Who should be in charge of this boat

Earlier I mentioned why Iraq was important in our struggle against terrorism.

This is where Iraq plays a pivotal role; Iraq lies in-between Iran and Syria. Iraq can secure its own boarder and prevent the movement of people and goods between two terror friendly countries.

In a recent tech central article I read this.

The "unilateralist" Bush administration is also setting up a sister organization to the PSI called Caspian Guard. Caspian Guard is ostensibly a three-way alliance between the United States, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan for the integration of several interlocking program elements, namely airspace and maritime surveillance and control systems, reaction and response forces, and border control.

What might be Caspian Guard's deeper mission? Take a look at a couple of maps, one of Azerbaijan's neighborhood and one of Kazakhstan's. What do they have in common? Both are central Asian states with coasts on the Caspian Sea, and both either share a border with or are across the water from Iran. Caspian Guard is to Iran what the PSI is to North Korea -- a cage in the making, constructed by the Bush administration's State Department. Look for several other US-leaning states in the area, such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and possibly even Turkey, to either join the Caspian Guard or cooperate with it in significant ways. The US will begin to encircle Iran, the world's most dangerous remaining Islamic state, the way it is attempting to encircle North Korea, all to strangle their nuclear proliferation programs and over time halt their nuclear programs altogether.

Additionally, Caspian Guard gives member states access to US training and tactical knowledge and the assurance of friendly relations with the world's sole superpower in exchange for assistance in dealing with some of the axis of evil's charter members.

While I will admit that the state department's idea is far more advanced than mine (as it should be), mine is just a small part of what they are trying to do.

cube

Another way to die

California scientists say they have created the first synthetic version of a rogue protein called a prion and used it to give mice a brain-destroying infection,

Just what i needed to make my day.

cube

Kerry's speech live

"reporting for duty"
good move, make you look ready.

"born in the west wing"
bad move makes it look like you have already won.  Americans don't like snobs.

update: he touched on enviormental issues, and woman power.

Update: he has been grounded and has made it out of highshool. 

He will restore trust ? how?

he was a lawyer? voted for a balanced budget


update: He won't lie, will not conduct secrect meetings (that is a load of crap).

will appoint an atoney general who likes the american consitution.  I though he might appoint a russian

update: they don't like the outsourcing issue.  Can we ship their jobs overseas? 

update: he just accepted the noimnation on behalf of everyone execpt rich people. 

update: ask treasa if she will come on stage and make out with him.

update: she does it, crowd goes wild.  It is a home run folks, it is outta here!!!

update: used the band of brothers referecne, now that was the best war serist that i have ever seen.

update:for paficts they sure talk about fighting a lot.  He mentions dean, clack, sharpton.

update: 3 years later and we are still talking about 9-11, amazing.

now he used 9-11 in his speech, i don't see how that is any different than bush using it in is commericials. 

update: wmds, the mission accomplished is mentions (yea bush screwed up on that one)

update: don't go to war unless we have to....hmmm.

update: he was in vietnam for four months.  but he makes it seem like years.

update: takes a shot at bush exit policy (what exit policy you ask, bush did not have one and we never planned on leaving.  Check out North korea)

update:US can can't go alone. we aren't
http://www.techcentralstation.com/072904B.html

 
update: did he just say he would increase miltary spending?? yea i doubt that.  I thik he is going for the armed forces vote. 

 update: he is aginst nukes.  he wanst a strong miltary and strong alliances.

dube this is dumb i am stopping know.

cube

The US, hell, and prosperity

Economists searching for reasons why some nations are richer than others have found that those with a wide belief in hell are less corrupt and more prosperous, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

You mean the societal belief that a person could be eternally punished for the sins of this life will make them less corrupt and have more money.  Wow that IS unbelievable.  I thought the US was rich because we sided with the Jews in WW2 and God is now rewarding us for our faithfulness for protecting his chosen people. /scarsam

It [St Louis Fed] then looked at the relationship between corruption and per capita gross domestic product and found "a strong tendency for countries with relatively low levels of corruption to have relatively high levels of per capita GDP.''

It correlated the belief in hell findings of the World Value Series with a measure of corruption produced by Transparency International.

I would agree with the simple fact that without corruption the economy is more efficient.  You have less resources spent fighting corruption, it is easier to get a fair shake at business, and money flows through well established channels where it can be easily seen and tracked.

Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists Inc. Said,  "I cannot imagine what the belief in mythological beings or things that don't exist can do for business."

Johnson misses a very important part of the message, while other's belief in eternal damnation does not affect him, it does/should/could affect the person who has those beliefs.  Which since businesses are ran by people, it could have an effect on the business.  If enough people shared the common belief that you must be a moral person or you will fry in hell, it could have a effect on the entire nation.  I find it hard to belief that Johnson is really dumb enough to miss the cause and effect relationship.  He strikes back belittling other's beliefs and making himself look angry and hateful.  A proper response would have been to attack the study for concentrating on a correlation and not to attack the objects of the study.

In short, Do you think Ken Lay goes to church?

cube

update:  Moss has a short bit about it and a link to the orginal study.

Food suits

The 'Ruinous Sport', Round 2

The ruinous sport Freese refers to is suing corporations for money to cover the expenses of individuals who act irresponsible.  Round 1 were the tobacco suits, and round 2 are the suits against food chains and manufactures.

With Medicare paying for the treatment of obesity, it sets the stage for states suing the food companies.  Only this time, there are a lot more companies and there is a lot more money available.

If you are fat, then that means the sum of all the meals you have ever eaten have made you fat.  Which means every single food company has contributed to you fattiness, even if it is a company like dole (who does not specialize in the cooked meat area). 

So for a state to recoup the money, they would have to sue every company that anyone in their state had ever eaten.  Though they want do that because they can't manage a lawsuit that big.  They will sue a few major companies.  

Which a lot more people work for these companies than work for the tobacco companies.  Hurting these companies has the ability to hurt a lot of people , which will in turn affect the consumer spending, which will hurt the economy.


cube

Monkey on my shoulder

Well I had a weird dream last night again.

This time, I had bought a monkey and I was trying to train my monkey to sit on my shoulder.  You know like a pirate's parrot.  I was walking around with the monkey on my shoulder, and he was really digging into my shoulder a good bit, like he was afraid or something.  So I tried several different things, such as sitting down and then putting the monkey on my shoulder.  As soon as I got up to walk around, he would get afraid again.  So I figured out that he was afraid of me falling, and that was why he was digging in and holding on to my shoulder so painfully when I was walking.  So I told him to sit on my shoulder, and he answered back.  Then I was like, "You speak English!!!"  After I realized that monkey spoke English, it was easy to train my monkey.  I just told him what to do.

I think the source for this dream was from a comment my friend had made a bout the reality show with Andy dick, and how he was wanted a contestant to train his cat to sit on his shoulder.

And I was listening to a radio advertisement for a financial talk show, and there was a short segment where a guy called in and told the host he had bought a monkey.

monkeys by the way, are expensive, maintenance intensive, can live up to 20 years or longer, and will sometimes attack you when they get older.  They want to express their dominance in their social group, so they attack you.  I found this while searching for the perfect pet that was not a dog, cat, or hamster.

cube

10 truths about trade

Trade truths

 
In addition, check this out.

In the latest UN Human Development Indicators, it appears that many countries in Europe fall behind the US.

HMMM...I wonder if they two are connected.

via Daniel drezner

cube

Iran, what is it's goal

Western diplomats say Iran has resumed efforts to build and install uranium enrichment equipment, breaking its agreement to suspend such operations.

Is their goal to get a nuke as soon possible to deter the US or anyone else from attacking?  Or they bluffing in order to get the IAEA to back off?  Are they trying to take the position as the leader in the middle east, nukes would help achieve that goal? If they go nuclear what are they going to do with them?

