Prejean was asked by the boisterously homosexual judge Perez Hilton if she believes in gay marriage. She answered kindly and openly… speaking of both the joys of personal freedom and her own family upbringing and convictions.

Article here:

Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton was crowned Miss USA on Sunday, but the big story to come out of the normally politics-free telecast was Miss California’s comments regarding gay marriage.

When asked by judge Perez Hilton, an openly gay gossip blogger, whether she believed in gay marriage, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, said “We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”

She was asked her personal view… and she gave it (and well spoken, too)… and for that was summarily attacked. Let’s face it, the left hate everything about Christians and the Christocentric worldview… and they hate tolerating the views of others, so now they don’t. Gone are the days when classic liberals respected, even championed, free speech and the open exchange of ideas.

The entertainment industry is pockmarked with gossip debris like Hilton (who once “broke” the story that Castro was dead – we could have been so lucky), and having a conservative Christian view… scratch that, having any view from any faith-based or common-sense-based perspective that doesn’t pour gushing bowls of tear-filled support all over every manner of homosexual lifestyle is considered the worst form of intolerance to Hollywood.

Another article:

“This is why we have judges at Miss USA, so we find the girl to rep us ALL,” Moakler Twittered after the pageant.

“I don’t know how you can call a gay man or woman your friend and not want them 2 have the same joys as yourself. In my family we believe in equal rights for all, I am sad and hurt, I agree with Perez 100 [percent]. It’s one thing to have an opinion I am very opinionated n have dealt with backlash from it, it’s another to alienate people who cared about u.”

[...]

“Hollywood isn’t just liberal, it is fearfully liberal. It is easier in Hollywood to say you’re a drug addict or to pretty much anything than to admit to being a committed Christian,” media expert and longtime Hollywood publicist, Michael Levine of Levine Communications, told FOXnews.com.

[...]

“It is unfortunate that Miss California, who we note did not win, is so out of touch with the overwhelming majority of people her age that she wants to deny loving, committed couples the rights and dignity that come only with marriage,” said Geoff Kors, Executive Director of Equality California.

Prejean has garnered a lot of support nonetheless.

“The majority of California’s voters — more than 7 million people — voted to protect traditional marriage, and we congratulate Miss California for her conviction to speak her beliefs,” Ron Prentice, chairman of ProtectMarriage.com Coalition, said.

I love how all these leftist elites show such shock, dismay, and disgust at an opposing viewpoint… that you’d think affirming traditional marriage was something unseen in years, like yellow fever or a grateful teenager. You’d never guess that the ENTIRE STATE OF CALIFORNIA just voted on and passed Proposition 8 defining marriage as an opposite-sex union. So in actuality Miss California is more accurately representing her state that anyone seems to realize. More importantly, she was being frank and sincere… being considerate and honest. All these traits befit this would-be pageant winner… someone with inner beauty to match her outer beauty. And all those traits, adding in morality, decency, TRUE tolerance, and love, are completely missing from Hollywood, the radical left, and almost every homosexual activist I’ve heard or read. Shock.

More from Hollywood:

The way Hollywood has piled on Carrie Prejean online since the Miss USA pageant on Sunday, you’d think the Christian college student had called for a tax on botox!

[...]

Even Miley Cyrus had something to say to Perez Hilton on the issue.

“[I] am a christian and i love you – gay or not. BECAUSE you are no different that anyone else! we are all gods children! i am not saying this so would be nice on your site (though that would be nice jk;) but because the LORD has spoken “love cuz god loves” hey!!! what about me??? would i make a good miss usa?? ”

Heidi Montag, another committed Christian, also twittered her thoughts.

“[L]esbians should have the same government rights that Spencer and I will when we get married. So, yes, this blonde Christian believes in gay marriage. God says not to judge and I would never try to judge ANYONE! Nor should our “free” country,” “The Hills” starlet wrote.

