Naxnarok Ryzom Shard!

I doubt anybody here knows what Naxnarok was, but now its a Ryzom shard, Nyzom. I may stick with Naxnarok, but who knows.
Anyway, point your clients to www.nakarti.com and see if you can connect. It's supposed to be allowing any logins.

Political hostages

Jon Stewart the other day was describing the short-sighted bickering we call debate about the debt ceiling.
To paraphrase: you don't take a hostage you're not willing to kill. And the republican party has a gun to the economy. Obama thinks they're bluffing, thinks it is a game to them, but its serious enough that he has put almost every demand on the table. Even Social Security reform. But he asked for a hostage (end some tax breaks and high value credits,) in return.
Well unfortunately, they're not bluffing. And they're about to blow our economic brains out to prove it.

Evolution versus Speciation

One problem with many of the anti-evolution arguments is they don't think natural selection will produce new species. Dogs are given as a counter example, but they are technically compatible enough to be considered one species (depending on how restrictive you are with that definition.) I don't think that is a good counter example either, but I can't just leave it at that...

Freedom is Everything

It's a simple statement, but easy enough. Freedom is good.
I found this out when I was looking for an explanation for how Atheists can understand when something is good or when it is evil. They often rely on natural selection determinism, and say something like 'Because in general it promotes survival to do these things which are good, but (or even if) there is no absolute good.' I know that because I have said it before.
But it wasn't a complete enough explanation for me. Certainly the violent, moody, prejudicial gods of the most popular religions weren't even effective at Good. And the vague relativistic gods of the least popular religions were less concrete than the 'for survival' explanation; I can feel more specificity in my own mind than any of their explanations, and the simple survival explanation didn't cover apparently altruistic behavior in otherwise uncaring animals.