I think we need to get the defense shield up.  Once that is up an running we will sell our services at a very low cost to neighboring countries (who says we don't love the world).  Once we have strengthened our hand, then we should start negotiating with Iran.  It will go more like this: Disarm Iran!!  If that does not work, then we need to drop a few conventional bombs on Iraq, and destroy their nuclear plants.  They we will drop a lot of unmanned tanks in Iraq driven by 8 year olds to blow up people who shoot at the tanks.

cube

I don't see what the big deal is

A teenage boy on Monday won a "divorce" from his father, who killed the boy's mother six years ago while the child slept in the next room.
 
That man is lucky that divorcing him is the only thing the kid did.  I mean the father killed the kid's mom, that is a prime situation for a revenge flick.  The kid probably liked his mom better than the father anyways. 

In the end, it is a great move for the kid, though since it is so unusual the man still might be able to find a few ways of getting through the system.  The father might have copies of important documents (ie birth certificates) that prove he is the father, but if that happens and the father is found out, he could be sued and thrown in jail.

cube

It sucks to be at the bottom of the barrel

This article points out something that I realized a few weeks ago, but never really wrote down.

However, the post-war economic systems of France, Germany and Italy have always been more restricted by regulations and high tax burdens than America’s. Still, in the first decades after World War II, this did not stymie economic growth in continental Europe. The prosperity gap (search) between America and Europe’s Big Three shrank. Then, starting in the early 1980s, the gap slowly but relatively steadily widened again. The result is that in recent years the prosperity gap between France and Western Germany on the one hand and the U.S. on the other was as big as it has been since the late 1960s.   In other words, for quite a while European-style “comfy capitalism” seemed to work as good as U.S.-style “cowboy capitalism”.
 
 But that is no longer true. What happened? First, there was a time in which economic policy mistakes had little impact, if only because there were many other governments that made far more basic mistakes—remember communism? After all, it’s easier to compete with countries whose governments systematically destroy their economies’ dynamism. But today, according to the Economic Freedom report, Estonia has a freer economy than Germany has; Hungary is ahead of Italy; and Latvia and the Czech Republic do better than France.  
 
I was thinking about the number of major tech companies that started up during the tech boom, and I could not think of a European company at all.  This article found the one exception,  "Thus, while America has witnessed the rise of IT producers such as Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems, no German IT start-up ever went on to become a global player; the only exception is SAP, a software company." 
 
I was thinking pure chance couldn’t account for Europe not having a single major IT player.  Not all of the companies that I thought of were hardware based; some were software, which can be name anywhere.  There must be a reason why these companies started here, this article points out a few reasons why.  In the big picture of things, I think the article missed a point though. 

From what I know getting a college education is quicker in the US is than Europe, and the colleges adjusted to the need for tech workers quickly.  At my office the average age of a programmer is probably 23.  I think that the reason I pointed out is small compared to the reason the article points out, but it is a very important piece of the puzzle. 

The only other reason I could think of was the fact that America was friendlier toward business than Europe, just as the article said.

I think we are seeing a trend where Europe and the US are going to be on different ends of the political, social, and money spectrums.  If all that separated us from Europe was water, language, political background, and social norms, I think that the world would be fine, but Europe will become the area of the-have-much-less-than-we-used-to, because of failure to move to an information economy.  (In France recently, workers were fighting for factory jobs, and won by agreeing to work an extra hour a week for the same pay.)

If technology moves exponentially, where will an information economy move based on that technology? 

Their own inability to produce their own wealth will drive them to hate us.  From that hate and distrust, policies will be developed that will drive a wedge against America and Europe.

cube

Don't vote for James Hart

disclaimer: I received a flyer in the mail, but the flyer was addressed to a previous tenant of this apartment. 

Eugenics is a moral commitment not a racial affiliation and any race that accepted its moral responsibility to protect the right of it's children to be born physically healthy and mentally capable could evolve into and become the next more highly evolved species above homo-sapiens. We are responsible for what our children will be. Our present tax and welfare system is redistributing life support systems away from the capable to the incapable and thus reducing the genetic quality of future generations. We are actually encouraging the least capable members of the human race to reproduce by giving them welfare grants and rewards for bearing more children.
 
Further down...
 
 I will save our cities by stopping welfare and immigration and replacing it with a war on poverty genes, ad nonviolent eugenic program based on individual merit, not group averages.
 
 
and them further down...

Free trade will send your job to Mexico. Do you realize that without unions and tariffs to protect us American workers would still be working for 11 cents a day like a Chinese coolie? It took 100 years of union activity to pass labor laws that require an American factory to pay $5.15 minimum wage and social security. When congress passed the North American Free Trade Act, they threw all that away because they eliminated tariffs on imports from Mexico. After NAFTA American factories could move to Mexico and no longer have to pay a tariff on goods they import to the US. Naturally thousands of our jobs moved to Mexico because once the factories were there, they no longer had to pay social security and the minimum wage is what 30 cents a day.
 
 
At first this guy seems to be a rabid republican who was not really listening to the whole compassionate conservative thing, then he goes on his protectionist rant.  Confusing.

The relativity short hand out that I received only made me very wary of this fellow.  Some of the things he mentioned seemed to me to be in conflict, so I decided to read more.

Eugenics is a moral commitment not a racial affiliation and any "race" that adopted a eugenic program could, given sufficient time, evolve into and become the next more highly evolved species above Homo-Sapiens.
 
High minded vision and a goal, though earlier he had said:
 
Because genes have a more devastating effect on civilization than nuclear bombs, and the reason for Detroit's decline is that there are less 'favored races' in Detroit with an average IQ of 85 and more 'favored races' in Japan with an average IQ of 104. (It is noted there are less 'favored races'* in Africa south of the Sahara with an average IQ of 70-75, which accounts for the extreme poverty there.)
 
He sounds like he wants to make the world a better place by making people smarter, better, and faster.  Even of you are able to make a 100 IQ the very bottom of the IQ curve (that is about average if I remember correctly), the curve will still exist, and hence less "favored races" will always exist.

It is only because of our highly evolved intellectual capacity that we were able to develop the technology to keep these genetically poisoned individuals alive. Ironically, we are using the intellectual capacity that made us great in order to destroy that capacity itself.

Then finally I get to this guys point.

Eugenic techniques like gene splitting and selective breeding are considered good when applied to plants and animals to produce advances in medicine and food production, but should anyone have the temerity to suggest that these eugenic techniques be used to protect our children, he risks being labeled as a Nazi or racist. One actually hears the argument: eugenics is evil because Hitler believed in eugenics. Is everything that Hitler believed in wrong ipso facto because he believed in it. If Galileo had been a mass murderer, would that prove the world vs flat? Eugenics is a moral commitment, not a racial affiliation.

In the end the guy is talking about state sponsored gene clean up programs (or I at least see that as being a possible end result). 

Given the chance to remove harmful genes from my child's life (poor eyesight, birth defects, and tendencies for cancer and heart disease), I would jump on that in a second.  Given the chance to improve my child's genetic cards (ensure a minimum height, high aerobic capaticy, dense bone mass, improved muscle mass, improved reflexs, and minimum IQ), I would jump on that in a second. 

Given a chance for the government to do the above things, I would fight tooth and nail against. I would not support tax breaks for eugenic techniques or forced eugenic techniques.  It should be a personal choice.

cube

Guns, Guns, and Guns.

I was reading this article, and I wanted to write a post pointing out all the ways in which this policy will fail.

The government is paying Brazilians to surrender their weapons in an effort to reduce the country's murder rate, one of the world's highest.
 
Then I realized this is probably not the entire policy to reduce the crime rate, and that we are only hearing about gun control.  So I then decided I would look into it.  Then I decided that why waste my time if I already knew I was going to find out there is just more than this policy at work.  So I just decided to write a post pointing out all the ways in which only this policy will fail.

