Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

The five photos below were all taken on what is essentially our front lawn. This isn't on our property, it's off the decent sized two-bedroom apartment we've rented to stay in during the building period for the grand sum of a bit under $200 US a month. So… again… If you're in the IT industry, or are a writer, or in any of the other fields that are geography independant, why isn't this what your front yard looks like?

This sort of thing *really* makes me feel just a little like the Group of Seven must have felt… As Lawren S. Harris said, “We had commenced our great adventure. We lived in a continuous blaze of enthusiasm. We were at times very serious and concerned, at other times hilarious and carefree. Above all, we loved this country and loved exploring and painting it.”

OK, it's kind of hard to do news stuff from here, because obviously I can read a LOT faster than a dialup modem can download stories (because of the graphics primarily). First I'd like to thank Josh for giving me a copy of “The Real Lincoln” at the BBQ. It's a mindblowing and misconception shattering book, that is absolutely terrifying in the context of what's going on now. It goes to show a few things that I know modern America doesn't want us to know:

• That slavery was dying out in the South (and the rest of the world) quite peacefully, while the North pushed hard for an all-white nation, and was the racist centre of America at the time — most historians are clear that overall most of America's racism was in the North at the time.
• That the Emancipation Proclamation was no more than a political stunt aimed at creating a slave rebellion in the South (remember, only Confederate slaves were freed, and they were banned from entering most Northern States).
• That Lincoln kick-started a process of government “favors” to big business — and government debt and inflation — that eventually led to most of the wars in the Western hemisphere.
• That the North's “restorations” and black voter manipulation in the South were the cause of most of modern America's racial tension (they took away the whites right to vote, gave it to the blacks on the condition that they voted Republican, and promised the blacks the white's proptery, but then never came through). In addition, after the Civil War, they ordered the total extermination of the Plains Indians.
• That when after two years of getting trounced by the Confederate armies, the North eventually won the war through massive war crimes and terrorism — that's right — America is a rogue terrorist nation. There were massive “battles” which constituted of not much more than raping and pillaging civilian centres, and whole towns of no military value were destroyed.
• That the dictator Lincoln effectively threw out the Constitution and made America the horrible place that it is today (in comparison to what the founding fathers wanted it to be). He jailed opposing politicians, voters, publishers, and suspended habeus corpus and instituted martial law for most of his reign.
• That after the Civil War, the North instituted nation-wide government sponsored schools with the sole purpose of re-writing history, a process that obviously continues today.
• He got rid of states rights (a fundamental neccessity in American government) and consolidated all power in the central government, and turned America into a far more despicable version of what its founding fathers sought to flee.

Anyway, that only scrapes the surface. This book is a MUST READ, especially if you're an American that has spent their life being lied to by the bastards that stole your country from you about a hundred and fifty years ago. Maybe if enough people read this book, America will remember WHY it was formed, and what a beautiful place it was meant to be. (Here's a link to the book on Amazon).

Along the lines of the book, here's something to click: the military spending clock. If you'd like more bad news, now the US is talking about looking for oil in Africa, and using military might to do it — yeah, oil has turned out real well so far. Think about the cost, then contrast that to the cost of solar and wind and tidal based power generation systems, which are far safer (and far cheaper) on every level… If you want even more echoing of the civil war, this is it. Anyway, just go read the book. You won't regret it.