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So after having my internet only be able to load Google for a bit (after I was able to get a help site to load after much effort), I tried restarting my modem/router, and after that didn't help, used the said website to try fiddling with some commands they suggested someone with the same problem suggest I use in a command box cmd.exe or something.  I don't know if either time or the commands helped me out:  http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/only-google-will-load  But either way, I can use the internet again! X3  Another site said that kind of thing is common for squirelly networks, but this is only the second time I've had that happen in a decade (that I know of) and the first time was after updating my host file here:  http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm  Very odd.  It was the same with my laptop (both use Windows 7 Home Edition x64).

It got me thinking about technology and how we transition from one to the other.  While having laggards in the technology might be a pain sometimes, at least if one set of technology (protocol, etc) fails, you have the other as a backup built into the system.  Ain't evolution and the free market awesome like that?

[The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises]

Question.  At the time the US Constitution was written, did 'tax' mean 'voluntary contribution?'

Because if so, this video:  [yt]a7qF0t_2xms[/yt]

is a red herring to the anarchist question of 'consent of the governed.'
So I *don't* have to consent to the constitution and it 'doesn't apply to me, but to those in government' even though it clearly states plain as day:

"Section. 8.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;" (Emphasis added by me)

I suppose that's correct in the sense that someone being raped doesn't 'have to consent' to a person raping them, but that's kind of what makes it wrong, immoral, and illegitimate in the first place!

Really, Larken Rose hit the nail on the head with this video on the subject (epic motherfucking win video):

[yt]ngpsJKQR_ZE[/yt]

Optimism goes well with libertarianism.  To illustrate this, I'll talk about the debate me and Shane had that got me to become a libertarian, way back when--specifically over what caused/who predicted the financial meltdown of 2007.

I thought it surely *couldn't* be as bad as he was making it out to be, right?  I mean, if some of the things he said were true, it would mean that we were being taxed (robbed) of roughly 75% per year, minus the unseen destruction of wealth by regulations which prevent wealth from even forming.  I knew people in general were at least capable, but that amazing?  Wow.  Eventually he showed me some stats from the government's own figures, that showed that the progress for the poor--and especially poor minorities--was increasing faster during the 20 year period after the Civil War than any time before or since.  Which completely blew my mind, and continues to do so even today.

Hell, even during/after that original debate on one of my old YouTube accounts, I thought, "I'm not sure if I should be glad that people in general, myself included are that capable, industrious and smart.  Or if I should be that upset and depressed that government is doing such an amazing job impeding this. "

But yeah, libertarianism really changes your perspective, you know?  During the debate I kept harping on him for going against what my professors and teachers taught me--they were my best friends from high school until after I transferred to a 4 year college.  Surely they wouldn't betray my trust by lying worse than a creationist, right?  Boy was I disappointed.  I even was pointing out to him, "yes, but even in the private sector people believe in Keyesianism! You're making it sound like a conspiracy!"  I mean, if we can't trust the academia to tell the truth on stuff like that, how can we trust on them, well, anything at all--from physics, evolution/biology, math, chemistry, the 9/11 attacks, the chemtrails, the moon landing, etc?  Hence one reason I can't help but feel sympathy (not a whole lot mind you, but still) for conspiracy theorists for taking this all the way and not taking a single thing any of those guys say seriously.  They lied about this and that, how do I know they aren't lying about the rest?  This is made especially irksome when most (if not all) research of this kind seems monopolized by the state.

This is one reason I was glad to have folks like Stefan Molyneux around.  I have my own beef with him, but he showed me in his books Everyday and Practical Anarchy how to obliterate some really stupid shit with a single question.  e.g. "Who lobbied for the copyright laws or for the anti-trust laws?" When dealing with IP and the robber barons respectively.   One reason why that logic stuff is so important.  It can save you a lot of time and headaches by tossing out stupid shit without having to look at a single source.  Now if only I had some good rules of thumb for empirical sources (e.g. experiments) on things instead of just logical. >.> (though the Baloney Detection Kit does seem to help a little).

PS:  Yes, I changed my name yet again.  Last time I promise.  And since *everyone* here seems to not know what to call me, just call me Travis from now on, thanks.

I'd like to get mine back.  So far I'm looking at this:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin_restoration
Sounds interesting.  What would be a good way to go about this?