Oh, so instead of committed Christian #1 supporting her fellow sister in Christ (who was attacked for kindly and humbly sharing her feelings), Miley instead ingratiates herself with the attacker!?

And so-called “committed Christian” #2 supports homosexual marriage!? Umm… sorry folks, not a Christian.

Trump defends.

This guy from Breitbart.TV explains this whole thing better than I ever could. [article link]

In today’s world of political correctness (a true mental disease if ever there was one) Thanksgiving seems to be largely rewritten by elitist swine in our education system. I remember that Maryland public school kids were allowed to thank anyone for Thanksgiving — except God!? Now I’m reading that a 40-year Thanksgiving dress-up tradition in a California school district is being scrapped by un-testicled school officials who are cowering to some young Indian mother with a tomahawk up her butt about the whole thing.

For a fresher perspective on Thanksgiving read Rush Limbaugh’s recent chronicling of the early settlers’ experiments with socialism and free enterprise. Apparently William Bradford learned very quickly what many today will never learn.

Despite the consistent stream of idiocy surrounding me in virtually every facet of my existence on this rock there is MUCH I am thankful for. Much. I am thankful that there are still some around me who believe in truth. There are still some who will stand against stupidity and political correctness — who will rebuke “offended” people just like Jesus did. I am thankful that my life (despite the pool of unintelligence I have to wade through daily) is relative a day in the park… an amusement park… a big amusement park with lots of rides and fried junk food. I’ve got it good, and I am commanded to share what I have been blessed with to those in need – and to do it in God’s name and in an effective manner.

So, happy cynical Thanksgiving!

Let us look at this phenomenon on a familiar micro-scale… the video game. In Wired’s article the economics of today’s larger scale games, specifically its MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, were examined for their effect on the mental captivity of their audience… the player. It was found that scarcity, not abundance, was a key ingredient to an engaging experience. Now, while every gamer loves a challenge, why would rich and fantastical environments with limitless resources not attract everyone who’s dreamed of making Trump Tower look like a taco stand? It’s not attractive because it’s not hard… and as it turns out, hard is fun.

Economics is loosely defined as choice under scarcity. After all, in the real world, there’s only so much to go around. You can’t always get what you want, and unfulfilled desires give rise to markets. But in a game world, there’s no inherent reason for scarcity. Game designers have given us plenty of utopias where we can have all the mithril we want, to buy whatever we want whenever we want it. Problem is, those worlds turn out to be dull. For example, the developers of Active Worlds made everything in the game free. Players built enormous houses – in which there was nothing to do. The game never quite caught on. That’s why today’s newer massive synthetic worlds make life hard. It’s why we have to scheme, fight, and occasionally beg for food, shelter, transportation, and great big flaming swords.
- Geekonomics, Wired Magazine – April 06.

Take a game like World of Warcraft… when you’re not fighting bands of enemies (or following the foolhardy Leeroy Jenkins into a deathtrap) you’re fishing, leatherworking, skinning, tailoring, or any of several otherwise mundane tasks. If you want choice armor and weapons you have to earn them. If you want a sweet ride of a mount you need to pay some mad duckets. And if you want the gold you have to earn it, lawfully or otherwise. It’s not easy, but this game is growing in players and servers every day. It’s hard, but it’s fun.

So why is hard fun? I’m not much for the rambling of psychologists, but a clue may be found in the seminal work of former University of Chicago psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He has a theory called Flow.

Flow is a mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
- Flow, en.wikipedia.org

While the full concept is no doubt complex (and not without its more dubious assertions) the basic premise is simple. Activities that possess “flow” usually share a few common characteristics: clear goals, focus, loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, distorted sense of time, direct and immediate feedback, balance between ability level and challenge, sense of control, and intrinsic reward. If we look at this list we can quickly see the parallels with successful online videogames.

