Home, sweet friggin home, or at least 200 miles from home is still closer than I have been in a long time. Ah Houston, with it's smog and hundreds of miles of concrete and asphalt, how I missed thee, not really. I got in from KC last night and despite some mishaps at the airport, a stop at Zio's Restraunt with a buddy of mine and his family, to include his wife and their two sons Andrew and Patrick, Wherein I proceeded to warp the minds of the youth of America ( one of my favorite pastimes) The boys were great, soaked it up like a sponge and by the end of the night they were calling me their new best friend, what a deal. Eventually I wound up at Starbucks where I ran into Nicki, Jill and Steve, hung out there for a bit before my ride showed up and I went to my parents home here in North Houston. All in all a good night and an excellent trip, I began to unpack my gear and somewhere in the middle of it all I passed out on the floor only waking to the sound of the telephone ringing at about 4 am , time to get up and go to work.

In other News/Thoughts: Happy Cinco De Mayo! Like we need another excuse to have a party?

Which society do you believe functions in the best interests of everyone?
---------------------
A society based on individualism (with a basic set of ground rules) or A society based on a collective group of beings, like many older civilizations (and if you want to use the example, aliens)?
This could be considered a trick question, depending on your perspective on the question. From my persective, this question could relate to capitolism vs. socialism. Capitolism is a system for the individual, holding the individual wo/man as the highest being in the system. Thus, we compete and grow, but we don't work for others, we work for ourselves. In true capitolism one would never hurt others, as this would damage the person's resources. If you kill the baker you won't have any bread tomorrow.

Socialism is based on the principle of the greatest good for the majority (all of these are various Social Contract concepts), thus all of the people are working for the good of the system and the social group as a whole.

The system based on the individual is easily the best one (or maybe I'm just a brainwashed American). We can look at systems that are group-based and see that they look like a scene from 1920's America. They use archaic machinery and there is little happiness.

The individual likes no thing more than him/herself. Thus, we, as individuals, are always going to work for things that benefit ourselves. We will compete and advance society. As in any social contract, there are groudn rules - prohibiting murder and whatnot- so we can get along in our ego-driven lives. Thus, working for the small developes the whole; working for the whole just makes us miserable.

----------------------------------