no size, no color, in fact no physical attributes whatsoever. Even the printed word is merely a placeholder for concepts, which still we cannot see with our eyes or touch with our hands. From this nothingness, from this conceptual world that exists only in our minds and moves in our languages, we produce a somethingness in the physical world, the measurable world where agony and triumph and the dirt of daily doings occur. Thus language is not just programming, but alchemy. It is the dead mud from which the living, breathing, skin-slick swamp frog spontaneously generates. Language is medieval science proven correct.
Language is an inexhaustible resource. That is, you have access to an infinite amount of language and thus can influence the world infinitely by controlling the minds of others through language. One thing you can do with language is awaken the mind to itself, to show itself where it twists and turns, where its weaknesses lie, how it can be turned against itself. You can arm your audience with the self-knowledge necessary to protect itself, grow gracefully, and take such shape as can advance the spirit and the body towards a better living reality.
Is this frightening, the idea that we can control each other through language, or that we are being controlled through it all the time? Is it disconcerting to admit that language has such power and that we utilize it whether we want to or not? Not after you’ve admitted it to be true. If like X-Men‘s Wolverine you were born with a titanium skeleton and retractable knives in your hands, would you want to know it? Of course you would. And wouldn’t you want to use it to do good? Most of us would say yes.
So let’s set aside for the moment the idea of pure free will. We are all programmed zombies to some extent. Let’s try to be aware of it, and let’s try to learn as much as possible about language. Let’s see how free we can make our wills, by understanding and even celebrating the ways in which our will is not free at all, but subject to the predilections of others’ use of language. Read much. Write some. Think. Cultivate inner silence, so that we can hear the true nature of the words when they do arrive.
Language is power over others and self. I wish you good luck in your quest to master it.
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All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Innocuous Tweet Ignites Raging Twitter Controversy
Note: These tweets were embedded using SocialDitto, a really cool service created by WebProNews partner and PHP developer (and nice guy and professional) Dale Smith of iEntry, Inc. but that I trashed a few posts ago. Hey, I always promise to be honest; I never promise to be correct! :)
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All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.
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