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Visiting Research Scientist in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering |
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ENTERTAINMENT... Conservapedia— The world — as described from irrational* right wing Christian social conservatives who believe everything revolves around the Bible... Wookiepedia—for Star Wars fans The Onion — for good satire... |
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Web pages of Friends, acquaintances and colleagues:
Rebecca (Willett) Lu—My wife The Resident Alian—the Camaclangs Salmon—Roummel Marcia The Flemings—AJ, Monica and Logan The Larrabures—Crazy Phil, Becky and Peter Phillip Mages— normal Phil Natascha and Phillipe Lesage—SDG friends Mckell Carter—our neighbor and friend David M. Simpson—software developer for Sony Rob Machado—famous surfer (I knew him from Oak Crest Jr. High as his locker was right below mine, though he probably doesn’t remember me.) Isaac Cheong—my “oldest” friend Cathy Yardley — romance novelist Brian Maranville — Physicist at NIST George Stimson—my high school physics teacher Nicholas Luco—US Geological Survey—Geologic hazards team Paul Martin — Teacher at Torrey Pines High School Teague Bode—Staff Sergeant in the US Army. Jenny and Michael Sanchez—SanchoPaca Alpaca farm Erick Zeigler—zigfilm Joel Savell—fetal pigs in brine Br. Raphael Mary Thomas Salzillo, OP
Got a link you’d like me to add? Let me know... |
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North Carolina Links Mt. Airy Asheville Hotsprings The Triad The Smokey Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains
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Interesting facts and information
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Rental housing information near Duke Apartment & Neighborhood reviews Housing information (through Duke Med) Chapel Hill housing (through UNC Chem)
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The Presidential race—2008
For those social conservatives, who for some irrational* reason are fixated on this issue of abortion (it is *not* the only issue that has significance in the outcome of this country)...see this well written article written by the dean of the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame in the New York Times (2004). On another interesting note, I once asked someone I knew who was “pro-life” ( I forget who it was now…I assume he was a rational person who can talk about these things without going crazy—I refuse to talk to fundamentalists about these things because all they ever do is invoke God or the Bible) if you could have a choice of _forever_ fighting to save each and every fetus that could possibly be saved, or promoting education and legislation so that abortions would drastically be reduced in the future, which one would you choose? I thought that, for sure, *any rational person* would choose the latter — for several reasons: 1. who wants to fight forever? 2. The second choice seems to be so much easier and self regulating that it makes sense to proceed in that direction. 3. Fighting abortion is like going against the current—you will eventually lose. To put it in a coarse perspective, abortion is similar to atomic technology. Once it’s out there (and by “out there”, I mean people know abortions can be performed relatively safely) you can’t take it back. I was very surprised by his answer: he would choose to fight for every fetus he could save, even if that meant going forever. On the one hand I was shocked. On the other hand, you have to admire their idealistic ness and passion for their beliefs—however unrealistic they may be.
Theocrats, fundamentalists and Sarah Palin—what do they have in common? EVERYTHING. Putting McCain/Palin in the presidential seat poses a fundamental danger to the forward thinking direction and progress of the United States. To put it bluntly, they will leverage the ultraconservative viewpoints such as promoting creationism and other pseudoscience in public education, tip the balance in the supreme court more to the ultraconservative side (and probably leave it that way for decades to come) and end up causing more friction with respect to foreign policy (just listen to Sarah Palin’s answers I her interviews—and yes there’s an better than average chance she may become the follow-up president if McCain is elected). In my opinion and probably that of many other relatively well educated people, this stance flies directly in the face of the mentality of the founding fathers of this country. I believe they would be sorely disappointed in the direction this country has taken in the last 8 years and in the next 4, if the republican party with the leadership of McCain/Palin, takes office. This makes this general election extremely important and it is imperative that the democrats get out and vote for Obama/Biden to counter the increasing threat posed by the fundamentalist Christian right. Fundamentalists do no belong in positions of power. It makes no difference whether they are Christian, Muslim, Crazy, etc., fundamentalists. |
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* If the classification of these concepts bother/annoy/disgust/repulse you, that probably means that at least some part of you would be considered irrational by my standards... |