a tiny chunk of the universe

health care..!

2009-08-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since I last posted, and I'm back with a rant.

It seems like the nation is stuck in a rut. Congress can't settle on a healthcare bill that gives everyone (read: the insurance co.'s) what they want. Citizens are crying about "socialism" and "death panels" and other such red herrings.

And what do I think about it all? Well, I'm leaning past the left towards anarchy or revolution as the only solution to this madness.

I for one have never understood what the big deal about socialism is. I think that really, it's a combination of greed and ignorance that drives the fear. Because we already have several forms of "socialism" in place, and nobody bitches about public parks or fire trucks or busses or much needed (albeit inconvenient) highway maintenance. OR MEDICARE. Who pays for that? The government? And where do they get their money (this is the $1M question, folks)? TAXES! SOCIALISM! Sure, some bad things have been done in the name of communism over in China and USSR, but PEOPLE-- it's FREE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!

And the main reason people are opposed to it is either that they think that it will cost too much or that there will be some immaculate panel that determines who is fit to be a part of functioning society. Both of these assumptions are the result of misinformation spread by (presumably) the insurance companies (who are making a killing) and their lackeys. But furthermore it shows how little trust the american people have left in our government.

Seriously, these are BIG, legit fears. I mean hell, I don't want the government taking more of my money to fund some half-baked plan of theirs to "bail out" Wall Street. So by the same vein I can understand healthy non-smoking people not wanting the government taking their money to "bail out" someone with emphysema. And for sure, almost all of us have an elderly relative in assisted living or permanent healthcare etc., and we'd all sure hate to loose Nana or PepPep because the government's own Simon Cowell said so. And no doubt, all the smokers and alcoholics are shaking in their boots for fear they get a collapsed lung or something and are turned away because their own bad habits brought them to the ER.

But where can we draw the line? How can we make our government (and ourselves) accountable? To me, the obvious solution is a "fat tax" funding the new health care system. A higher (way high) sales tax on fatty and sugary foods, alcohol and tobacco. (And then, since we're on a roll, why don't we legalize the cultivation of cannabis, legalize and tax marijuana and use the revenue to fund our new GREEN *cough cough* hemp energy economy!) (And on that note, I'll bet if medical marijuana WERE to be legal, and we could all freely self medicate, the sleeping, anti-anxiety, and anti-depressant pill manufacturers would go out of business! (along with those for glaucoma, seizures and everything else it's legally prescribable for)).

The life expectancy in America is 78.11 years, which doesn't seem too shabby, but we're #50 when all the countries are compared. (Canada is #8 at 81.23 years. Even with grizzly bears, moose, and lumberjacks felling trees. Hmmm.) Check out this page for some stats on just how bad America's health is (survey is a little outdated: 1992. But the point still stands)

oh, PUH-LEEZE!

2009-04-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

Our dearly beloved (former) governor Blago wants to go on a reality TV show instead of prison. The TV show is a sort of celebrity "Survivor" where famous people live in the jungle and complete challenges to raise money for charity. He's already got a contract with the network (NBC) and is just waiting for the court to OK it.

Not that you care, but...

2009-04-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

The Hubble Space Telescope has been around a long time, taking pictures of the visible universe. One advantage of this is that when something happens, such as a supernova, scientists can go back through archival data and study the star before it exploded. Recently, such an event has happened, and as it turns out, astronomers may have to completely revise their theories of stellar evolution.
Stuff like this makes me somewhat giddy, because it reminds us that theories are often imperfect, and that there's SO SO SO MUCH we still dont know =)

The supernova occurred in a distant galaxy, but there is a similar star in our own Milky Way, called Eta Carinae which could explode in a hypernova.. a million, a thousand, a hundred.. years down the road. At this point it's pretty hard to tell. It would seem that this star is too far away to affect us should it explode, but we would DEFINITELY see it from earth (in the 1800's it was the 2nd brightest star in the sky after Sirius).

Apocalypse now

2009-03-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

Wes and I discuss current events from time to time. One concern I've voiced recently is the possible government takeover of credit. Given the current situation, it's not at all unlikely, and if it does happen, it is the Mark of the Beast.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the book of Revelation in the Bible, one HUGE sign of the apocalypse is this mark of the beast thingy. Basically "the devil" takes over and assigns everyone a number, and without this number you cannot travel or trade. Some people were calling the "national ID card" the mark, but your purchasing power is not limited by the ID card. It would be by a government credit card.

