I was confirmed… (In the picture, I was looking at another camera)
Technorati Tags: catholic, christianity, confrimation, teen, weekend
Presidential Impeachment Started by State Legislatures
There is a little known amendment in the U.S. House of Representative’s Manual of Rules that could spell trouble for George W. Bush. The rule in question is in section 603 and it allows impeachment proceedings initiated by a joint resolution in a state legislature. Currently, there are two states with such proposals, California and Illinois. Is this the beginning of the end for the Bush White House?
Technorati Tags: bush, california, illinoise, impeach
Back To School
After a three week break, I returned to school today. As is routine when one returns from a long pause, school went extremely slowly. Schoolwork was relatively light and much of the day was spent talking about spring break. I can’t really think of much else to write about at the moment, just thought I’d give a quick update.
Technorati Tags: highschool, school, springbreak
Has the Democrat’s waiting paid off?
It seems that the Democrat’s waiting for the Republican party to implode is beginning to show results. An article in the Washington Post a few days ago shows that Democrats are more trusted with such key issues as immigration and the ’situation in Iraq’. 55 percent of registered voters say they plan to vote for a Democratic candidate in the midterm election. One must ask, however, since the Democrats have done almost nothing to hasten the Republicans decline and still have no real party base, what will happen if/when they gain the house majority?
Rube Goldberg Machines
Here is a 9 minute video of many Rube Goldberg machines… amazing.
Technorati Tags: rubegoldberg, video
Evolutionary Psychology and Why Men Don’t Like Dancing.
My understanding of Evolutionary Psychology is that it is the study of human nature and how it came to be. Evolutionary Psychologists look back at human history to try to figure out why, for example, men don’t like dancing. Nikolas Lloyd has written some interesting essays on the subject of evolutionary psychology including ‘Why women pretend to be stupid‘ and ‘Why we follow fashion‘. The two essays that I have read, ‘Why men won’t dance‘ and ‘Why asking her out is terrifying‘, I found to be very insightful and pretty dead on (at least the parts I could relate to). If you have some free time, consider reading an essay or two… you might learn something.
Technorati Tags: essay, evolutionarypsychology, humannature, psychology
Gospel of Judas Television Special
Tomorrow night, starting at 8PM eastern time and 9PM pacific, there will be a television special about the Gospel of Judas on the National Geographic Channel. I will try to watch it and have a follow up post sometime in the next couple days.
Technorati Tags: gospel, gospelofjudas, jesus, judas, nationalgeographic, religion, television
Redesign, New RSS Feed
If you visit the HTML version of the site, you might notice that a redesign is currently underway. I should be done with it in the next couple days.
If you read the site via RSS, update your feeds. The new url is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/unbrain. I will be setting the old feed URLs to redirect in 1 week, but update now and it will be less painful.
Gospel of Judas
It was announced yesterday that the “Gospel of Judas” had been found and translated into English. This is not the first non-canonical gospels to be released but it may be the most controversial. According to Judas, Jesus took him aside and asked him to go to the authorities.
This takes some central Christian doctrine on it’s head. Was Judas really assigned the task of turning Jesus in? Could this be a lie to cover up for Judas’ “mistake”? Does it really matter? I don’t believe it does. Some people are saying that this reduces the credibility of Christian teachings and that Christianity “got it wrong”. The fact of the matter is that Judas did, in fact, turn Jesus in and that is the important part. Whether or not he betrayed Jesus is irrelevant because if Judas had not given Jesus over he would not have died a brutal death and risen again.
Technorati Tags: christianity, gospel, jesus, judas, religion
Technology and Ethiopian Villagers
The Editor of BBC News Africa went to a village in Ethiopia with a laptop to ask questions from people in England and around the world. A beautiful use of technology.
Q: What are the most important things that you would like people in other parts of the world to know and understand about your community?
Tato: Health problems and a shortage of facilities.
Adan Aliyo: Conflict and all the problems we experience in trying to get an education.
