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Winston Churchill once said (and I paraphrase);

“Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others..”

When I heard this (some odd year or two ago) it struck me as very pragmatic and pretty funny, which brings me to the point. I was born and raised in a small North Carolina town, and until tonight I was oblivious to this history of my home town. That may not be funny to you, but I think it is….“just when you think you really know something about the world around you”…

Here’s a few facts about Transylvania County, NC and the town of Brevard, NC:

• Transylvania County came into being in 1861 when Representative Joseph P. Jordan introduced a bill to the North Carolina House of Commons to establish a new county from parts of Henderson and Jackson Counties. Having been born on a farm near Blantyre in Transylvania, it is no surprise that Jordan chose the name “Transylvania” for his new county. (The name, “Transylvania,” comes from the Latin, “trans” for “across” and “sylvan” for “woods,” and could not have been more aptly chosen.) Jordan’s bill also provided for the requested new town in the county. The bill was approved on February 15. 1861.

• Brevard was chosen as the name for the new town as a tribute to a notable man, Ephriam Brevard, a colonel in the Revolutionary Army and surgeon.

• Ephriam Brevard was born in 1744. He studied medicine at Princeton College and was known to be “socially prominent.” At the time of the Revolutionary War, he gained a degree of prominence as a patriot and was esteemed for drafting and signing the Mecklenburg Declaration. This declaration was written before Thomas Jefferson penned the national Declaration of Independence.

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The 5 Resolves of the Mecklenburg Declaration

1. Resolved, That whosoever directly or indirectly abetted, or in any way, form, or manner, countenanced the unchartered and dangerous invasion of our rights, as claimed by Great Britain, is an enemy to this County, to America, and to the inherent and inalienable rights of man.

2. Resolved, That we the citizens of Mecklenburg County, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us to the Mother Country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, and abjure all political connection, contract, or association, with that Nation, who have wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties and inhumanly shed the innocent blood of American patriots at Lexington.

3. Resolved, That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people, are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing Association, under the control of no power other than that of our God and the General Government of the Congress; to the maintenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to each other, our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor.

4. Resolved, That as we now acknowledge the existence and control of no law or legal officer, civil or military, within this County, we do hereby ordain and adopt, as a rule of life, all, each and every of our former laws - where, nevertheless, the Crown of Great Britain never can be considered as holding rights, privileges, immunities, or authority therein.

5. Resolved, That it is also further decreed, that all, each and every military officer in this County, is hereby reinstated to his former command and authority, he acting conformably to these regulations, and that every member present of this delegation shall henceforth be a civil officer, viz. a Justice of the Peace, in the character of a ‘Committee-man,’ to issue process, hear and determine all matters of controversy, according to said adopted laws, and to preserve peace, and union, and harmony, in said County, and to use every exertion to spread the love of country and fire of freedom throughout America, until a more general and organized government be established in this province.

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Democracy may not be perfect and our country may not set the best example all of the time, but I’m proud of this. If you’ve read all this and are still interested I encourage you to look up the history behind your origins. I expect no comments from this; I probably lost you all at Churchill.

Astronomers today voted to create the first scientific definition of the word “planet”, and Pluto did not make the cut.

In a redefinition of our solar system agreed at a conference of 2,500 astronomers in the Czech capital, Prague, the dinky and remote Pluto was classified as a “dwarf planet”.

Under the new guidelines, agreed after a week of sometimes passionate debate, to qualify as a planet a celestial body must have “cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit”.

The new rules for a planet state: “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a … nearly round shape, and cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit”.

All I can really say is; about time.

Recently Justin and I have been spending a lot of time taking flights across our great nation in Flight Sim 2004. It’s been a lot of fun and a learning experience, but I believe there truely is no better simulator out there. It’s one thing Microsoft has done well. You would be surprised at just how interactive the aircraft are, especially the avionics, GPS mapping and real world feel when you turn everything on.

It gets better though..

FSX should be out by the holidays!

Heres a before/after of Hawaii.

The demo dropped just a few days ago and sadly Justin and I were a little disappointed. I realize it’s probably something they just threw together, but the overall feel wasn’t even that of FS9. I turned all the settings up and it still looked like crap (and ate my framerate for lunch too). Wantmoore found a nice video demo’ng the demo which looked 200% better than what him or I saw, but we really don’t know what we are doing wrong beyond a potential hardware handicap ( ). If the demo was going to help me justify spending $60-80 dollars on the full game it did a poor job…

I haven’t blogged in a while, don’t have much to say at this point so I’ll just plug a cool site.

Disgruntled McDonald’s customer runs into two other customers with her car after dispute over who was next in line. Victims reportedly not loving it

This is just one of many hilarious taglines to get you interested in the article. Make sure you hop, skip or jump over there and read something funny today.