While this policy will reduce the number of guns, I don't think it will reduce the number of killings.  It might reduce the number of killings by gun deaths, but the number of killings probably will not change much.  The number of gun deaths could increase because all the law abiding citizens don't have anymore guns because they turned them in.  

Secondly, if I was a criminal I would steal as many guns as possible from people (which in itself is tricky), and turn them in for cash (because for things like this policy to work they have to be no questions asked).

While you don't want criminals to have guns, having law abiding citizens who are properly trained own guns hurts no one (in the majority of cases).  In fact, it can only decrease crime.

Some parts of the law seem to not to make sense.

The new law prohibits the possession of firearms in public and raises the minimum age for gun ownership from 18 to 25.
 
Prohibiting firearms in public would seem like a normal law, though it does not address the problem of why people feel that they need to carry their guns around with them in public.  I think if the government addressed the need for personal security the new law would go into effect in a natural unspoken way, then a law could be passed later on when society has adjusted. 

To quote a deleted scene from the French connection where a young punk said he was clean, but had a switch blade knife on him.

"I would rather be caught with it, than with out it."

They seem to be putting the horse before the cart in this case.

 It also requires owners to register their guns with the ministries of defense and justice.

Registering guns is preferable to not having the ability to own them, though I would think that some guns are used for hunting.  This law would make sense if they are keeping track of all the guns which they register, comparing the guns form a crime secne to the database, and tracking all guns that are sold in the country (i don't know if they are doing that, are planing on doing that)


Well I hope that this thing works out for them.  I think a better policy would be a combination of stricter penalties, more and better armed police men, and legalization of concealed weapons.


cube

Healthcare

Is universal health care (not just emergency health care) a fundamental right in which all are entitled and the government should provide (on the tax payers dime)?

I would have to say no.

In America you are generally expected to generate some amount of income which will then cover the expense of the resources that you use being alive (i.e. food). 

For example, in general people expect you to pay for your food.  Although good health care is important over the long term, food is important over the short term.  Some organizations give food away for free (In Houston I heard that a homeless man can get three free meals day if he is willing to walk for it) in the name of charity, but that is not the norm.  And in those cases where food is given away free it might come with strings attached.

I don't see how health care is any different than food.  Except the democratic socialists are trying to get me to pay for the health care.

cube

This will put a smile on your face

Lawyers for ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein have filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights calling on France to make the United States respect the Geneva Conventions.
 
Hah hah hah hah hah.  OK so the US is going to listen to France.

Ludot said Saddam's lawyers "are physically incapable of meeting their client as the detaining power has acted in such a way as to paralyze the rights of the defense, pure and simple".
 
Saddam is Iraq's prisoner now, I would like to see a world body boss Iraq around (wait the UN tired it for 14 years).
 
He explained that the legal team opted to file its complaint against France because it is a signatory to both the Geneva Conventions and the European Convention on Human Rights.
 
Not because France and Saddam are in bed together, huh?

 
cube

another one bites the dust

The Kenyan government on Thursday called on all of its citizens to leave Iraq immediately, and a government spokesman urged insurgents to release the three Kenyans they have taken hostage
 
I hope they leave their guns for out soliders to use.

cube

Poetry

Movies and Boobies are both things I like.
actually so do dikes.

Some of the best movies come in trilogies
I once saw a three boobieed ladee
In a sci-fi movie.

Movies with Boobies is another thing I like
actually so do dikes.

I am still awaiting the next advance in technology
That will put movies in boobies
They you can have your movies and boobies any way you like
Just like a dike.

cube

Update:
I entered a poetry contest with the above poem.

I wonder if I will win.

"I hereby certify that the above poem is my original work and that all rights to this poem are mine. I am entering this poem as an honest and true effort of my personal creativity and unique artistic vision, and I understand that it will be published on the Internet as my original work and under my own copyright by The International Library of Poetry (poetry.com). The community of poets who use this forum for self-expression will also be able to view and share my poem, always as my original work and under my own copyright in the various ways described on this website."

Yes I agree!!!


update 2:
What the hell.

We're sorry, your submission may contain one or more words that are inappropriate for submission go back to adjust your poem.
*** Press the Back button on your browser to go back without clearing the form ***

I am not taking this sitting down.  I will get around their filter and submit my work to the world.


update 3:

See my poem here
I had to use some funky spelling to get past their filters.

or got here http://www.poetry.com/

Search using this criteria.
Last name:  Cube
first name:  the



update 4:
If someone wants to tell they have dirty poems on their site, I want mind.



update 5:
not the first to think of this.

Berger

 Democrat John Kerry's presidential campaign accused the Bush White House on Wednesday of disclosing the existence of a criminal investigation against former national security adviser Sandy Berger for political advantage.
 
No, if the GOP really wanted to maximize exposure they would have waited till Berger stumped for Kerry,  until Berger and Kerry had a picture together, or till after the convention to hurt them a little.  In my opinion Berger is not closely linked to Kerry to do Kerry to much harm.  Though if the GOP waited a month or two, this could have been much bigger than it actually is. 
Unless they have something much bigger, up their sleeves.

Or... The charges are going to come of nothing and the white house knew it.  If that is the case they probably did leak it when the investigation was at it's height (before anything conclusive came out which could clear the guy), or when there was a lull in news coverage so that it would get maximum play time. I would bet on the latter, if the charges are going to come to nothing.

Fox says

"Berger and his lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said the former Clinton adviser knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket and pants and inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio. He returned most of the documents, but some still are missing.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, told reporters the case was about theft and questioned a statement by Berger issued Monday attributing the removal of the documents and notes to sloppiness."

 
So this guy is either guilty of stealing national documents or he is a hapless, disorganized fellow.

Either way he was in Kerry's camp and should not have been in charge of anything important.

 
cube

Interesting factoid

I found this last night doing some research for comment I was crafting.

Heterosexual transmission accounts for more than 70% of all HIV infections worldwide. Certain groups are more likely to contract and spread HIV, such as commercial sex workers (CSWs)"
 
And abstinence is a failed policy?

cube

Interesting

Optical fun.

via yuppies of Zion

Breaking

"article was a bad link on Drudge but I found it buried on the Washington times"

a friend sent this to me.

Iraqi security reportedly discovered three missiles carrying nuclear heads concealed in a concrete trench northwest of Baghdad, official sources said Wednesday

cube

Moon vid

 
The above link is to the original video of Neil Armstrong on the moon.  The pictures and the video take my breath away.  I guess I am a sucker for a moon walk. 
 
Seeing the American flag on the moon makes me want to put the American flag in other places, such as Venus, mars, and some of jupiter's moons.
 
Why no other country has not been to the moon, I will never know (unless they have been and I just don't know).  To me it is kind of like Mount Everest.  You go because it is there and you can.
 
cube

You know they were...

Just softening them up.  Do dump dussshh.
 
 
The videotape, entitled "KFC's House of Horrors" includes sounds of birds screeching while being thrown against walls and stomped on by workers as loud music blares in the background.
 
cube

Keep good jobs and export the bad ones

"George Bush will fight like hell to keep his own job, but he won't lift a finger to help Americans keep theirs," Kerry said by satellite to a meeting of AFL-CIO leaders in Florida. "George Bush thinks exporting our jobs is good economic policy. I believe we need to create and keep good jobs here and export goods."

Kerry has it all wrong about the protections polices, let the jobs go.  It is tough, but it is not going to help if you fight the change.  It will be like a menopausal woman taking HRT, you just get cancer.
 
Though bush needs to make china face market realities, and help china into the 21st century.  If we can get China's economy going, we can help out 1/6 the of the worlds population.  And that ain't bad.
 
Of course in France they are trying to keep relatively low skilled labor in their country, now that is a bad idea.  They should let the company leave and take it's boring jobs with them.  Of course they would need a highly skilled work force to do the new jobs that come in, which they would not have.