Now I know some of you are saying "Oh man, she's gone Christian on us!" But that's not anymore true than saying that I've gone Mayan and started sacrificing people. I do still view the bible as largely fairy tales and parables. After all, Revelation is presented as a dream, full of imagery and metaphors.
And even as Wes and I talk with certainty about the coming end times, we remain calm, almost observant. This whole sequence of events seems very alien, barely reaching our lives. I mentioned to a coworker that aside from my sliding "college savings account" I don't even notice a recession. Shit, have you seen gas prices? They're freakin awesome.

Edit:
Actually, I just remembered how we got on this topic. I was thinking about how the government is printing way too much money and it's leading to inflation. So I proposed we burn massive amounts of cash to increase the value of the dollar. However I soon realized the possible worst-case-scenario of civil war over cash supply, at which point the government would step in and nationalize credit, leading to (BUM BUM BUMMMM..) the mark of the beast.

YouTube conspiracy theorists... sigh..

2009-01-08T07:20:00.000-08:00

YouTube has both its merits and its drawbacks. In line with the wonders of the internet, anyone can post anything they want! This is obviously two sided...

anyway, kids on youtube are claiming you can see Nibiru or our sister star or w/e if you take pictures of the sun. SOME are mildly convincing.. But then I had a thought... Venus. Venus is near the sun this time of year. Fucking Venus.

Anyway, I took some pictures for myself this morning.. turned up nothing but the sun. Maybe a UFO but that very well could have been a speck of dirt on my windsheild (I was driving. Taking pictures of the sun while driving! Yes!)

So I guess I'll just do that till the sensor in my camera is fried. lol. Anyway, I won't post ANY pictures unless It is beyond a reasonable doubt that I have two suns or a UFO.

BUT here's the thing.. Previous Nibiru vids said we'd be able to see it in the southern hemisphere in 2009. And now.. January 1st all of the sudden people are like "OMG NIBIRU THE PROPHESY IS TRUUUUUU" Well if you knew anything about astronomy you'd realise it's probably Venus. Seriously "Mystery planet"? Barf. (err scratch my "venus" theory. You can't see it in the morning for another month or so-ish. But they'll be filming it when they can!)

You can fool some of the people all of the time..

2008-12-19T10:35:00.001-08:00

you can fool all of the people some of the time...
But to fool most of the people all of the time, you need a two-party political system.

States’ Funds for Jobless Are Drying Up: Seek Government Help

2008-12-15T08:52:00.000-08:00

B-buh? Give money to create jobs, instead of bailing out CEOs? We never even though of that.

The solution to repeat offenders

2008-12-14T11:22:00.001-08:00

In my previous entry I mentioned that we have a 60% repeat offender rate here in the good ole U.S. of A. Here are some solutions:

Rehabilitation! Wouldn't that be super if we could have a system where we could successfully rehabilitate criminals to be productive members of society? If we could have a less than 10% repeat offender rate? Sure you don't want prison time to look too much like a free ride...
Lifetime sentences. Never let them out. Sure that'd be costly, but maybe we can combine #1 and #2 so we can be sure the ones we do let go would behave themselves.
Capital punishment for all felonies. Obviously you shouldn't be put to death for say, running a red light (or should you?) but for sure at least cases where there is irrefutable evidence the suspect killed one or more people intentionally. I would say there has to be intent (other than drunk driving. Other countries punish DUIs with death, and we should too.). This whole less than life for murder thing is ridiculous.

Sure, #3 is a bit harsh, but theoretically it would lower the initial crime rates. Maybe people would think over their options before stealing a TV.

On a completely unrelated topic, tonight is a peak viewing period for the meteor shower. I forget the name of this one, but apparently this one is known for some spectacular fireballs. The only problem this year is that we've got a full moon, so the peak is between sunset and moonrise, about 1.5 hours.