...Can be annoying sometimes.  About a decade or so ago, my mom got into this "Eat Right 4 Your Type" stuff:  http://www.webmd.com/diet/blood-type-diet if not as a diet, but also as a book.  I've never seen any real evidence for it outside of the book.  I can't help but feel it might be full of shit.  Last I checked, whether you are an omnivore, herbivore or carnivore is NOT determined by blood alone, but rather anatomy.  With carnivores having sharp/knife like teeth and shorter intestinal tracks and with herbivores having flat teeth and often multiple stomachs to digest the cellulose in the grass/etc they eat.  With omnivores obviously being in-between; while lifespan is more a function of genes and lifestyle (and risky behavior in general).

Now she's seen this documentary called "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" where some Australian bloke bought a juicer and ate nothing but juiced veggies and fruits for 30 days (or however long) and got healthier/lost weight.  So my mom bought a juicer, and is planning on trying something like that going with two juice fast meals a day.

Don't get me wrong.  I love my mom.  I'm just glad that she tends to take many of the ideas with a grain of salt, and tries to focus on the effects.  Like focusing on results instead of just blindly following it.

So yeah, had to get that off of my chest.  In case you were all wondering, yes, this is one reason I posted that other topic regarding sources and evaluating them, but it's been building for years.  And yeah, I'll probably continue to juice at least a little bit to help me get some more fruits and veggies in my system much like John Pinette when he was losing weight.  Especially spinach.  The faster that shit gets down my gullet  and away from my tongue's taste buds the better. Gods it tastes bad, even if it is good for me.

Or tell when one is full of shit versus one that is more accurate?  This is at the crux of skeptical inquiry I found and what can often lead people astray as much as non-Bayesian thinking.  If you overshoot it in one direction, you end up a crazy cynic and conspiracy theorist.  Go too far and you end up a sucker who believes anything you hear and whose wallet (and dignity) are more empty than a supermodel's stomach the day of a photo shoot.

This is especially interesting when sites conflict on the ideas presented.  Take this example of how much protein you should eat:
http://www.medicinenet.com/how_much_dietary_protein_to_consume/views.htm
vs
http://authoritynutrition.com/is-too-much-protein-bad-for-you/
Now, while I'm no expert in this field, a few things *really* stuck out in the second one that screamed red flag:  the name of the site, the use of the bolded words "The Truth" on the "About" page, saying not eating a lot of protein is "unnatural" as if that were bad--made on an unnatural computer.  And the biggest of all was saying near the end "Humans evolved as carnivores.  We evolved to eat meat!"  No.  We.  Aren't.  We are omnivores.  The fact that we have both sharp knife like teeth (incisors) AND flat grinding teeth (molars) should be enough evidence for that.

What's more I recall either Potholer54 and C0nc0rdance going into this absent any knowledge by tracing their sources back to the original.  That struck me as a good idea too.
So what methods to use when unsure of things?  Basically, how to sort the bogons from the precious cluons?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/06/psychology-of-wealth_n_4531905.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
>>This is your brain on money
>>Huffingtonpost
Ohhh this is gonna hurt.

So after fiddling around online, first with VideoLan player's conversion system...which requires you to create the mp3 file itself from scratch so it can put the music from the video file into it *facepalm*.
And using a converter from CNET that pumped a bunch of malware in my system (removed--Spybot: S&D + Malwarebytes' Anti Malware ftw), I feel like I'm at a bit of a loss.
I found a great converter for converting FLV to mp3.  But for the life of me can't find a way to extract the audio from mp4 video files into mp3 audio files that a layman like me can do.  Any ideas? ^^;

http://www.cracked.com/article_20601_6-ridiculous-myths-you-believe-about-stuff-you-use-every-day.html
Given what Stef, Shane (even the Mises Institute) have pointed out, I can't help but think #6 is either bullshit or at least not telling the whole story.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-is-evil/?_r=1&
The title says it all.  I nominate Paul Krugman for not only his past stupidity, but also for this.  The title alone says a lot.  It more or less admits that he's not talking about science, even by my economics professor's (the same guy I made an entire thread on here: https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=634 ) standards.  Said professor said that economics is a non-normative science.  That it talks of what is, not what should be (esp. morality of a system).  And he tells us that when you get into "which system is better" you're technically talking about sociology.  So even by lax academic standards of a community college, Paul Krugman fucking fails.

Merry Christmas all.

So I heard John Cheese recommend the free versions as must-have programs.  What do you think of them?