If they are competing with the eastern European countries, they are either going to lose,they have going to have to bring them into the EU and make their wages as high as theirs are, drop their wages to a comparable level to compete, or increase productivity to a comparable level.
 
 
cube

I don't have a problem if they are legit

An in-depth investigation by the NEW YORK TIMES has found that a number of financial services companies are using questionable tactics on military bases to sell insurance and investments of doubtful suitability to the people in uniform who buy them!
 
If they were not using questionable tactics, and not selling bad investments I would support them.  Lord knows that the twenty year old who is getting everything paid for needs to do something constructive with his money, like save it for retirement.  Since the average military kid probably does not have much experience with money they could use this chance to learn a little bit about their cash and what it can do if it does not go to liquor.  Of course their inexperience makes them prime targets for scams.
 
The offends should be thrown in the desert and shot by the people who are protecting their country.
 
cube

I think I am going to take a break for awhile

I think that my posting is going to be a bit slower for a while.  I have been feeling burnt out on blogging, movies, and work recently.  I also have been extremely sleepy, kind of like a mini-depression of some sorts. 
 
additionally we are having some major hardware changes come through at work (though I am a programmer, the hardware change is large enough that I have to go through my code and another group's code).  I have come in on the last two weekends in order to prepare for those changes, and that trend only looks like it is going to continue.
 
On a more interesting note I had an odd dream last night.
 
I was involved in a con to steal money from these drug dealers.  It apparently worked a lot like the sting the hot chick was involved in on Bad Boys II.  Which I happened to see this weekend.  Once the sting was done it looked like the deal was going to turn sour and I had to get away real fast.  I was running through this trailer part trying to hide from the bad guys that were chasing me.  I was able to slip under a porch, but that porch  had a huge amount of dead dry crispy leaves.  The leaves made a lot of noise when ever I moved, and I could not stop moving.  The noise caused the bad guys to not leave because they heard me.
 
I then got up and was standing behind this tree looking at the bad guys a ways off.  I decided that my only way out was to fly.  I thought real hard, and put my mind in the proper state in which to prepare to fly.  Then I started to float upward.  Now this is not Superman type flying, it is more like floating, and I have to flap my arms to go anywhere.  I did not get tired though.  I floated up through the tree limbs, and grabbed a hold of some limbs.  Then the bad guys saw me and the wind started blowing at the same time.  Which because I was holding on to the limbs I started moving with them when the wind moved the limbs.  It looked like was going to be forced on the ground, because the limbs where swinging me up and down violently.  I then let go of the limbs and I flew into the air, and the limb snapped downward and knocked a few bad guys out. 
 
At this point in time it was all of a sudden night and I was still flying.  I decided that I wanted to go east or was it west.  I forget which.  I did not know which direction was the correct one, so I found a road.  I decided that I was going to follow the road until I saw a road sign then I would swoop down and take a look at the sign and I would know which direction I was going.  As I was following the road and I ran into a bank of clouds and could not figure out which direction was up and which was down.  I was spinning out of control, and I was getting the stars confused with the lights on the ground.  I ended up hanging on rock protruding from the very top part of a cliff.  Below me was desert, I could see a fox or a rabbit I forget which (though their seems to be a family of foxes that live behind work, I saw two of them yesterday around dusk).  Level with my nose was the road that I had been following.  Then to my left their was a stair case from the desert floor to a door.  Two people that looked like the grounds keeper from Harry potter where walking up the stairs.  I remember trying to hide from them because I did not want them to know I knew how to fly (How else would I get to where I was at, if I did not fall from the sky.  And how did I get into the sky, if I did not know how to fly was my reasoning in the dream), and I realized the ground was close enough that I could climb down.
 
That is all I can remember, I seldom remember my dreams but when I do they are good ones.
 
I also felt like I have flown in this manner in earlier dreams of mine, but that could just be my imagination.
 
One another note:
LIFE LAW NUMBER 3:
Don't eat a double decker taco, a half pound burrito espeacial, and a chicken spicy burrito with hot sauce from taco bell after 9:00 pm at night, or you will have freaked out dreams.
 
cube

In response to Andrew's comment

As a side note, I was trying to think like a liberal, and recognize the inherent discrimination that occurs in mutual partnerships.  Instead of seeking to enjoy the same benefits of marriage, the left should seek to remove those benefits from the population at large.  In order that everyone can be equal.
 
Think about all the divorces, injustice can occur at every step of the divorce.  A poor African-American woman might sign something she can't read and get the bad end of the deal.  Mostly white-male-highly-educated-judges will discriminate against minorities and women at every turn.
 
Instead the left is trying to fight for equality under an injustice system, .....soo that means that they must be doing it for the money.
 

I actually support your logic to the extent to taxing the hell out of divorce (exemptions should be allowed if you are beaten, your spouse goes crazy, or your spouse gets tricked out on drugs). 

If the government is going to participate in social engineering (creating a tax haven for married individuals), they should engage in social engineering to discourage divorce.  The government is missing out on a huge cash cow here.  All those broken civil unions could fund efforts to reapply social responsibilities to the individual [tracking down of dead beat dads for example]. 
 
As a side note [not here to make a point just an interesting story], a cousin of mine was brought in by the state human services department.  He was interviewed and questioned about his past with a woman.  He also had DNA swabs done.  He later found out that he was the father of her child.  The mother also found that out about the same time, apparently her sexual history was not really clear enough to determine the father of the child.  The child is now in the state's custody and they might try to get money from my cousin, who is also a drug addict and has not had a steady job since I can remember.
 
 
 
 
Those are my wild arguments for and against.
 
"...This lesser transience confers greater simplicity on the legal and tax code books, therefore leading to less confusion and less administration costs.
 
In short: committed romantic relationships are exceedingly common and enable a special sort of income/expense partnership. The combination of these two factors encourages their general representation in tax law."
 
 
Hmm..Less administration cost. 
 
Maybe but wouldn't the administrative cost of divorce cancel out many of those benefits, and use up valuable resources [judges] re-allocating those shared assets and responsibilities.
 
It is kinda like this, why put forth the effot of endorsing somthing when you are going to have to spend more time undoing what you have done.
  
  
cube

You can still say what you want

Above is an article about "bullying tactics" used by the US government to hinder free speech.
 
While I will admit that there are some cases where free speech has been stifled, though that is not what Elton is talking about.
 
The singer likened the current "fear factor" to McCarthyism in the 1950s.

"There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn't say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot down by people saying you are un-American," he told the magazine.

The singer said things were different in the 1960s.
 
One sentence for you elton: IT IS NOT THE 60's ANY MORE. 
 
"That's not happening now. As of this spring, there have been virtually no anti-war concerts - or anti-war songs that catch on, for that matter," he said.
 
Ha Ha, well maybe that is because a majority of people support the war on terror. Or maybe people just don't care.  Or maybe people are to busy actually trying to fix the problem instead of just singing about it.  Or maybe just enough people support the war to hurt sales.
 
Then he just goes to far...
 
He voiced concern that it appeared acceptable to speak out if you were pro-Bush, using the example of country singer Toby Keith, but not if you were critical of the President, as in the case of country rock band, the Dixie Chicks.
 
He brings up examples of country singers, whose market is as red as their necks.  I am not trying to be offensive, I am just trying to group the large majority of country music listeners into a large easily recognizable group, which by and large has created a cottage industry for camo, hunting equipment, and red neck jokes.
 
"On the one hand, you have someone like Toby Keith, who has come out and been very supportive of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq - which is OK because America is a democracy and Toby Keith is entitled to say what he thinks and feels.

"But, on the other hand, the Dixie Chicks got shot down in flames last year for criticizing the president. They were treated like they were being un-American, when in fact they have every right to say whatever they want about him because he's freely elected, and therefore accountable."
 
In one sentence he says it is ok to speak out, then in the other he seems to imply that we should by their CD's anyways even if we do not like what they say.
 