More than just in massive multiplayer games, there are smaller bite-size examples as well. Recently a small Flash game aptly titled Flow (created by Jenova Chen for his University of Southern California thesis project) gained notoriety when word of it quickly circulated through the blogosphere. In true Digg or Slashdot fashion Chen’s thesis website was flooded with online visitors in just a few days. Why, you ask? Is this game some gargantuan leap of Flash ActionScript technology? Nope. It’s small, simple, and patterned after Csikszentmihalyi’s principles of flow… making it unquestionably fun. There’s no record of high scores (there’s no score at all), but more than a few curious surfers found themselves engrossed in the wonderfully entertaining and aesthetically pleasing world of a small sea creature. Diving deep into the ocean to nibble little bright wisps of nutrition while out-swimming competitors was never so much fun!

Economics in games… flow in games… what’s the point? In the safety of the video game microcosm the behaviors of people reveal themselves in ways applicable to the “real” world. The same flow theory principle of ability-challenge balance that buries a fast-money-MMORPG is the principle that makes games like World of Warcraft flourish. This is, consequently, the same entrepreneurial drive that powers real-world capitalist economies over socialist or communist structures. The same lethargic undertones of the government collection of resources and subsequent reallocation can stifle the creativity and ingenuity of a people just as easily as reckless riches can kill a game. Think this is all a stretch? Think again.

This classic risk-reward model has proved itself over and over. Who would argue against the fact that the drive to excel is greatest where there is much to gain through excellence and nothing to gain through inactivity? This gain can be in the form of needed bread and water or a fleet of luxury cruise liners. If you were getting free food, would you then feel the need to grow it? Of course not… not unless your food source was going away sometime soon. If you got unlimited free healthcare would you have any incentive to stay healthy and make good choices? Of course not… we’d have a whole society of Keith Richards competing in the X-Games. If you knew your report card would be straight A’s would you study as hard? Not likely. And If you knew your concerted efforts towards a lofty career goal were sure to gain you nothing would you reassess your goals and reallocate your efforts? Of course you would…and you’d be right to. It’s all about the balance… the flow… the scarcity of resources… the risk and reward. What we demonstrate in our virtual worlds only mirrors our real instinctual behavior… and flow will engage us regardless of the venue, digital or actual.

So the next time someone asks what things would be like if everything was free, cleave them in twain with your battle axe and take their gold… because hey, if you survive you’ve earned it.

• Geekonomics, by Edward Castronova, Wired Magazine – April 2006
• Flow (psychology), en.wikipedia.org
• World of Warcraft, en.wikipedia.org
• http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/

Well, in the meantime, I love to fill my head with sundry and sometimes excruciating concepts of the physical world. Here’s a few links to some migraines waiting to happen.

John Baez (not to be confused with Joan) from the University of California at Riverside Math Department has compiled a plotted graph of all the roots of all polynomials of degree greater than or equal to 5 with integer coefficients ranging from -4 to 4. [Link here] It’s intriguing to see the patterns that the computed roots follow when graphed. There’s is definitely inherent order and even art in the mathematics involved.

More directly related to art is a blog entry I was reading on Mahndisa’s blog. She was talking about a favorite music artist that composes and records music using the Just Intonation scale. [the what?] It is an alternate scale tuning in which the notes’ frequencies are related to one another with whole integer fractions. [what?] One reason this really hasn’t been successfully used since the Middle Ages (except in modern ethereal New Age music) is because of the terribly dissonant wolf intervals it can create. [the what?] Here’s a little tutorial (with a lot of math) explaining why we have a 12-tone diatonic note set and how standard tuning (Equal Temperament) differs from just intonation. So remember, when playing very old music a G# might be different from an Ab. [huh?!]

And if your head hasn’t spun off, just read up on the uncertainty principle found in quantum mechanics. Try grasping the implications of the EPR paradox on Einstein’s theory of special relativity, especially the implications caused by quantum entanglement where information is transmitted between distant particles instantaneously (read: greater than the speed of light).

Good stuff.