http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/24/d.....#ixzz1nP1mXYuv

"Kovich also determined that PETA employees kill 84 percent of the animals in their custody within 24 hours of receiving them."

People who've known me a while know I've never been a fan of PETA OR animal rights (no such thing really) but even I believe that when you take custody of an animal that animal becomes your responsibility and if your only intention is to kill it... perhaps you should have left it alone.

Just sayin'.

I let it go... one more time agaaaaaaaiiiiiiin.....

Fcking song stuck in my head.

I took a closer look at my before picture and believe it or not it was taken March 22 not Feb 17th.... which is good, because I completely bombed out of my diet the week I was studying for the route test... which I passed.... (EEEEEeeeeeee!)

So Yeah, back in the groove and back into running, though as it turns out I had to take almost a week off after that whole rage run thing because I had borderline shin splints from the deal... ran the three today in 27:43 which.... yeah, gives you an idea just how fcking pissed I was the other day. That and when you take a week off you can't expect to come back and beat any best times. :P Though on a better note I did run the first mile and a half of that in 13 minutes flat which is actually a few seconds BETTER than the overall time from the rage run as an average.

yeah... people who watch this journal give less than a shit about my run times. :)

I've got more interesting news including a visit home to Texas at the end of March and the fact that the last test for the CCNP is apparently cheesy easy, so I should soon be able to start writing again! Yay!

Dream Taker is still largely incommunicado, so BtV is still on the rocks. boooo.

I've been offered a place on the contract extension here in Kuwait that will last through the end of September and barring a better opportunity I will probably take it. There's an inside straight chance I may land a job in Okinawa if a bid by my current employer goes through for Kadena... which would be SWEET!

Wish me luck. :P

I'm often annoyed, but very rarely truly enraged. This is because I really just don't care about most people enough to get angry about anything they might say or do as long as they aren't actively stealing from or injuring me or someone I care about.

Today was one of those rare occasions, because the object of my rage was one of the very few people I trust, and who today spewed at me the most hateful crap I think I've ever heard. Objectively it probably wasn't even that bad, but the fact that it was who it was, and directed without irony or sarcasm at me... just... Had I been in the man's presence I'd have fed him his teeth and curb stomped his pasty face into pizza topping.

As it was, I came home and ran the best three mile I've ever run.

in.

my.

life.

3 miles in 26:19. My previous best was 3 in 26:49, and that was while I was in the Air Force back in '04.

The worst part is when I was done I felt like I could have kept going. The flame hadn't dimmed a bit. I still crave violence. This ill-used unwashed hypocritical tub o' lard was once a mentor of mine and now I want to crush him just to remind him that men are made, not born, and respect is a reward, not an entitlement.

But he did give me the best time of my life... *winces at the sheer audacity of the pun*

Perhaps I can forgive him just for that.

Passed the route portion of the CCNP exam series. Two down... one to go.

01001111011011100110110001111001001000000110100101101110001000000111010001101000011001010010000001100110011011110110111101110100011100110111010001100101011100000111001100100000011011110110011000100000011001110111001001100101011000010111010001101110011001010111001101110011001011000010000001110011011010000110000101101100011011000010000001101000011001010010000001110000011100100110111101100011011001010110010101100100

3A3A:5654:5258:3A3A:4365:6265:6C69:7573 /64

But I'm coming up on the one year mark for a goal I set for myself called Devolution of a Fat Man.

I've done well by most accounts, but unless I starve myself I will not reach my goal. The best I can do is get CLOSE, and make up the difference in the next year's goal... Evolution of a Fit Man.

Yeah, my titles may need work, but they will at least be accurate.

I've got a picture up that's me... about 20 pounds short of my ultimate goal. I don't look bad... but I'm not where I need to be.

The picture I've posted is more to motivate me than show off... now that it's out in the open I have no choice but to DEMAND improvement.

It shall be so.... still, I look at myself, all the hard work that went into what's there... and all I can think is, "Damn... so far yet to go..."

I hate horror movies. I really do. 9 times out of ten, maybe 19 out of twenty, they suck. There are several reasons for this and I'll mention a few:

No point.

