Spent a good deal of time on this rock, I have.  Seen a fair amount of things happen.  I even formed opinions about most of them.

In one of my day-trip sessions with the crew, I came up withthe following core philosophy:
Pleasure makes you want to live, pain reminds you that you're alive.
I have found that a good deal of my life, and as such, my core being, is dictated by pain.  I also once said that were I ever pain free, I would know I was dead.  Not just phsycal pain.  Emotional and intellectual as well.  All manner of pain, the entire spectrum.  Human experiences in our realm of excistence are like vision.  See, there is the whole electomagnetic spectrum out there.  And humans can only perceive a very very small slice.  Sure, we can feel infrared with our skin, and have developed myriad devices to observe the other wavelengths.  But not all at once.  Such as it is with pleasure and pain.  Not all at once.  It is too much for most humans.
 

Welly Well Well then.  How goes it world?  Not that it matters to me, but there, I asked.  I myself am in pain.  My knees, back, and most of the other joints hurt.  On another note, why all the protests?  See my rants for more.  I just hope and pray all our boys and girls come home soon.  I love the military, and the hardware.  I admire beyond limits the soldiers who sacrifice for us.  I actually think all soldiers should get some kind of preferential treatment in our society.  They give up the normal everyday life the rest of us enjoy so that we may enjoy our life.  So stop bitching at them.  I love the services, all of them.  I love America.  Do I love war?  No.  Am i sorry that we had to go?  Yes.  Does it surprise me?  NO.
    Humans are not the enlightened beings we all like to pretend we are.  With our societies, and rules and customs and laws, and morals.  Humans are animals.  Violent stupid cattle.  All humans were born with both the hardware and software to take another life, but not so for the saving of a life.  If another human encroaches enough, you can kill them.  Everyone can strangle someone.  All humans have a dark, feral side.  Violence and war are in our nature.  It is this facade of weakness and complacency that makes people protest.  Some will say violence never solved anything, or violence begets violence.  Ok, i concede that at times, violence can spawn more violence.  That is why you must use intelligent violence.  Brutal Force, applied in an educated manner, can crush the opposition before a reaction is formed.  And once they are down, further violence to keep them down is usually not neccesary.  And violence does solve things.  Ask Adolf Hitler, the Confederate States of America, or Custer.  Hell ask Sun Tzu, Erwin Rommel or George Patton.  Violence is a last resort.  Talking does a good job of stalling until you are ready for the final blow.   And some you can talk down.  But there are those who never intended to listen in the first place.  Their dark little hearts imagine you and your family dying in the street, eyes bleeding, gasping for air.  Vomiting up lung tissue, and wanting to claw the rest out just to stop the pain.  I hope that image keeps you peace-mongerers awake at night.  It does me.  The world sucks, kiddies.  Face up to the fact that people and forces hate America, and want us all to die.  And you proesting for peace does not ingratiate you into them.   They want you to die.  They will kill you if afforded the chance.  Would you let that happen?  Will you talk the sarin gas out of the air?  There are situations where clean up and reaction are sadly not enough.  We need to be proactive.  The best defense is a strong offense.  We are not invincible.  On September 11, we were all minding our own business.  Dou you know why 30 or so men were able to kill so many of us? They hate us.  They eat sleep and breathe their hatred of us.  Tolerance has no place when dealing with these monsters.  Kill them all.  One by one if need be.  But we need to send a message, just like they did.  America is not the one with whom to fuck.  And that's all i got to say about that.
 
 

Humans invented violence.  Peace is not in our nature.  Peace is just an excuse to buold more and better weapons, and train soldiers.  Turn the other cheek?  Howabout NO.  Lotsa stuff on my mind today.  Did you ever notice how things piss you off, but you can always bury yourself in something else to forget them?  Humans are odd that way.  I suppose i am no exception, even though i often consider myself superior to most humans

Ever feel like your reality is collapsing around you?  Watching MASH the other day, Pierce says to Hawkeye, "So, this Tuttle.  He's just a figment of your imagination?"  To which Hawkeye replies, "And who says you're not?"
Interesting point.  Maybe I am not typing this right now.  See, I always expect bad things to happen, and they do.  The way you would imagine them to.  So, maybe I am still 10 years old, in a coma or asylum, and my imagination has run away with me.  Maybe i am completely insane.  Who knows.  I know that not a whole lot "makes sense" any more.  Perhaps it does to someone.  Reality is just your perception of the world.  Kinda like the half full/half empty glass.  In a 16 oz container, if there are 8 oz of liquid, the unit has one-half it's stated capacity.  This is a fact.  Half full, or half empty?  That is a perception, which enforces a reality on the container.  Now, assume the reality perception can be bent.  It can be bent by the fluid and or actions you must or must not perform, if any.  Given that you must consume the contents, lets see, shall we?
If it was a Monkey piss/goat urine cocktail, you might exclaim, "No fair, that thing's half full!"  Wheras, if the fluid was your favorite Kool Aid (lets say Cherry.  We all like cherry, DON'T WE?)  You may lament, "But it's already half empty!!"
 
 

Evil.  See, I have been thinking alot lately.  Gettin religeous.  What was the original sin?  Eve tempting Adam? No.  Adam Accepting?  No.  Okay, it wasn't them.  See, it is bigger than that.  And it is older than time.  One name.  Lucifer.  See, ol' Loiue was an angel.  A being of pure light.  Made by and for the service of God.  Mighty and powerful, angels did not seem to have free will.  They all loved and worshipped (and the rest still do) God.  The problem comes when Louie stands up and says "I can do better."  Alright.  That was odd.  But others follow.  It could have resulted in a war that rent the heavens asunder.  It may have.  MOre on that later.  God, the being that made the entire universe, could have extinguished Lucifer.  He would've winked right from existance.  no insurrection.   What did God do?  Gave him his own dominion.  And he cast the others out.  So, Louie gets his own command, army, agenda, and base.  How many other angels have we ever heard of standing up after that?  NONE.  Why? they aren't in the plan.  We need evil.  It shapes us, as much as good does.  Without evil, good wouldn't be.  Yin-Yang, baby.  Perhaps human existance is a by-product of the war.  We all have free will.  We choose to fight or not.  To love or not.  To hate or not.  In the end, we may be the deciding factor.