Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

If you knew you had six months to live and could give one speech summing-up your life and communicating your values to your kids what would you say? Would you talk about your regrets? Your grudges? Your accomplishments? Your childhood dreams?

This was the question 46 year old Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Randy Pausch was faced with and his answer is nothing short of inspirational.

I've linked the speech below but I'd like to warn you - it's almost two hours long. If you have the time it's well worth watching. You can skip the introductions by the first two people until you get to Randy.

(For the record I became aware of this story because J.J. Abrams just helped Randy accomplish one of his childhood dreams by giving him a small part in the Star Trek film shooting now. )

Randy Pausch's Farewell Speech.

No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.

Isn't it annoying when conservatives purloin words and phrases used almost exclusively by progressives? What really irritates is the shameless post-modern relativism combined with the conservative penchant for lacking the self-awareness necessary to understand irony on display.

Case in point: In Case You Missed It: Cognitive Dissonance. A Washington Times article posted on GOP.com which accuses Democrats of displaying cognitive dissonance by celebrating the Lamont victory while shrugging off the London bombing plot.

This is sort of like a crazy person accusing you of "Fatally misunderstanding how the world works because you don't speak 'dog.'" There can be no cognitive dissonance if the two points of information do not, in fact, connect to begin with.

I would appreciate greatly if conservatives would avoid the use of the term "cognitive dissonance" until they could recognize it's actual meaning. While their at it they might as well also drop the use of the words Wingnut, Kool-Aid Drinker and Moderate until they spend a couple of hours perusing Wikipedia as to their definitions.

Just a suggestion...