In most horror movies there's no point to the action other than to see how people can be killed or tortured. They don't bother overmuch with why, just how. This is pointless unless you are a sadist looking for good reference material.
ex: Final Destination

No attachment.

Most horror movies are stocked with characters whose chief attributes are sexy appeal, how dramatically they can utter stock lines uttered in EVERY horror movie, and how loudly (and sexily) they can scream. These characters do not draw anything remotely resembling empathy. They are not worthy of consideration, and if you WANT these people to die in horrible ways that detracts from the point of the movie, which is, ostensibly, to horrify.
ex: Freddie/Jason/Meyers, et al.

No hope.

One of the reasons there is more often than not no point to a horror movie is that at some point or another you find out there is in fact no HOPE of success, and oftentimes no hope even of survival. Nothing robs a scene of its dramatic elements quite like knowing that from a thousand choices can rise only one outcome. Futility sucks, and so do plots with no hope.
ex: Jeepers Creepers

For these and several other reasons I shall not bother to enumerate here, I hate horror... BUT:

There are some movies classified as horror that ARE worth watching. I shall list a few. If you think there are some that fit the bill filled by some of the following movies, then by all means add them to the list. Bear in mind that because I hate horror there are a LOT of horror movies I haven't seen. Following each recommendation I'll give a few brief thoughts. In no particular order....

House: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091223/
I like House for a couple of different reasons. 1) While it does have elements of horror in it, it is in fact actually an adventure comedy film disguised as horror. It's got some VERY campy moments, but you wind up caring for the central character who is in fact COMPETENT. Best of all, this film is not hopeless. Now, the plot is rather farfetched but... hell it's a horror movie. Grab some popcorn.

Cube: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/
The characters are unique and the acting is solid despite this being a fairly low budget canadian affair. Also notable is that there is absolutely no camp in this movie, anywhere. It is a suspense thriller with a bit of gore, but the gore is neither overstated nor is it the point of the movie, which makes it tolerable. I haven't seen any of the sequels yet, but I plan to. Once again, there is hope here. I also like the fact that while the outer shell of the story is not explained, everything within the cube is very specific and it all has a purpose. The threat is driven by the characters themselves, not some unknown hunter. Novel. Awesome.

1408: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450385/
John Cusak stars in a story about a man with no faith who ironically makes a living writing about hauntings and haunted locations. He meets his match in room 1408 of the Dolphin hotel. This movie is genuinely frightening in the classic sense, fear of the unknown, fear of being driven insane. A psychological thriller; be sure and watch the alternate ending.

Sleepy Hollow: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162661/
If you're a gamer, you'll like this movie. One of the forerunners of Sherlock Homes except this one really DOES have a supernatural twist. This is tagged horror mostly for ambiance and gore, but this is really more of an adventure film than horror.

The Rite: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1161864/
Suspense thriller.... very good. Anthony Hopkins puts in an excellent performance.

The Wolfman: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780653/
Action adventure thinly disguised as horror. Great gamer flick.

I looked at the rules at the hotel and if I cancel right up to the day before checkin there's no charge, so why the hell not?

Found out a few days ago that my contract here in Kuwait will end on the 31st of March. Now there are all kinds of things that might keep me out of the states, ITT wants me to sign on with THEM, AT&T wants to send me somewhere else, and a few other companies are looking to pick me up for various other locations... so I have no idea yet whether or not I'll make the con.

If I do; I got my room reserved. :P

Will probably work security again too, just for old time's sake.

I'm ah... thinking of going. Well, little more than thinking about it; waiting for my registration approval so I can lay down the cash and start planning a vacation. 4 star hotel smack dab in the middle of the island. *sniff sniff* Smell that? Smells like... opportunity... Scotland? Castles? Highlands? Roadtrip in a rental? Why yes... promising....

Never really spent any time in Britain outside the airport; was thinking of making a week of it so I could take in some of the sites before the con.

Any suggestions? Anyone GOING? So far there are only about what, 12 Americans registered.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhac.....ature=youtu.be

Psh... I know it's nothin much... BUT... I killed Krosis RIGHT NEXT TO HIS BITCH DRAGON. That's how damn tight my roguish talents are laid down... and all real thieves are heavily addicted to dru- er... potions.