Momina: Drought and food shortages.
Naima: Shortage of good schooling and health problems.
Technorati Tags: africa, bbc, ethiopia, journalism
What did you learn in school today?
What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?
I learned that Washington never told a lie
I learned that soldiers seldom die
I learned that everybody’s free
That’s what the teacher said to me
And that’s what I learned in school today
That’s what I learned in school
With credit to Tom Paxton.
Costa Rica Recap
This is a work in progress. I will need a bit of time to get everything recorded.
After a day of rest, I feel ready to recap my entire Costa Rica trip. For those of you that did not read my previous entry, I spent last week traveling around Costa Rica with a group of 30 people from my school. I have posted pictures on the Internet and am working on classifying them… give me some time, there are 241.
The first “night” away from home was actually spent on an airplane from Los Angeles to San Jose. We arrived in San Jose around 8:30 AM local time, perfect for a day packed full of touring after a red eye flight. We met up with our Costa Rican tour guides, Maren and Ernesto. A short bus ride led us to a small store in the fog where we got our first taste of Costa Rican food.
After another hour or so in the bus, we stopped at a restaurant that seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere. Lunch was amazing! We had rice, beens, beef, chicken, and fish… a vegetarian’s nightmare. We resumed driving and crossed the shadiest bridge I have ever seen in my life. I fell asleep and woke up just was we were pulling into La Fortuna.
We arrived at Hotel Fortuna, got our room assignments, and unloaded the bus. Everybody was dead tired so we had an hour to get unpacked and relax. We got a small tour of the town and bought some ice cream and then went to some extremely nice hot springs for about an hour. Dinner was at the Hotel and we had casado, the local specialty with rice, beans, plantain, and meat.
After dinner, a large portion of the group decided to go out looking for a club to go to. They came back around fifteen minutes after leaving having not found a club. I did not go with them, but instead decided to write about the first day.
Sleeping in Hotel Fortuna was kind of interesting. Our room had no windows so it got pretty hot. Luckily, there was a fan in the room that cooled it off a little. I did not sleep under covers and was perfectly fine the entire time.
The second day was packed full of fun. We started off the day with breakfast at the hotel and then headed to a waterfall fairly close to the town. We swam around in the river below the waterfall for a bit but eventually became bored, having gone all the way up river to a rope line that we were not supposed to cross.
We went back to La Fortuna and were given 45 minutes to find lunch. I went with a group of three other people and we ended up at the “Java Jungle“. I was in the mood for a sandwich and I guess I influenced them because we all ordered hamburgers. When we received the hamburgers, there was ham on top of the burger, something that I had never seen before. The entire lunch of a hamburger and soda cost 1300 colones (or $2.60) per person.
After lunch was zip-lining. I was sort of under the influence that the hefty amount paid for zip-lining was for one super long zip-line but I was lied to. The cost covered 8 zip-lines that all had amazing views of the forest and Arenal Volcano. The first couple were for practice and to see if we wanted to go through with the other six. The third one was something like 400 meters and that was not the longest. The longest and fastest zip-line was the seventh. At 750 meters and reaching a top speed of 45 miles per hour, it was quite different from the rest in that you actually went through the forrest instead of above it.
The next day we were in for a long drive to Monteverde (the green mountain). The roads are not the greatest in Costa Rica and riding in a bus is not the greatest thing on unpaved roads. We arrived at the Mirador Lodge in time for lunch. During lunch, it became extremely foggy and began raining, not letting up for the next two days.
After lunch, a small group of adventurers braved the weather and headed down to a waterfall. I was lucky enough to be part of the group and was able to experience the rainforest firsthand. The hike was relatively easy at first because we were going down. On the way back up, however, it was quite a bit harder and I was not prepared.
We got back to the lodge just as it was getting dark and had a few hours until dinner. Dinner that night was the least American sized meal I have ever eaten but I survived. After dinner we had an activity that involved acting out various things we had learned or seen on the trip. My group of 4 people received wind and water power.