Freedom of speech is a two way street.  Also, being able to say what you want does not protect you from the responsibilities of saying what you want.
 
cube

Cop killer

 
In a city that’s district attorney refuses to seek the death penalty for a cop-killer, the police commissioner's resistance comes at no surprise to the police union.
 
Wow.
 
 
Commissioner's politics, police say, aren't much protection against heavily armed thugs. If cops don't get the firepower they need to protect their city, they promise to take their fight to the state legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 
Or maybe you could get Arnold to come out and play with his guns?
 
Intresting though.
 
cube

Lies all lies

I got the first sentence of the paragraph and that was as far as I could get.
 
"the politics of getting more lifesaving antiretroviral medicine to the millions of HIV-infected people who need it in the developing world, especially in Africa."
 
That should be life prolonging, not life saving.  Unless they are talking about the drugs that prevent HIV from transferring from the mother to the child, and there are some concerns about those drugs.
 
that emphasize abstinence over the trusted HIV-blocking method of using condoms.
 
So abstinence can't be trusted?
 
 Mechai told The Associated Press. "How can you [Leaders] afford to let your people become sick and die in larger numbers than by so-called enemies in wars?"
 
Well actually they got the disease because of their personal choices (barring they did not get aids from poor health care).  So the leaders did not "let" it happen, it happened because people made poor choices.
 
cube

Great article

In the end, the marginal improvements in security CAPPS II might have provided were not worth the gross loss of passengers' privacy.

The fact of the matter is that you do not know how much more secure this system would make America. I can tell you that the ability of this system to work would be directly related to the data. Let me point you to a previous post about a similar topic.



According to Seisint's presentation, dated January 2003 and marked confidential, the 120,000 names with the highest scores were given to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, FBI, Secret Service, and Florida state police. (Later, those agencies would help craft the software that queries Matrix.) Of the people with the 80 highest scores, five were among the Sept. 11 hijackers, Seisint's presentation said. Forty-five were identified as being or possibly being under existing investigations, while 30 others "were unknown to FBI."



Well it sounds like we have some fairly good data. In fact I could argue that the system would do more than just "marginal improvements" but I digress.


Do elderly retires really need to shuffle barefoot and beltless through security to visit their grandchildren?

Come one old people, pick up the pace and don't walk so slowly. Did you know that your inefficiencies are costing time, and time equals money? Every second wasted in the airport line is probably millions of dollars wasted.


And if you're going to make people take off their shoes, shouldn't you provide some place where they can put them back on?

We are not talking about stripping people here. This is not high school gym class where all the teenagers are self-conscious. We are all adults here and I am sure that we can take off our shoes and put them back with out complaining, or can we. I will grant basis to the common fear that you can pick up foot fungus.


to turn over to Homeland Security his or her full name, address, telephone number and date of birth, which the department would then run through a variety of government and private databases. In short, if you wanted to fly on an airplane, you would have to give Homeland Security the right to learn everything about you.


Wait a min, my full name is on my drivers license, my address is on my drivers license, the airline has my telephone number (in fact I want them to have my telephone number incase I die they can call and leave a message), and my DOB is on my drivers license. I also seem to remember turning over all that information (maybe not my telephone number) on my taxes, so if they government really wanted they could learn "everything about you" they already have.

No this program was dropped because of people who yell for privacy and total security at the same time like this author.

In addition, the government has gone with the frequent flier approach; Pre-clearing some people, though I think the restriction is that you have to fly more than once a week. I think if they did away with that once a week restriction I would get my self cleared even though I fly a little over six times a year (it would make those six times much easier).


Cube

Same sex part two

in response to Stephen's comment
 
I think being gay is wrong and immoral.  To me it is sexual deviation.
That said, I don't agree with the federal amendment.  Though I believe states can do what they want.  So if a vote was put before my at the state level, I would vote against same sex marriage.
 
Secondly, I really feel that the state government should stay out of "marriage" per say.  If they did away with marriages and created civil unions it would just be a tax benefit (which i would immedatly take advantage of with my best friend).  To me marriage is a religion issue. 
  
The federal government could make every one equal and just do away with joint tax filings and make everyone file separately, because it is not fair to treat married people any different from single people right?
 
cube

I don't know how it works in the rest of the world...

But in America we pay reward people for good deeds.

In some cases, human-rights groups charge, detainees were wrongly apprehended because locals turned them in for the money.

Well if our military picked them up, their would not be much left. Just look at saddam's sons.  The guy who turned them in also got to keep all the money because it was Dead or alive.
 
The article has some good reason why to keep Guantanamo locked down, though they only way we can know if those reasons are true if is they open up Guantanamo to the world.  I personally think that Guantanamo has done lots of good, and because of the veil, we may never know that.
 
cube 

Same sex

Hmmm why did they push an amendment that they knew would fail?   A lot of people have asked that same question; I heard rush talking about it and several others I read have also asked that same question.    My take on the issue was that they were bringing it to give another point of distinction.  Their are few issues you can be either for or against.  Gay marriage, abortion are a couple of those issues.  
 
The GOP did it to solidify their base.  
 
Cube

It is not looking good for this hostage.

Militants holding a Filipino hostage say they will free him when "the last Filipino leaves Iraq on a date that doesn't go beyond the end of this month," according to a statement read by the Arabic-language news network Al-Jazeera.
 
Do you get the sense that some one is getting screwed.  That hostage does not stand a chance.
 
cube

Why this bilateral trade deal is going to hurt

I am all for fair competition. No tariffs and no hidden taxes that protect your labor force. This trade deal with Australia is going to hurt. Mind you, it is not going to hurt us or them. In fact it will only help us and them. While Australia is only 20 million people, this trade deal will prove the point that smaller countries can reap benefits from trade deals. This is only going to make the socialists of the world yell louder. My ears probably will never stop ringing, and that my friends is how this is going to hurt.

cube

Black holes and you

Earlier post in which hawking was mentioned

In the 1970s, Hawking said that once a black hole formed it lost mass by radiating energy, known as "Hawking radiation," but it contained no information about the inside matter and once the hole evaporated, all information was lost.

This however, created a paradox, since the laws of quantum physics assert such information can never be completely wiped out.

Hawking responded that the gravitational pull of black holes was so strong, it unraveled the laws of quantum physics. But that argument failed to convince skeptics in the scientific community.

He will now argue that the black holes never quite shut themselves off completely and, as they emit more heat, they eventually open up and release information.

The possible solution to the paradox has sent waves of excitement through the physics community.

"He sent a note saying: 'I have solved the black hole information paradox and I want to talk about it,"' organizer and physicist Curt Cutler told the New Scientist.

"I haven't seen a preprint (of the paper). To be quite honest I went on Hawking's reputation."

From what I know Hawking pretty much defined the way black holes interact with us on paper before we really had any good observations of them. I would go on his reputation also.


Elsewhere..


How could that information ever escape? The answer lies in one of Hawking's greatest discoveries: that black holes slowly evaporate into space by losing particles from the very edge of the gravitational precipice at their rim, called Hawking radiation. The black hole eventually shrinks to a tiny kernel, at which point a growing torrent of radiation begins to leak out, potentially carrying the lost information with it.

But Preskill says that Hawking's new take on quantum gravity rests on shaky mathematical foundations, and is unlikely to be embraced by the physics community. "I am skeptical about whether he has found a fully satisfactory resolution to the problem," he says.

Dude don't bet against the Hawk.

cube

DRUDGE says....

original post

NYT PAGE ONE THURS: BUSH TO DROP CHENEY GOSSIP
Wed Jul 14 2004 18:21:14 ET

The latest theory about Vice President Dick Cheney's future on the Republican ticket, advanced privately by prominent Democrats, including members of Congress, holds that Cheney recently dropped his personal doctor because of drug addiction so that he could hire a new one, who will conveniently tell him in August that his heart problems have made him unfit to run with Bush!