So After I did my virus scans and stuff, I figured I'd back up my computer's HDD.  After it was stuck at 12% for a while, it jumps to 50% ish, and I get a warning from McAfee antivirus saying that it's found a trojan by the name of:      Artemis!7C45228EE906
Quarantined from:
Yeah, it left that above field blank.
It then says it was on a shared folder on my computer's network (dafuq?  I don't recall sharing any folders around this network) wherein it asks to for full access as it can't remove the Trojan otherwise...well, gee, would be easier if they gave me a file name or at least a folder name/location what have you so I'm not groping in the dark.  After searching around my computer for this, Artemis thingie, then clicking on it with it on brought me to McAfee's site where it searched for it and had zero results...okay.
Finally, I try Google and everytime it only gives me one result:  https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/9fe31ae7e4ae516ba68405166338a1b4ef69da420f6f8082b127e4783b9a779a/analysis/
So I check out the file name they listed:  img2nets.exe
Okay, *now* we're onto something.  The file in question?  It's some file created in 2004 used by a program called Minitab14 I once used in a Statistics class.  I do a Google Search of the file name, and no talk at all of viruses or trojans, etc. Though judging by the sight I linked above on virustotal.com it does look like it was a recent update to McAfee.

So did McAfee make a mistake?  If not, what the hell is going on?

IIRC, there is a pretty nice difference between libertarians and objectivists, but can't put my finger on it.
For when some statist prick accuses me or some other libertarian of being an objectivist, what do I say in response?
That is, what's the difference between objectivists and libertarians?

It seems Chrome has overtaken both IE and Firefox as the most widely used/popular web browser.  I'm considering switching to it from Firefox.
What do you all think?

http://poy.time.com/
"He [Pope Francis] took the name of a humble saint and then called for a church of healing. The first non-European pope in 1,200 years is poised to transform a place that measures change by the century"

And for describing Snowden's whistle-blowing as a 'heist':
"He [Edward Snowden] pulled off the year's most spectacular heist. Exiled from his country, the 30-year-old computer whiz has become the doomsayer of the information age."

Yes, the same Pope that denounced the 'evils' of wealth, materialism and capitalism--all from his multibillion dollar solid gold throne--who could have gotten over a billion Catholics against war and statism, chooses not to; BUT!  Because he's not European, he's awesome...What in the actual fuck?

Hell, the rest of that isn't much better.
#3--matriarch of the gay rights movement
So what was that about this...'patriarchy' we have, feminists?

>number 4
Bashar Assad - The Lethal Tyrant
Why the fuck would that even be a fucking thing for PERSON OF THE YEAR?

>Number 5
Ted Cruz?  Seriously?  Who accomplished bugger all with that bogus 'shut down'?  Gimme a fucking break!

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given this is the same TIME Magazine that listed as person of the year (no joke):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year#Persons_of_the_Year
Hitler, Stalin (twice!), FDR (twice!), Lyndon B Johnson (fucking twice!) and Ayatollah Khomeini.
And many horrifying others.  The only nice one I spotted before I had to close the window was Ghandi.

Hell, if anything, they should be IE of the 20th Century.

I'm surprised Mao or Che didn't make the cut.


And wait, there's more:
>call Snowden a thief
>during Bush's presidency, 2002 to be exact, "The Whistleblowers" were Person of the Year:
"Represented by Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley and Sherron Watkins.
In 2001, Watkins uncovered accounting irregularities in the financial reports of Enron, testifying before Congressional committees the following year. In 2002, Cooper exposed a $3.8 billion fraud at WorldCom. At the time, this was the largest incident of accounting fraud in U.S. history. In 2002, Rowley, an FBI agent, gave testimony about the FBI's mishandling of information related to the September 11 attacks of 2001."

Hypocrisy much, Time?

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/120613-682150-if-youre-already-sick-obamacare-clobbers-you.htm
"He even lied that his mother, Anne Dunham, a cancer victim, suffered because her insurer used the pre-existing condition excuse to drop her. The truth, revealed in a 2011 biography, is she had employer-provided insurance which paid her hospital bills until the end of her life."

Just from the title alone, (as someone with pre-existing conditions) I am scared for my future.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/28/21213547-obama-admin-knew-millions-could-not-keep-their-health-insurance?lite

President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

"But no!" cried the Obamatons! "If you like your health plan you can keep it!  This will just add some competition to the healthcare market!"

https://mises.org/daily/6518/Move-Over-Obamacare-Here-Comes-Obamaschool
Taking the principles of Obamacare and applying them to colleges?  This will not end well...

http://www.cracked.com/article_19993_the-6-cruelest-science-experiments-ever-were-done-kids_p2.html?wa_user1=4&wa_user2=Science&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=companion
Ho-ly Shit.
Note number one.  Yeah, yet ANOTHER reason why Circumcision is bogosity.