I came home yesterday to find an envelope from Norweigan Cruise Lines on the counter. The conversation went something like this:
Me: What? You guys are going on a cruise? When were you gonna tell me?
Mom: I dunno.
Me: You'd tell me like a week before. "Hey, we're going on a cruise. Can you take care of Daisy?" Man, you never take me anywhere cool.
Mom: What you wanna go on a cruise? I didn't think you would.
Me: Its a CRUISE! (looks at the brochure) To MEXICO!
Mom: Yeah, but you don't like family vacations.
Me: Our vacations are like, the Dells, or Memphis. Not a cruise to mexico!
Mom: Well, do you want me to look into it?
Me: Yeah.. could you?
Mom: Yeah. You'll probably have to share a room with Doug.
Me: .. Hm. When is it?
Mom: February, for ten days. Actually, you could probably take Wes.
Me: Wow, ten days. I've got five classes. I don't know if I wanna miss that much. Hey when is that insurance thing due? I get like five or ten days to drop classes for a full refund! heh, kidding.
Mom: What?
Me: For insurance.. Enrollment. I could fill out the form and drop the classes.
Mom: What? You're dropping your classes??
Me: No, I said I was kidding.
Mom: Well do you want me to check into it for you or no?
Me: (looks at brochure again) Yeah, would you please?

Wooooooo cruise to Mexico! Possibly! Mayan ruins OMG!!!

Bush? Bush who?

2008-12-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

As Obama prepares to take office, Bush may as well be on vacation. The spotlight is almost COMPLETELY off him, and it's all about what BHO's planning on doing.

But whatever, life's more about drugs and alcohol and conspicuous consumption than the health and welfare of the middle and lower classes, not to mention that of our economy. Oh and about locking up dangerous criminals and treating them like shit. Don't we have like an 60% repeat offender rate?

Oh, and I think I have Asperger Syndrome. Wheee! Thats like saying I'm more socially adept than an Autistic kid, but less mathematically inclined. What really tipped me off was the part about speech patterns:

Although individuals with Asperger syndrome acquire language skills without significant general delay and their speech typically lacks significant abnormalities, language acquisition and use is often atypical. Abnormalities include verbosity, abrupt transitions, literal interpretations and miscomprehension of nuance, use of metaphor meaningful only to the speaker, auditory perception deficits, unusually pedantic, formal or idiosyncratic speech, and oddities in loudness, pitch, intonation, prosody, and rhythm.

Three aspects of communication patterns are of clinical interest: poor prosody, tangential and circumstantial speech, and marked verbosity. Although inflection and intonation may be less rigid or monotonic than in autism, people with AS often have a limited range of intonation: speech may be unusually fast, jerky or loud. Speech may convey a sense of incoherence; the conversational style often includes monologues about topics that bore the listener, fails to provide context for comments, or fails to suppress internal thoughts.

Children with AS may have an unusually sophisticated vocabulary at a young age and have been colloquially called "little professors", but have difficulty understanding figurative language and tend to use language literally. Children with AS appear to have particular weaknesses in areas of nonliteral language that include humor, irony, and teasing. Although individuals with AS usually understand the cognitive basis of humor they seem to lack understanding of the intent of humor to share enjoyment with others. Despite strong evidence of impaired humor appreciation, there are anecdotal reports of humor in individuals with AS, which challenge theories of humor in AS.

This along with social troubles, and an extensive but narrow range of interests (ie. Space, Politics (with a limited understanding of motives), deep focus on 1 or 2 video games at a time) lead me to belive that it's not ADD I have, but AS. Awesome.

headdesk

2008-11-20T07:18:00.000-08:00

I hate america. "Ooooh, the economy's getting worse! Pull our stocks out of the market! AAHHHH!" fucking idiots. raarararararraraarraararar.

Take THAT creationists!

2008-11-19T07:31:00.001-08:00

One premise of creationism is that life is simply too complex to have just happened- there must be some intelligent designer behind it all. However, the miracle of evolution is known to produce vestigial limbs- body parts that are now useless but still hang around. Meet flightless birds, wales with hind legs, and humans- with our tailbones, appendices, and useless body hair.

coughItoldyouso

2008-11-18T09:32:00.000-08:00

A select few people know, since freshman year, that I do not believe in DNA. That is, I didn't believe the current theory on genes was correct, primarily because of "junk DNA." This was not a christian thing. Evolution would not allow for "junk DNA." This is merely me deciding, that given science's record for being wrong at first, that we were missing something.