Rocky Patel Olde World Reserves
Keurig
Tea Gschwendner
An alternate, anonymous account where I can dump all the fetish porn I've been writing recently whilst waiting for DT's return to the interwebs
Gym Time
An hour long track of nothing but the sound of a thunderstorm
Nat King Cole Christmas music
The fact that Middle Easterner's don't like Jingle Bell Rock either.
The feeling of a bundle of blankets in a cold room in the mornings before I have to get my lazy ass out of bed.
Family I love.
Friends I cherish
People who actually enjoy my work
A job that PAYS BANK BAYBAY
Being debt free owing to aforementioned job
Having the ability to help others AND myself
Diet Cherry Pepsi, even though there's none out here... anywhere.

Thank you Lord, for being the only one who GIVES gifts on His birthday. I have been well and truly blessed and I will be forever grateful come what may for the bounty, the glory, and the plunder that have been heaped around me. Happy Birthday. I have nothing that I can give you in return for these most excellent presents save these, my word and my bond: That I will remain and remember to be grateful for all that I have been given. That I will do my utmost at all times to learn right, and then do right. That I will strive never to shirk my duty. That I will do my utmost to raise up those around me even as You have raised me up even though I certainly didn't deserve it, because they actually might. That I will help the righteous weak against the evil strong. That I will make no excuses for my many failings and failures. That I will make restitution for my wrongs, and seek forgiveness for what I should have done, and did not do.

For the rest of you, Merry Christmas.

Christopher Hitchens was many things, and about half the adjectives I’d use to describe the man are far from complimentary. He was one of the most eloquent, most powerful, most dogged and most determined atheists I’ve ever encountered, and for that I hated him.

I’m an ardent believer in the divine myself, and I never saw the sense in a determined belief in nothing. Yet if ever there existed a man of sufficient argumentative ability to make me sit down, shut up, and listen anyway, it was Christopher Hitchens.
I’m an ardent believer in capitalism. Christopher Hitchens was a dedicated communist. These two positions alone ought to have been sufficient to drive me away from reading anything the man had to write, or listening to anything he had to say, but such was his compelling nature that I never passed up an opportunity to read what he had written and listened to just about everything he said with the finest attention.

Christopher Hitchens believed, as I do, in the human spirit. Though clearly his belief had different impulses it was a common drive that I shared with him while he lived and which in my own small way I will carry on now that he has passed. Hitchens was a bon vivant in the truest sense of the word, an unapologetic consumer of the finer things in life. He was a categorical foe of all things born of or in support of piety. He was a deeply thoughtful man with a vast intellect and an unbelievable store of historical knowledge to which that intellect was applied with regular and thorough diligence.

I could never tenth in my most rigorous attempts the degree of wit and irony the man was capable of producing off the cuff and half drunk to boot.

Hitchens and I have one thing completely in common though, and that is a deep and abiding respect for the people who fight evil. Like him, I have long recognized the existence of bald malevolence in the world and have always believed that violence is an answer, and sometimes it is the only answer, to such malignancy. Hitchens was born in Britain, but emigrated to the United States and was a life-long supporter of the American way of life and of our national willingness to support the downtrodden and the oppressed.

When we neglected to do so, Hitchens was rightly castigatory, but the man never failed to give credit where credit was due, and for that he has my eternal admiration. He was an active journalist in some of the worst war zones this generation has seen, and all his life he was willing to put his money where his mouth was. The man was far braver than most journalists I have read or read of. His belief in America alienated many on the left, his god-less communism alienated many on the right, but such was his power of presence and word that people both left and right cheered him when he spoke and quoted him when he was done.

I will miss Christopher Hitchens. He was a godless-communist. He was an unwavering supporter of freedom. He was a lush. He was brilliant. He was a great man.

eleftheria i thanatos

rest in peace.

