I seem to be on the reflective bent tonight. This is a good breather from the sedated drudgery of Japanese life and bile of politics. I figure I would practice some plagiar and quote Anselm’s Ontological Argument for the existence of God.

God is that than which no greater can be conceived.

If God is that than which no greater can be conceived then there is nothing greater than God that can be imagined.
Therefore:

There is nothing greater than God that can be imagined.

If God does not exist then there is something greater than God that can be imagined.
Therefore:

God exists.

There you have it. Most Philosophy professors could go in to the reasons why this argument is wrong. For me though, it speaks truth. More than anything else, this argument is the reason I will as happily (if not more so) answer “yes” to the question, “Do you believe in God?” as “no”.
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I read three of his books in the course of five days: Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead and Seventh Son. They are all amazing, even though I have read all of them before. Speaker for the Dead was especially gripping. Reading it, it was like gospel was pouring from the pages into my eyes. I didn’t so much react to it as absorb it. The book spoke to me just as Ender spoke to his community. I realize now that I am a humanist. A strange humanist because I am more combative than most, but the truest form of humanist. I can (or at least try to) always put myself in the place of others and view things from his perspective. Sadly, his perspective is often so full of truisms and contradictions that he is unwilling to accept the conclusions one must make by following his own beliefs. I aspire to be like Ender as much as I can (hopefully less lonely). I want to offer my humanity and love to all things (including myself). Not because I ignore his faults, but because I boil them to the surface. And in exposing them for what they truly are, I can embrace them. I can embrace them wholly and openly.

The surprising thing for me to find was that Card is Mormon. Are these the truths this Church teaches? Or Christianity? Or religion in general? Should everyone understand and act with such humanity, I have no doubt that the world will be a better place.

In the mean time I plan to absorb Card like a sponge. Consume his words until they become my own. The same as I have done with Heinlein, Leibniz, Anselm, Descartes, libertarianism, economics, Homer, Wright…His words will cocoon me, enveloping me inside the strings of thought that bind his words together. Hibernating, I will synthesize both the mindset of Card and myself. They will mold, bend and shift as they combine into one. The metamorphosis completes, and I emerge a new self. I break free from the shackles of Card’s mind and climb out into the world a smarter, hungrier mind.

I thirst for more!

God. My website has become so frustrating recently. I went away for a few days and came back with over 40 new messages on my blog and only three of them were from real people. The rest were all dumb advertisements for porn. I am tired of deleting fraudulent comments, but I want to keep commenting open. So I did the only thing I could.

I decided to strike back.

From now on, all posts with either a URL or email address will be rejected. So take that you filthy spammers!

I am back in the US. Here is a (partial) list of observations:

• the Change is the US is really strange: small and thick.
• I really notice everyone’s intonation. First few strangers I speak to in Japan have intonation (since they’re always Japanese). Second, there is a big difference between the nasaly “Irrashaimasseeee’ and the soft tones of “Hi. Is everything alright?”
• The refridgerators here kick ass!
• Our toilets suck since the seats are cold and as mentioned earlier, they are in the wrong room.
• Americans need to get a grip and realize that silence is O-K. You are not a loser if you are not talking 100% of the time. You do not need to spend the entire time of your layover at the airport calling everyone you know on the cellphone. Stop. Please
• It is kind of freaky driving on the right side of the road again. But the street light sensors are awesome. American cars are stupidly huge. Luckily for the sane portion of the planet, parking is cake since the spaces are also stupidly huge to accomodate.
• Serving sizes are so huge. Why does anyone upsize? Fries are a total waste of calories and the drinks all have free-refills. What is the point of getting King Size?

Slate has an excellent article detailing the myriad ways you can both pilfer your neighbors WIFI connection and steel your connection from them at the same time. The default password and public name server lists are especially helpful.

Having your shower in the same room as the toilet is one of the dumber ideas the west has developed. It is just wrong in so many ways: dirty, crowded and complicated. We need a campaign: Get the toilet out of my bathroom.

On Wednesday I finished the day with my core kids class. Sometimes these kinders (3-6 year olds) are a little tough because it is difficult to teach kids English without using Japanese. I usually spend the first five or ten minutes trying (and failing) to get one student to do this conversation:

Erick: What’s your name?
Nao: My name is Nao.

After a few rounds of her repeating everything I say: “what’s your name?” “whats your name?” no no. “My name is Nao.” “My name is Nao.” good! (pointing now) “My name’s Na-o. What’s your name?” “What’s your name?” etc, I just give up.

Despite being unable to speak to them in English, all in all they are adorable. They are just so cute when they hand you a little tiny piece of pencil lead like its a piece of evil in the room. Or when the evil kid in the class (there is almost always one) finally calms down and plops his or herself in your lap. Adorable!

Still, the best part was after class on Wednesday. I ran into Nao and her mother while they were shopping in the mall. I said Hi and told them that I was going to the US for two weeks. Nao’s mom asked Nao what she would do. She just beaded up and started crying! How cute is that! I told her that it was okay because it was only two weeks.

I love teaching kids.

Some are trying to use this to place the US military on a moral equivilence with the terrorists. No.

[the] differences between these two killings that reveal the most important truths about the Marine shooting in Fallujah. Hassan was, in every sense of the word, a noncombatant. She worked for more than 20 years to help Iraqis obtain basic necessities: food, running water, medical care, electricity, and education. The Iraqi insurgents kidnapped her and murdered her in order to terrorize the Iraqi population and the aid workers trying to help them.

By contrast, the Marines entered a building in Fallujah and found several men who, until moments before, had been enemy insurgents engaged in mortal combat. A hidden grenade would have changed everything, and the Marine would have been lauded. As it turned out, the Iraqi was entitled to mercy, but Hassan was truly innocent. There is no legitimate moral equivalence between a soldier asking for quarter and a noncombatant like Hassan.

Why are Americans the only people who attempt to follow international rules of combat? Of course it has everything to do with the asymetric (read American superiority) of the battle, but still. From WW1 on, America and the “good guys” have always treated hostages far better than the Japanese, Germans, Vietnamese, Iraqis, etc. ever do. Slate’s Today’s Papers provides the case in point:

American Humvees broadcast messages yesterday guaranteeing that insurgents who surrender will not be harmed, a mosque blared a caustic reply: “We ask the American soldiers to surrender and we guarantee that we will kill and torture them.”

A team of researchers have found fossils of a fish with a nose between its teeth. This shows evidence of life evolving a nose attached to breathing functions, that land creatures have but fish do not. It also explains why humans develop cleft jaw, the most common type of birth defect (affecting around 1 in 800 children).