So reports the NEW YORK TIMES, in a planned Front Page story on Thursday.

Reporter Elisabeth Bumiller is set to kick the gossip into high gear with a 1,600-word speculative, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE.

Developing...

Of course he is hearing that from democrats, and he was wrong on the Hillary Clinton being Vice president.

cube

How much can the president release

"The bigger question is why ... The president -- the commander-in-chief, who decided when and how to take us to war -- won't share this document with the Congress," Singer said.


The National Intelligence Estimate concluded Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons but noted dissent from the State Department's intelligence service and other agencies.

in 20 years will the historians look back bush and say he was more than fair and that he answered calls to release data? I don't know, but it seems like at least in recent cases that the democrats are yelling for information: Condi, the recent senate committee report, Richard clake, and this above, and in those cases the data has not really helped their case.

cube

Thought that I would bring this out

NEA data

The most interesting parts.

Page 22
page 28
page 29
page 33
page 48
page 56
page 63
page 69


Overall I thought data would be better. They give a lot of graphs in percentage change. I don't know why. Is it to dull the numbers in comparison to the total number of children numbers. I have know idea why they did not give just a bar graph and then the total year by year. Though the data is there it is not easy to use, and would require backtracking through the numbers to get the yearly totals.

Odd.

Home site for the info


cube

Movie Reviews

I have another amazingly stimulating pair of movies reviews.

I know you may ask yourself why I do movie reviews in pairs, some of the best things in life come in pairs. I am just following mother nature's lead.

Well lets dive in to another set.

Out of time
Well I must confess that I meant to pick of this movie: Man on Fire

I am sure that anyone could understand the mistake, the same actor with very similar poses on the cover of the movies. I suspect that I was screwed, not because out of time was a bad movie but because I expected to get Man on Fire and I did not get Man on Fire.
Pros for out of time, the story is solid and their are some fairly tense scenes. Their are some hot women also. The movie had Dean Cain in it which I kept getting confused with Slater from saved by the bell. Though at the end when I read the credits, I realized my mistake. Dean Cain did a good job. The movie was a solid watch, but it was not anything that you should go out of you way to see. I place this in the category of: I-need-a-movie-a-large-group-will-be-happy-with-but-has-not-seen.

One a scale of 0 to 999
625


Driven

In driven Joe Tanto (played by Sylvester Stallone) plays Jimmy Bly's (played by Kip Pardue), Carl Henry's (played by Burt Reynolds), Beau Brandenburg's (played by Til Schweiger) spiritual guru, marriage counselor, and coach. Joe (played by Sylvester stallone) touches on such topics as morality, personal drive, youthful indiscretion, and faith. The movie in general is weak, though I thought that it would be bad. So for not being bad, it gets a higher rating. The acting is weak, the action scences are not all that.

The good point about the movie is a lot of the live action shoots look amazing, that is because those shots where filmed on location just before or during the race. The movie was made by a guy who loved open wheel racing, and that I can respect. He was doing it for the money and for his love of open wheel racing. Overall, I would say that you could skip this movie and you will be alright. Though if you are looking for an racing movie and you have seen the rest, this will be enjoyable and your only option.

One a scale of 0 to 999
475

cube

Do you ever long...

For the days before DNA testing and when the guy was always right?

I don't but sometimes you realize that the pendulum has swung to far the other way.

In an article entitled "Injustice by Default: How the effort to catch 'deadbeat dads' ruins innocent men's lives," journalist Matt Welch asked California DCSS Assistant Director Leora Gerhenzon what would happen if a woman had named "Matt Welch" a white guy between 30 and 40 years old, who maybe lives in the Los Angeles area, as the father of her child.

Gerhenzon answered, "We run our search on him; if we come back with one Matt Welch who lives in L.A., whose birthday fits that 10-year range, and we have nobody else, we presume in general we have the person."

If we looked for terrorist the same way CA looks for dead beat dads, then would not have any problem with Islamic fundamentalist in America?

cube

Aids, terrorism, and you

continued from an earlier post


"Despite what Randall Tobias says at this conference, experts and activists know that the U.S. approach is driven by neo-conservative economic and religious interests rather than good practice," said Simon Wright of British charity ActionAid.


It is driven by religious principles, though I don't see how neo-conservative economics plays their position. Though if you don't have sex (given health care is up to date) you won't get aids..So it seems to me that it is based on good practices.

Annan told the BBC the United States should show the same commitment to AIDS -- which has claimed 20 million lives and continues to infect 14,000 people a day -- as it shows in the battle against terrorism.

Or you could ask people to show their bodies respect and not have sex. That would stop aids in its tracks. Though in the end it is people's choices which leads to aids, it is not peoples choices whcih leads to getting blown up by terrorists.

Also it is ABC (Abstince, Being faithful, and condoms) against CNN (Condoms, Needles, and Negotiating Skills). ABC is the one that is the middle of the road. The most conservative approach is Abstince only, which ABC takes one of the points from CNN.

I would like to propose.
ANANANCNCNCNNNNNNNNNNN.
(Abstince, Negotiating Skills, Abstince, Negotiating Skills, Abstince, Negotiating Skills, Condoms, Negotiating Skills, Condoms, Negotiating Skills, Condoms, Negotiating Skills, No Needles, No Needles, No Needles, No Needles, No Needles)

I think this non partisan agenda would work well.
(Note: I am assuming that the needles were for drugs. Though if it is talking about health care it should be)

CNANANANCNCNCNNNNNNNNNNNN.
(Clean Needles, Abstince, Negotiating Skills, Abstince, Negotiating Skills, Abstince, Negotiating Skills, Condoms, Negotiating Skills, Condoms, Negotiating Skills, Condoms, Negotiating Skills, No Needles, No Needles, No Needles, No Needles, No Needles)


cube - solving the worlds problems one needless string of letters at a time.

School house of rock

State progress is also clear in the way the debate is shifting, said Ray Simon, assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education. School leaders are focusing less on forms and funding and more on getting students up to grade level, he said.

So what were they doing before?

cube

I don't even drink coffee..

Though I found this article very interesting.

The discovery of coffee plants with naturally low caffeine and high sales potential has sparked an international tug of war over their ownership, according to legal and agricultural experts.

I don't know the difference between decaf and caf, but I do know this random fact.

Starbucks is running into supply problems. While starbucks does not buy up a high percentage of coffee beans worldwide, starbucks does buy up a large percentage of high quality coffee beans, which has driven up the value of the high quality beans.

"Ethiopia is hoping for a mutually agreeable solution.

"We feel that it is possible for us to come up with a 'win-win' solution that would benefit both Ethiopia and Brazil," Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Reuters in Addis Ababa earlier this month."

Sounds like Ethiopia is willing to take what it can get, because it has no grounds for the coffee claim. I wonder if Brazil will stick it to them. They have been known to be hard bargainer, for example when they stopped using windows in government computers.

Legal and agriculture experts said that resolving the wrangle surrounding the decaf coffee find could also help settle the issue of compensation for developing countries for plant genetic resources found growing in their back yards by scientists from rich countries.

Of course if Ethiopia is able to get a cut, then that could provide a plus for maintaining forests.

cube

About time

The Iraqis are cracking down on all of the criminals that Saddam released. It appears that they are just doing massive sweeps, bringing in everyone that they can find. Then taking them to another location and ID's them.

The operation netted more arrests than anticipated and brought in suspected drug dealers and weapons traders, Reuters reported.

Which begs the question, why didn't the American do something like that? We would have netted a large amount of criminals and cleaned up the streets a bit, which would have made things safer (on a general crime level, though it probably would not have helped solve the insurgent problems).

Were we ill equipped to do something like that, was it outside of out mandate, or did we leave some easier activities to the Iraq police force in order to get them trained fully.