What is it about writing porn that's so bothersome to me? Here I sit, vainly attempting to start the flow of words. It's not that I need to write porn or even that I should, but more along the lines that I find the challenge I now face so offensive that I feel its vanquishment to be a necessity. Much like the G-man faced his fear of rats by catching, killing, and consuming one, I feel I must defeat this silly hesitance by charging through the material and producing that which now gives me such annoying pause.
I write action adventure with the sort of skill that, should I but practice a bit more diligently would probably see me through to genuine publication. I write philosophy and to a lesser extent, theological pondering with equal facility. I have no problems with description, narration, plot, or dialogue. Why then this strange reluctance when I have no issue tackling the most intimate human thought, to tackle the most intimate human action?
What is the strange sensation that coils in my guts as I ponder the words I wish to use? So different from consuming pornography is the production of it, and I am left to wonder, "Why?" Surely what porn I have written has been read far more often and with far more attention than the action adventure I find comes so easily to me. It is a natural subject if I wish to expand my readership. Likewise I doubt anyone would claim that porn is a higher art form. It is no more difficult to read... so why is it so much more difficult to write?
Perhaps it's just me. Perhaps this reluctance I face draws its strength from the same source that once made the tops of my ears feel like they were about to catch fire from the heat of the shame coursing through me the first time I walked into the pornography section of the video store even though no one could see me save strangers there for the same reason as I.
Perhaps porn truly is a more difficult form of writing to master. Perhaps the physical response one seeks to elicit demands a different mode of thought than that in which I usually approach literary endeavor.
Or perhaps it's just that I'm at work right now and don't want to get caught writing words currently enshrined on George Carlin's list of things you can't say on television.
Whatever the reason, I loathe the vile creature squatting on its haunches in the depths of my being, poised to resist my pornographic advance like a defensive spiritual lineman waiting for the snap, every muscle taut to send three hundred pounds of critical mass through the suddenly insubstantial seeming center of my imagination to crush my literary quarterback. A sack of such terrible consequence that metaphysical time must be called and a philosophical stretcher brought forth to carry my prone conscious mind from the linguistic gridiron. Sweat stings my wavering eyes as I glance from the readied football of pornographic subject over the back of my insignificant liberal defense into the conscience-born eyes of murderous rage that wait only for me to write the first naughty word. Dare I? Dare I, when righteous shame crouches so close to me? Or do I wait for the allegorical play clock to run down, take the introspective penalty and watch as the imagined audience gathered to watch the mental contest boos the field or leaves in boredom?
Perhaps I'll just cut my losses and post a journal about it. Yeah... that's what I'll do.

The price of freedom is the administration of justice.

Should you not believe me, see me after class and I shall pummel you senseless in front of as many vigilant witnesses as you care to have in attendance. You can even bring your police friends if all they intend to do is be vigilant.

When you lose the will to administer justice yourself or see to it that justice is done, when you make the assumption that it's someone elses responsibility, then you have already lost your right to freedom.

Class dismissed.

Any takers on the free beating?

By the way... new comic is up at beyondtheveilcomic.com

Check it out. It's free... like most webcomics. Cept this one is free and GOOD, which makes it mighty in the webcomic world. If my webcomic were people, it would be people willing and able to administer GREAT JUSTICE!

And if you know what I'm actually talking about... WITHOUT looking it up, gold star. :)

I'll even give you a hint: It's really Kinky. :P

In other news, I got Darby O'Gill and the Little People in the mail today. Heeeee!

I got a new look, and  DreamTaker introduces her fursona. Don't miss it!

beyondtheveilcomic.com

The new comicry has begun at beyondtheveilcomic.com

DreamTaker is out of the gate and off to the races and I couldn't be happier with her as an artist. A comment was made though on the stereotypes I drew upon for the characters being worked with, and I felt my response was worth a re-posting here from the BtV forums. It follows:

Of course I don't take it harshly. Stereotypes are precisely what you describe. Whether they (the characters) start off with minus likeability, as you say, is a matter of taste. Trust me when I say that without stereotypical builds telling a story becomes much harder, and a lot more trouble has to be gone through... to use your own analogy, 8 hours in the kitchen might produce a good homemade sauce, but you still had to spend 8 hours in the kitchen to get there, and there's no guarantee the sauce you made is going to be so much better than the powder and water out of the box that it was worth the day in the kitchen you had to spend to make it.

All of the characters thus far introduced by either DT or Beo have been based on stereotypes of one sort or another, from Zak's fairy type dress to Dualen's dour tone and Asta's imperious attitude. When I break stereotypes, I do so for a reason. I am not, and never have been, a big fan of originality.