AND SO. Now. They are rethinking the way genes work.

And honestly, genetics reinforce the idea that everything came from the same place, and is essentially the same thing. All life on this planet have DNA that tells their cells how to grow. The same string of DNA makes all the different type of cells. Is DNA just some kind of programming language, as binary is?

oh snap

2008-11-14T13:34:00.000-08:00

on wikipedia today, i read that jsut recently we discovered that a star in Pegasus has at least 3 planets orbiting it!

As below, so above...

2008-11-10T10:07:00.000-08:00

I think we can learn alot about the universe by studying our own solar system. Everything came from the same clump of junk in the very beginning, right? So everything is esentially made of the same stuff, at the very least at the atomic level. We're a somewhat average sized planet orbiting an average sized sun. We possibly have a sister star, which we have seen examples of through our telescopes. We have comets and meteors in our solar system that sometimes collide with the planets. At least one of our 8.5 planets currently harbors life. We think it could be possible for a moon to harbor life as well. In addition to the main planets, we have at least 3 "dwarf planets."

We can see other stars with planets around them, (relatively) not too far from our own solar system. But really, we can only see the large gaseous planets, because those reflect more light, and are generally easier to detect.

Pluto, formerly the smallest planet in our solar system, now merely a Dwarf planet, has a moon larger than itself. Some scientists want to call it a binary planet, since neither object lies in the center of its orbital trajectory.

So what we have is a young to middle aged yellow star with a multitude of planets and rocks and dust orbiting it, including possibly a sister star. and this faintly glowing clump of dust has one tiiiiiny barely visible planet harboring life. And we dare think we're alone?

Paying a ticket

2008-11-06T09:19:00.000-08:00

I got a ticket a few weeks ago, and i got the cash to pay it. then i realise the envelope says not to pay cash, but with a cashiers check or money order. I dont wanna mess with it, and i see that you can pay it online, so i try to do that. It doesn't pull up ANYTHING for my DL# nor my name, or the ticket number. So I call the number on the envelope. It rings, and rings, and rings. then finally a recording comes on, saying that agents are available 8:30 am to 4:30 pm (its 11 am right now.. where are the agents???) but it gives me a prompt to check traffic ticket info. So I do that, enter my drivers lic # and the ticket #, and it gives me an option to use the automated payment system. and it goes dead.

So i call back again. rings and rings and rings. no answer after like 5 min. try again two more times and i finally get the recording again. enter the info again, hit 3 for the automated payment, and... dead again.

SO. i must not have a ticket on file. which is all fine and dandy, except they have my license as bond and um, I'd kinda like that back.

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

so i tried one more time (well twice, at first it rang and rang and rang... and then stopped ringing...), and pressed 0 for an agent (oh, i get it now) and asked him why the info wasnt coming up, he said i should be able to pay by the end of next week, because no, it isn't in the system yet. SRRSLY, F BEUROCRACY.

SoundCloud

2008-11-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

Found this site called soundcloud for sharing music. Send me a track! sign up and i might send you one!

Next: We Mine Mars

2008-11-04T08:21:00.000-08:00

Apparently there's opals on mars. and no life. or at least not anymore (not on the surface)

anyway, mars used to be warmer and wetter. now its cold and dry. WTFmate? My theory is that the planets were not always at the distance from the sun that they are now. maybe they were a lot closer. Earth was once really hot and wet. Then we had an ice age. Then suddenly it got warmer again. (and warmer, and warmer...) (vote green!)
so our future will either be like mars- cold, dry no atmosphere.. or like venus- hot, molten crust, thick atmosphere.

random

2008-11-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

fuck. i should be writing that essay. uhhuh. not what i wanna do. i should go do some sit ups. Ive been trying to do excersise, but i cant do ONE frucking push up. not a real one anyway.

smoked friday with josh.

gotta figure out a way to make more money. spend less? chjyeah.

tomorrows election day. its intense in a way. cant wait for nov 5.