I really have no idea.

cube

Why i should be the only blog you read

I did not post about the swastika attack.

Was it oversite or solid posting?

I will leave that for you to decide.

cube

Pro-competition

Designed largely in the first half of the 20th century, antitrust laws still need to find their way in the digital age. Applying the brakes to innovation and inconveniencing consumers is hardly a step in the right direction.

Increasing innovation is the way to go, and their is one way to do that. Increase competition.

Creating a hodgepodge of complex and sometimes conflicting regulatory schemes also poses enormous problems.

If regulations need to be put into place, they need to be simple, clear, and not disturb the selling of goods nation or even world wide. For example, gas in certain parts of the US cannot be sold because it does not meet the strict guide lines of that particular area.

As globalization continues to expand, policy makers at all levels of government -- state, federal and international -- need to explore new ways to find unified solutions when it comes to regulating businesses and industries.

Or you should break up large companies into smaller parts which will allow them to adjust quicker to smaller markets.


Microsoft should have been broken into two small companies a long time ago. When one company controls that much of a market, you need to introduce more competition. I am not against companies making a buck, I just support competition over profit.

cube

Well score one for the terrorists

Though it really does not affect the amount of forces on the ground it is a symbolic blow.

if the terrorists actually beat America, they will not stop there. Of course no one has mentioned what they would do once America was beaten by the terrorist. The world's only option would be to appease, they might have the will to fight by then, but they want have the might.

cube

Sucky day

Today was a bad day. Nothing impaticular happened to make this day suck so bad, in comparison with other days. In fact today really did not distinguish itself as a bad day in the normal ways, death and destruction were no where to be found.

The morning started off promising; I did not die in my sleep. Another plus for the morning was the left over pizza that had from left from the weekend. I treated this pizza right when I warmed it up; power level 2 (our of ten) for 2 and a half minutes. I brought the pizza up to eating temperature slowly, so that I would not get too hot. I then combined the pizza with orange juice.

sometimes it is easy to pick the exact moment in time when something starts going south, the second I swallowed the orange juice was that moment. This juice was the special high-vitamin-low-acid kind. My head involuntary convulsed to the right after I had downed a few gulps; it tasted really bad. The meal weighed on me for the rest of the day. The morning was uneventful, lunch was a meager subway sandwich (which was not hungry at all when I ate, I just did it because it meant leaving work). The afternoon was boring and uneventful, except for the loss of money in the game. I did not loose everything, but my performance poor.

Home was the bright spot of the day, I ate the last two ice cream sandwiches and an now drinking coke (straight from the two liter they way god intended).

cube

Well this is interesting

I like some people I don't announce my birthday to the world. For my good friend who I work with to find out birthday, he had to ask my mom, who got me a wonderful subscription to backpacker magazine. Which this magazine is wonderful environmental propaganda, and I will have plenty to post about it.

But I wanted to mention this site I saw in an advertisement.

And it all starts at the redesigned Dearborn Truck Plant in Dearborn, Mich., home to the 2004 F-150 as well as the world's largest living roof, a porous pavement parking lot, natural wetlands, and a process for turning paint fumes into power, to name some of the environmental initiatives in action.

I know ford was falling behind on the hybrid side (leasing technology from Toyota), but I did not know they were making huge green strides on the manufacturing side.

Very interesting.

cube

update:

buy stock in ford, they are attempting to move the automotive industry in America toward a more fuel efficient mindset. Don't know if that will cause a loss in market share or a increase. Though if you are a regular green person, you might buy a ford if you saw this ad in backpacker.

Slowly but surely

Is it America's responsibility to bring freedom to parts of the world that are unable to do it their selves? The UN has cannot be a policeman of the world. It was deigned to prevent widespread war, not wage war in freedom's name. The Un concerns itself with incurable diseases instead of spreading freedom. We sorely need for every single state to be protected.

The first Gulf war was an example of the world pulling together to stem the growth of a dictator, but it is also an example of the world's weakness, love of the status quo, and unwillingness to fight for the freedom of others. Slowly but surly we will build a group of democratic countries that realize value of freedom. Additionally, these countries will also be rich because if they follow the south Korean model. Eventually if we do it right, the counties we save will be wealthy and on our side.

cube

More information on the aids battle

Earlier post here

Do the people who do aids research use their head, do they have any common sense. This article by cnn makes me think not.

One group of 251 girls learned about HIV, how to properly use a condom, how to negotiate the use of a condom with a sexual partner, what constitutes a healthy relationship and pride in their gender and ethnic background.

The remaining 271 girls spent the same amount of time learning about exercise and nutrition.

The researchers followed up with the teenagers after six months and a year. The girls in the HIV class reported that they were more likely to use a condom and less likely to have had a new sex partner in the past 30 days than the girls who learned about nutrition and exercise.


freaking moron.

cube

The terrorist nature vol 3

This post is continued form a eariler post where I said:

As shown above the battle against terrorism is a wildly different from the communist threat, and requires a new set of tools, which is what the bush administration has done.

In the next post I will go into the nature of terrorists, what terrorist need to survive, and the proper strategy that we should take against terrorists.

I am picking up this line of thought because I remembered I had not finished it when I read this part of an email exchange I posted about.

On the other, we have lost the support of any and all moderate Arabs just when we need them the most, and the instability Bush has brought to the Middle East severely jeopardizes our future relationship with the Saudis to satisfy our oil needs.

I will come back to this, but first let me continue on the nature of terrorists.

Nature of Terrorists

Terrorist, the tactics they use, and the ideology that they push acts in almost on a viral model. It lays dormant for a time, then you see an upswing in the number of terrorist acts, amount of terrorist chatter, or terrorist movement.

So waiting to counter a terrorist attack is a little like waiting for a herpes or Ebola outbreak. In the herpes case you can only treat the symptoms. In the case of the Ebola virus, the outbreak (terrorist act) has killed the original individuals with the virus, so you are unable to trace the spread of the virus back to its origin.

Additionally the connections between terrorists resemble a map. Each terror cell is a city, and there are well-defined paths between the cells. Some of the terrorist act as go betweens transferring material goods, commands, or even money between the cells. Material goods and commands follow the strictest paths (because a terrorist cell must have a communications protocol to ensure that it has not been found out). The money is a little harder to trace, because of the varied ways that money can be transferred.


We have a very good definition of how our terror groups work, and determine what terrorist groups need to survive is the next step. In order to grow, plan, train, and seek sponsors our terror groups must have a safe secure place in which to incubate. Early on it was Sudan and a little later on it was Afghanistan. Our job is to figure out where they are going to go next, beat them there, and they squeeze them between our forces.

The next logical place for these terror groups to go would be a country or region that is friendly to their cause. Of countries in the world, there are several in Africa that don't have a strong enough boarder to keep the terrorists out. Iraq would have been a good choice because of its central location, but we took that country out. Iran or Syria would be better options than countries in Iraq. They already have a base of support there, they can blend in with the populace, they speak the lanugage, both has sea ports in order to help the movement of personnel, information, material goods, and commands. Also, the two countries are close to the area in which they are now. The less they have to travel, the better.



Our strategy for handling the terrorist is to remove their habit, counter outbreaks, and also intercept key personnel in order to follow the links to the chain.

This is where Iraq plays a pivotal role; Iraq lies in-between Iran and Syria. Iraq can secure its own boarder and prevent the movement of people and goods between two terror friendly countries. If you don't think Iraq has anything to do with the war on terror, you either don't understand the nature of the terror organizations or you are content to try to counter every outbreak as it happens. In order to remove the virus, you must remove the habit in which it breeds. A free Iraq will help us accomplish all three of the goals listed above.

Now back to the beginning of this post
On the other, we have lost the support of any and all moderate Arabs just when we need them the most, and the instability Bush has brought to the Middle East severely jeopardizes our future relationship with the Saudis to satisfy our oil needs.

