Animal Farm by George Orwell

This book was a tremendous inspiration back when it was written, and I think, an inspiration even today. The reason behind this book was Orwell's experiences with Stalin and his communist Russia.
Directed at Stalin, this book was devastating to communism everywhere. Although, one fact I find truly interesting is this: Orwell was a socialist. That does not seem to make sense, but I think we can be sure that Orwell wanted to stand for how socialism should be. Not how it would be.

In the end, this book was truly a masterpiece. For what its worth, I do not think the world would be where it is at today without the help of George Orwell.

Rating:
***** out of 5 [Theme/Meaning]
**** out of 5 [Personal Preference]

Amazing Animals: Ants

I apologize for posting another "amazing animals", but I could not pass this up. (In the future, I will try and balance my posts.) I was scouring the net for random bits of information, when I stumbled across this amazing footage of an ant civilization. This is truly incredible, and I highly recommend it. (If I am anything to go by.)

Just watch it:



Unbelievable right? But this should make you believe in the intelligence of animals. I do not think there is a better piece of evidence than this. Amazing.

Reading Body Language

This is one of the most intriguing endeavors I have ever embarked on: to try and decipher people's thoughts. There are three things, in my opinion, that make up a successful probing intellect. One, figure out the different "tells" of different people and what to make of them. Two, a previous connection with any particular person helps, because you already know how they subconsciously display signs. And three, never become over-confidant. In this way, you might misinterpret someone, causing what could be an unfortunate event.

While it is interesting to see how well you can tell what your family and friends think, but this could also be a valuable skill in the work force, dating, or any number of situations involving people. If you search the Internet, you can find many ways of which to decode people's body-language. But I have found, through reading different articles, that it is no way an exact art.

Here are some basic tells (or signs):

Head-

• Overly tilted heads are a potential sign of sympathy. Alternatively the person is trying to convince you of their honesty.
• Lowered heads indicate a reason to hide something. Take note if someone lowers their head. If it is when he is complimented, he may be shy, ashamed, timid, keeping distance from the other person, in disbelief, or thinking to himself. If it is after an explanation, then he may be unsure if what he said was correct.

*Eyes-

• Liars will consecutively look at you and look away a number of times.
  
• People who look away while supposedly listening to you are thinking about something else. This is why when you are talking to a group of people, if an item in conversation strikes the one looking away, they will ask for you to repeat the story.
• Some cultures believe that looking at someone in the eyes is a sign of disrespect.
• Auditory learners may look from side-to-side and repeat phrases in an effort to retain information
• Dilated pupils mean that the person is interested. Keep in mind, however, that alcohol causes pupils to dilate, as does cocaine, amphetamines, MDMA and LSD. Don't mistake having a few drinks for attraction. (Unless you wanna get lucky.)
  

• Looking to the side means that the person feels guilty.

Arms-

• People with crossed arms are closing themselves to social influence. The worst thing that you can do to people with crossed arms is to challenge them in one way or another, no matter how they react. This annoys them. Though some people just cross their arms as a habit, they're (slightly) reserved, they're uncomfortable with their weight (therefor trying to hide it), or they're just trying to hide something on their shirt.
• If someone rests their arms behind their neck, they are open to what is being discussed and interested in listening more. They may be waiting to state their opinion on the matter.
• Look at the location of their hands. If their hands are in their pockets, then they are more relaxed and are more likely to be attracted to you.

Nervous Gestures-

• If someone brushes their hair back with their fingers, their thoughts about something conflict with yours. They might not voice this. If you see raised eyebrows during this time, you can be pretty sure that they disagree with you.
• If the person wears glasses, and is constantly pushing them up onto their nose again, with a slight frown, that may also indicate they disagree with what you are saying. Look to make sure they push up their glasses with an intent, not casually adjusting them. Look for pushing on the rim with two fingers, or an extra motion of wiggling the side of their glasses. The frown or raised eyebrows should tip you off.
• If they are playing or fiddling with their hair (a girl may twirl a lock of her tresses around a finger), they are feeling self-conscious and possibly uncomfortable.
• If someone is biting their lip, they are anticipating something.
• Lowered eyebrows and squinted eyes illustrate an attempt at understanding what is being said or going on. It's usually skeptical. (Or maybe they have a problem seeing things eg. short sightedness, astigmatism...)
• A fast tapping, shifting of weight, or movement of the foot will most often mean that the person is excited, nervous, scared, or intimidated.

• Slowly shifting weight usually means that someone is distracted, uncomfortable, or bored.

(Sources from www.wikihow.com)

Intelligent Animals: Dogs

I have decided to post about the amazing intelligence of animals, randomly throughout this blog's lifespan. Some people believe that animals have no souls. I for one think this is truly inconceivable.

I own a dog, a border collie, in fact. And I find her to be extremely intelligent, even more so than some of my regular human correspondents (not really, although it does get pretty close). I can attest that whenever I feel upset and express it by sighing excessively, stomping about, or yelling, my dog comes running up to me with a sad look on her face. (Yes, I see an expression in her face. One I would label as "sad".) Anyway, as she comes to me she slightly wags her tail, usually puts her front paws on my legs and the proceeds to sniff me, or even lick my face if I am sitting.

I conclude that this his her way of trying to comfort me. Just to test this, I groaned loudly several times, and she came running over to me. I did this again later, achieving the same result. This to me says several things: One, she was able to notice my feelings. Two, she was able to understand my feelings. And three, she acted on her perception of my feelings by trying to soothe me. (Well, I am a good owner, if I do say so myself.)

If that isn't proof enough for you, check this out:

Noah's Ark

As we all know, Noah's Ark is a story about a man named Noah, who lived during biblical times. During these times, all of mankind was disobedient to God and so He decided to destroy the world, for He regretted He had made man. Noah was the only one whom God thought truly holy, and so set upon him a task: To build a great ark, collect every animal, male and female, and put them into the ark (an impossible task.) So, as the story goes, Noah goes about collecting "every animal" and puts them in the ark (built prior). God then floods the earth.

The bible tells us that Noah was 600 years old when the great waters came. He must have eaten loads of apples, drank plenty of water, or something like that. Skipping over this, we go to the next "fact". Noah's collection of the animals. Everybody knows he collects them two by two:

"...Of all other living creatures you shall bring two into the ark, one male and one female..."

But in another passage, the Bible says,

"...Of every clean animal, take with you seven pairs, a male and its mate; and of the unclean animals, one pair, a male and its mate..."

When the floods com, they last for forty days and forty nights. But a little later a passage reads,

"The waters maintained their crest over the earth for 150 days..."

After the rain has ceased, Noah sends out a dove to search for land. In the previous sentence, the Bible tells us Noah sent out a raven to do the exact same thing. Make sense? I didn't think so. If you read this story carefully, it may seem as though there are two different accounts of Noah, woven into one story. From this evidence, we can now say the bible is not true. Most Christians today acknowledge this, but there are some fundamentalists that believe everything in the bible is literal. That is a lie.