Characters are what they are, and what moves the human spirit has changed little in three thousand years. We still relate to each other in the same ways we did when we considered looking at fire light flickering off the back of a cave wall an evening's entertainment.

The doors are in the same places they've always been. With each new story the door gets a makeover, new coat of paint, maybe the handle design gets changed or the hinges put one the other side, but the location of the door remains the same.

Our brains are hard-wired to put things in categories. If this weren't true, we'd have no stereotypes to begin with. As it is we group things by nature, and being introduced to something that defies established categories simply for the sake of being defiant is more often frustrating than interesting because the depth of our understanding is stunted for no good reason we can see. Ideally, with limitless life and resources, we as individuals could afford to contemplate everything as a unique entity free from any generalized characteristics or traits. In the real world, with a short life and severely limited intellectual and physical resources... our brains require shortcuts. Categories provide, and stereotypes result.

I pray you not look at the fact that you recognized the categories I employed as a negative, but consider it rather deliberate artifice on my part in order to give you insight into the characters I'm portraying without having to spoon-feed you every life detail. I certainly did it on purpose, and I do hope your initial dislike for the artifice does not ruin your appreciation of the story as it unfolds.

beyondtheveilcomic.com

Friday.

Be there.

Have the draft of the new BtV proof and things are going well. As soon as I have a final date for posting I will ANNOUNCE IT HERE as well as on the BtV website. Stay tuned.

Also... YAY PROMOTION.

At work, me, promoted. Yes. Good, fckin' excellent in fact. If I were to tell the whole story I'm sure most of you would fall asleep suffice it to say that my company as a sub-contractor is being given the boot come the end of March and the prime on the contract interviewed me for a position recently vacated by another of our (the sub's) people. I was NOT qualified to do THAT job, BUT... I was qualified to do the job that sits right next to that job, so rather than go through all the paperwork they're giving me the chance to spin up and making it a lateral move until the sub leaves the contract, at which point I'm guaranteed an offer from the prime if I choose to stay.

Stoked.

Downside:
I have about a foot and a half tall stack of textbooks worth of material to wade through to begin the spin-up process. Whilst at least 80% of the material I've been assigned is probably only tangentially involved in the actual work, knowing it all is part of the job description, so... deep breath... exhale... lots... and LOTS of reading to do. Dry... reading... mouthful of saltines with a salt-shaker chaser dry.

Oh well. That's why I get paid the big bucks. All projects (EXCEPT BtV) halted until I square my ass away in the new position.

I wouldn't say anything about this because it's not completely a done deal, but I'm really excited so here goes: I think I've found an artist who is willing and able to pick up Beyond the Veil.

I'm still waiting for the last call from Beowulf, but I'm confident once he sees who I have lined up he'll give the 'ye verily.'

EDIT: Yep... it's a go. Once the proof is in the final deal will be struck. Sooooo excited!

WD and I are still working on a project as well, but as some of you may know his situation has been strained at home for a while (six moves in six months? It's a wonder people here don't think he's dead)

I've got a technical interview on Monday that I need to study up for but I will also try and get some writing done this weekend. If I don't post up another section of The Goode Prophecies I may suffer for it. :P

Big things moving. Stay tuned.

Yep... the sun, the sand, the particulate matter in the air... I must be home.

Thank you to everyone who helped make Furfright a very enjoyable con for me.

Thank you also to those of you who helped keep me from acting too much the fool, and my apologies to those who saw me act the fool.

I'm good, it was fun, hope everyone else had at least as good a time as I did!

I just got a ton of 16 gauge rings in and was wondering if anyone wanted a badgechain or a bracelet done for Furfright? I'll be there and delivering them personally so if you want one I can make it this week and have it ready for you when you get to con!

I'll leave open 5 slots (which I don't expect to fill but on the off chance there's interest I don't want to overbook)
Bracelets will be 10 dollars and Con badge chains will be 25 dollars US.

An example of a badgechain can be found HERE:
GSG: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6594532
GSG: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6597066
Byzantine: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6597279/
Box: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6597411/
Persian 3 in 1: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6597519/

1. drftli (completed?)
2. MStrand (details details...)
3.
4.
5.