HALOWEEN IS OVERRRRR. thank god. its like a bomb hit party tree. ill need a new job by Jan. I think I'm gonna do a payment plan for school next semester. because i dont wanna be hit by tuition AND books/supplies all at once.

got "a little history of the world" yesterday, gonna start reading it. whee for edjumuhcashun.

speaking of history, John McCane is wrong in his assertion that Obama is like Hoover. One of Hoover's biggest reconstruction failures was that he gave large sums of money to banks and big companies, expecting a trickle down effect. i totally raged. FDR fixed shit by creating jobs for middle and lower classmen. Jeez, youd think McCain would remember his childhood better.

motivation

2008-10-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

I'm notorious for procrastination. I read a psych article about it, and the reason why most people procrastinate is because whatever they're putting off gives no immediate reward. Often it involves something they don't really want to do, like work.
I often skip class if I "don't feel like going." sometimes, something important is going on so i force myself to go. Today, I drove to LLCC for my drawing class. As I'm in the parking lot, I'm watching this girl carry a portfolio in the rain, and i think "Shit! I don't have anything to carry my drawing pad in!" So I turn around and go home. Eh, wasted a little gas, but I saved my artwork.

speaking of wasting gas, and wasting time, I got caught for speeding again last night, going into chatham. I'd just gotten a ticket friday going 84 on the highway. Fortunately this cop just gave me a written warning, but if I get another within a year, my license is suspended. poop. Anyway, wes was showing me how i really only save like 14s doing 85 instead of 65.. and like 6s doing 54 in a 40 like i was last night. poop again. i was arguing that the 14 s could make the difference whether I get stuck at a light or not.
anyway, i gotta slow down. I owe the state $75 now, and it was almost $90 had it been 1mph more. I wish that was tax deductible...

aaaaand, one more on the note of gas prices (other than that theyre down!) is that i think by drinking instead of smoking, im saving a lot of $$. I already saved 20-30$ last week by not re stocking. and since you cant drink and drive, that saves gas by not cruizing. and I'm not the one who buys it :P lol, well i dont pay for all of it at least. In fact, we havent bought any since the summer. We almost did over the weekend, we were walking to the checkout with some peach vodka or somethin and wes is like "I dont have my wallet..." but we had plenty in the freezer, I just wanted somethin different. He couldnt find it when we got back to his house either. He asked his mom the next day, and apparently it was behind the microwave?? wat.?

gay

2008-10-23T09:24:00.001-07:00

i love this old guy

2008-10-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

the fringe may be my new favorite show. its kinda like x files meets house.
heres a clip:

New solution

2008-10-22T06:31:00.000-07:00

1. install VirtualBox. (check)
2. put winblows on it.
3. GET SPORRREE.

omg

2008-10-22T05:11:00.000-07:00

i wish my torrents would download, because spore is sitting next to me, begging to be played. ararararasdfgdhdfhdjas.hjl.

i seem to be more out of it since i stopped smoking. I forgot two people's change at work last night. that never happens. oh well.

carter bro's hayride will occur friday night! yay!

In other, much more important news, people across america have stopped taking some of their prescription drugs on tighter budgets. Like for their cholesterol. (Next month's news: Increase of heart attacks across america.)
Eh it's okay. High cholesterol is a byproduct of fast food. I wonder if sales of Cheerios has gone up?

Through this whole economic thing, I kinda feel bad, because i spent $100 on clothes at target the other day. But it was alot of clothes, that I needed, I swear.

day #2

2008-10-21T10:09:00.001-07:00

of not smoking for me. I went 3 days before the other night. pot btw. still havent touched cigs since i was 17 ^_^

entirely job related. I'd like to actually be able to apply places.

in other news, idk if i should re sell my copy of spore. un opened. i put up a listing on facebook and then took it down a minute later, because i remembered I had torrents for it. there is one thats 100% seeded, but its got over a day left. hopefully the speed picks up tonight during prime time. and then I dont know if it will even work.
but if youre interested, im selling it for $45 dollars. $43 if you find me a working download of it for mac (but then if you can get me that, you probably dont need to buy it XD )

tech support for the non-technical (aka mac users)

2008-10-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

so, my internet connection randomly went out. here's the steps i took (fairly typical):

1. check google connection
2. unplug, replug router
3. click airport icon to refresh connection
4. repeat 2 & 3 x three
5. drink
6. restart computer
7. rejoice because it's a mac problem and it's now solved!