Weaves I can do and am willing to do include Byzantine, box, 3-1 Persian, GSG (this is what the reference is) plain old 4 in 1 European (5 dollars off a bracelet done in this style, 10 off the badge chain, this is an easy loose weave and takes no time to make.) If you have another pattern in mind that'll fit the ring gauge I'm working with AR ~ 5.3 drop me a line and I'll look it up and let you know. I can do a helluva lot more than what's listed here but I'm leaving most of the really time consuming weaves out because we're so close to con.

Wondering what the various weaves look like? Go here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6596529/
European 4 in 1 not shown... it's the standard chain weave.

Bracelets will have a clasp, conbadge chains will be an over the head style and solid.

Colors I have available:
unanodized aluminum
mint green
black
chrome
blue
purple
shiny pink (yes, SHINY pink)
red
lavender
colors can be seen here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6596649/

Willing to mix and match whatever colors you'd like in whatever pattern you can describe or provide a reference for. I am not responsible for your poor color choices, I'll make what you order no matter how much it may hurt the eyes.

19 times out of 20, I really wish they hadn't.

Mr. Freeman? I love your work. I've not seen a SINGLE film you starred in that I didn't really enjoy watching. Do me a favor. Please please PLEASE do not further demonstrate your racism by opening your mouth again. If you hate the Tea Party fine... don't hate them for a made up bullshit reason. Obama could be white, purple, or blue with vibrant green striping and it would not matter at all to the Tea Party. They don't want him out because he's black. They want him out because he sucks as President of the United States.

If you MUST have a black man in office no matter what he thinks or believes... that's fine! Be a bigoted shithead. But vote for Herman Cain, not Barack Obama.

MONSTER MOVIE GOOD FOR ED!

I comment fairly regularly elsewhere on the ongoing world situation. As a man who currently lives his life abroad it behooves me to keep up with the intel because it gives me a sense of what may happen, and where.

The riots a few weeks ago in Britain and to a lesser extent in US cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. have brought to light a trend that shows no real signs of slowing down. I have mixed feelings about these riots and the underpinning circumstances that allowed them to take place with such success.

A small part of me is heartened by the fact that at this point in time there are avenues that free men may take to circumvent governments which has chosen, almost inevitably, to remove governance from the hands of the people themselves and thereby relieve them of the responsibilities that come with self-discipline and self-respect.

A government with the very real power to know about everything everyone does, at every minute of every day is not an avenue to safety, but rather a tunnel without branches leading to slavery. Slavery to a set of increasingly arbitrary rules bereft of any moral worth is not the basis for any kind of government I ever want to be subjected to.

As I said though, this is a small part.

The rest of me is saddened that the only release from this form of government that seems able to take root is absolute nihilism. I have struggled throughout my adult life to learn what is right, and to do right. I say adult life because when I was a child I too chafed at what I felt were unjust restrictions on my behavior.

For some of you, nihilism takes some explaining. It is the belief, explicit or otherwise, that life is without objective meaning. It is the philosophy that is built around the conviction that this purposeless life is thereby rendered, in essence, to be of no value.

When life is bereft of its value, all systems arising from that life are also stripped of their worth. No form of government, self-government or otherwise, can be said to be superior to any other, because quite simply, nothing can be derived from 0 but 0. A complex mathematical truth like this is in fact what amounts to 'common sense' to a nihilist. If I am of no value then you are of no value and if you are of no value what you have has no value and if I take what you have there has been no net loss or gain... I can simply do whatever I want and one reason is as good as any other or in fact, no reason at all.

One often quoted interview that I have both seen in print and heard the recording of allows us to hear the voice of nihilism, which said that essntially the rioters were simply, "showin' the rich people we can do what we want." You can hear the actual interview here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

If you are a nihilist, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with anything those two girls said. It all made sense to them. If you are not a nihilist... then you may have had a hard time listening.

Nihilism rejects individuality. It is an affirmation of nothing in the literal sense; it affirms non-existence. People who do not value their own existence cannot even comprehend the valuation of someone else and laws, the authority to govern, etc. all become at best oppressive, at worst completely meaningless and in all cases no more than something to be ignored or circumvented by any convenient means.

These kids are not TRUE nihilists, at least most of them aren't, because in some dark corner of their hearts they still value themselves. They therefore gang together with like-minded largely hopeless individuals who also only value themselves and all of them place what little value they have in the groups they join.

This is a microcosm of what happens on a larger scale when governments become too oppressive to allow people to excel in their own right and make choices based on some reasoning beyond whether or not they will be punished by the state for choosing wrong.

When you take away a mans's right to property you deprive him of his drive to obtain by his own work. When you redistribute his wealth by government fiat you take away his drive toward charity. When you put laws on every aspect of a man's life you take away his drive toward prudence and temperance. When you take away a man's right to self-defense you take away his drive to find courage. Once you have stripped a man of every virtue... he can have no understanding of justice or mercy.

Once you have placed a man under complete control, you have stripped him of his humanity, and such individuals have no cares for the laws of men, nor their punishments.

In Britain's case and increasingly in the US, we are witnessing a very curious phenomenon that to my admittedly limited knowledge has never before occurred on earth. As governments create more and more laws, and gain more and more power to discover who is and is not following those laws, they are losing the will to properly discipline law breakers.

What this has done is create a class of lawbreakers who are not punished for their crimes. They are simply marginalized and left to commit further crimes which serve only to keep them from joining the ranks of a society they have already demonstrated they have no wish to join.

At any other time in history this would have been an utterly unsustainable solution because these lawbreakers place great expense on their governments and neighbors. In THIS time however, those expenses are leased to others in the form of insurance and debt transferrence along with all the other unsustainable costs of western society like universal health care and unrealistic wages and pensions.

We outsource our costs, and so in the last three or four generations it is only now becoming apparent that the world does not have a limitless budget with which to absorb those costs. Hard choices defered have been made the harder for their deferment. The historically self-evident truth of limited resources has been rendered by accounting tricks as an illusion, but the illusory nature of this truth is becoming harder to sustain.

Materialism offers a partial solution to this problem, but only a partial solution. A reliance on self-interest exclusively has never been demonstrated as sufficient in and of itself to guarantee civilized behavior.

There is no perfect solution, just as there is no Unified Theory. The Uncertainty Principle will always be with us in science and in government, and anyone who claims a solution that will 'save them all' is either lying or worse, a well-meaning fool.

The efforts of the british government have proven... less than satisfactory. The riots all occured in areas that have long been held and controlled by the british government. Somewhat less well controlled areas, such as those in Wales and Scotland... suffered no rioting at all despite exhortations on social media to do so.

A cursory inspection of the differences shows us that by British standards, Wales and Scotland are considerably less 'civilized' than England proper. I am certain that, if not the solution, then at least a better alternative to these rioting teens lay somewhere in the less civilized means employed by Scotland and Wales, rather than increased attempts at further civilization and repression being exercised currently by the ailing british government.

Likewise the only cities that suffered riots in the US were cities which are known to be very progressive. Perhaps a bit of regression would do less harm than good. A bridge too far perhaps. Human nature has demonstrated a remarkable resilience to change. When radical new theories fail, perhaps they should be discarded in favor of older theories that worked if not perfectly, then at least better.

I would put forth the assertion that there is no perfect solution to nihilism, and it will never go away. It is also impossible to see to the needs of all, when we are so many, and the resources we require so few. Therefore I would suggest placing a bit more faith in people to take care of what is theirs. Allow them to manage their own affairs and they will manage them with all their care. Do not condemn a man for protecting his property as well as his life, for he has spent his life to obtain his property, and to have it taken unjustly from him is the same as taking away the years of his life spent in the gaining of it.

I would encourage the british people to take up arms not against their government, but against their nihilists. Nihilists have by their own beliefs rendered themselves valueless. Crush them ruthlessly, and you will have lost nothing and perhaps, gained much.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Edmund Burke wasn't just blowing smoke. When a lean winter is coming, a shepherd culls his flock because he knows that he cannot save them all and if he does not destroy some, he will lose the lot.

Winter is upon you Britain... just as the leaves are changing in the United States. Your stores are depleted and your borrowing is coming to an end.

What will you do?