People assume that instability is bad. I will agree that it is not good for the general population, governments, and businesses in the Middle East. Though it is also bad for the terror groups, creating instability lessens the ability of groups to plan, mobilize, and train. In addition, when an instable environment is created, groups such as the UN, NATO, and individual countries in the region will attempt to create stability through removing the instable forces. The forces causing the instability also happen to be the same forces causing America problems.

cube

The russian sink hole

check this out.

The russian sink hole

Other posts here and here.

Jehovah s Witnesses in Moscow

Russia is going to hell in a hand basket.

Also it is a well know fact that most of the russian media is controlled by the state. So it would make sense why they would want to shoot some nosy reporter. Though the good thing about reporters is that they just want to break a story. Though in russia it seems that if they do that they may break more than just a story.

cube

I don't understand part Two

I caught this information from Daniel Drezner

Here are some emails between two people who feel that they know a lot about a lot of different things.

The emails exchange basically argues the basic premise of that amazing Michael Moore movie that we all love and adore.

Email Exchange One.
Email Exchange Two.
Email Exchange Three.

Craig Unger's (author of House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties) theories center on the reason the Saud family were allowed to leave is cause Bush in with the royal family. The person who he is emailing does not state that his arguments are not true, just that he lacks definite proof. They do end up agreeing on a few points, one of which caught my eye.

You'll have to forgive me, but I still don't see how terror has taken a back seat to oil interests. Michael Moore tries to make the point, but he never really connects the dots. What I do see is that Cold War blinders not oil interests prevented this administration from taking terrorism seriously. The administration came to power believing that terrorism was more of a Clinton obsession than a national security threat. We were the big superpower. We had to worry about potential peer competitors like China and a possibly resurgent Russia, not annoying little asymmetric threats like terrorism. Clinton administration officials couldn't get anyone in the incoming Bush administration to focus on terrorism. Because of oil? No, I think because they had all left power during the Reagan and Bush I eras and had their Cold War glasses on, and they weren't prepared for the new threat of the day. They willfully ignored the threat because it was a Clinton-era problem.

So the Bush administration had it's cold war blinders on and did not take terrorism very serious.


Hmm...I seem to remember this

"After President Bush was elected, we were briefed by the Clinton administration on many national security issues during the transition. The president-elect and I were briefed by George Tenet on terrorism and on the Al Qaeda network.

Members of Sandy Berger's NSC staff briefed me, along with other members of the national security team, on counterterrorism and Al Qaeda. This briefing lasted for about an hour, and it reviewed the Clinton administration's counter terrorism approach and the various counter terrorism activities then under way.

Sandy and I personally discussed a variety of other topics, including North Korea, Iraq, the Middle East and the Balkans.

Because of these briefings, and because we had watched the rise of Al Qaeda over many years, we understood that the network posed a serious threat to the United States. We wanted to ensure that there was no respite in the fight against Al Qaeda.

RICE: On an operational level, therefore, we decided immediately to continue to pursue the Clinton administration's covert action authority and other efforts to fight the network. "

"We also moved to develop a new and comprehensive strategy to try and eliminate the Al Qaida network. President Bush understood the threat, and he understood its importance. He made clear to us that he did not want to respond to Al Qaeda one attack at a time. He told me he was tired of swatting flies. "


This new strategy was developed over the spring and summer of 2001 and was approved by the president's senior national security officials on September 4th. It was the very first major national security policy directive of the Bush administration -- not Russia, not missile defense, not Iraq, but the elimination of Al Qaeda.



Blinders...hmm. I wonder who has the blinders on.

Secondly this point will come up in later post.

On the other, we have lost the support of any and all moderate Arabs just when we need them the most, and the instability Bush has brought to the Middle East severely jeopardizes our future relationship with the Saudis to satisfy our oil needs.


Cube

I don't understand

U.S. Removes Two Tons of Uranium From Iraq



In a secret operation, the United States last month removed from Iraq nearly two tons of uranium (search) and hundreds of highly radioactive items that could have been used in a so-called dirty bomb (search), the Energy Department disclosed Tuesday.

The nuclear material was secured from Iraq's former nuclear research facility and airlifted out of the country to an undisclosed Energy Department laboratory for further analysis, the department said in a statement.

Report: CIA Gave False Info on Iraq


The key U.S. assertions leading to the 2003 invasion of Iraq - that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was working to make nuclear weapons - were wrong and based on false or overstated CIA analyses, a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report asserted Friday.


and was working to make nuclear weapons - were wrong and based on false or overstated CIA analyses,

Where did the two tons of Uranium from Iraq come from then?

cube

Movie Reviews

SpiderMan 2


It is better than the first, though I don't know if it has taken the crown of best comic book move ever. I think the first batman still has that crown. Spiderman failed and succeeded in several areas. Spider Man two succeeded when it did not try to recreate a world where the characters took their selves to seriously to have fun. This is a necessary part of Spider Man, because one of the hallmark traits of spider man is his quick wit while he has on the suit. Their were some decidedly humorous parts of the movie, which got some real laughs from the crowds. The movie at times had to come through with some solid solemn acting; it succeeded in some cases (the end), and failed in others (Peter on MJ's answering machine).

Another aspect in which spiderman failed was some basic superhero rules. Only your girlfriend knows you secret identity and never let you mortal enemies find out your true identity. In the spiderman movie two mortal enemies of spiderman found out who he actually is. Not one, but two?!?!?

Secondly, another aspect that I found disturbing was the fact that Spiderman asked Doc oct how to stop the fusion ball that was about to destroy New York City. Another one of Spiderman's calling cards is the fact he was always smarter than the villains he fought. While they might be stronger,faster, or have more arms, spiderman was always able to outwit them given enough time. The true comic version of spider man would have figured out how to disable doc oct. Then while he was trying to figure out the fusion ball problem, doc oct would have slipped away, and Spiderman would have had to figure it out for himself.

thirdly, Spiderman moved around like a power ranger. Though I guess their is really no other way to do it.

Final Tally
One a scale of 0 to 999
875


Escape form New York

Movie Info

It had Kirk Russell not Kirk Douglas in it. I am glad I know the difference now. This movie was definitely one that was worth picking up. It is nice to see other people's version of the future. Though I found the premise of the movie illogical. They turned New York City in to a prison. Can you imagine the cost to tax payers who had to buy the land? This movie was good, but then again it was also made in the early 80's. Man how did we ever watch movies without CGI. Snakes custom was cool, though he really did not move around like a military person. He was just walking around in plain view with a gun and a radio. He was a prime target for a sniper shot. The movie also made criminals look like dumb butts, though they were all the ones who got caught. Just based on historical value, I would say this movie is a must see.

Final Tally
One a scale of 0 to 999
650


cube

Eddie Glenn part 2

Eddie Glenn got back to me right when i expected it. Here is his email. He included updated buy info if you are intrested.

Hi,
Glad to hear you enjoyed the CD, and thanks for posting the lyrics.
You can get Hick-Hop (released last year) at cdbaby.com/eddieglenn.
For more Un-PCs, you can send $10 (that includes postage) to P.O. Box 1999, Tahlequah OK, 74465.
Un-PC is so un-PC it doesn't have a barcode, so it's kinda hard to market on the Internet.
I'm actually going into the studio this evening to record an EP, led off by a song called "Mr. President Pull My Finger," which I'll
also be selling for $10. It's an anti-war, anti-Bush tune, that I've got to get out before Nov., when (hopefully) the song will be outdated.

Take care,

Eddie Glenn

Better watch out for the FEC and the secret service Eddie. No really, i am not kidding about that.

cube
iguana cafe tahlequah
Update:
Orginal Post

Australia Joins Controversial US Missile Plan

Oh no we can't continue forward with this horrible idea of a missile defense shield. At the end of the article we will learn why.

Opposition politicians in Australia believe the development of a defensive shield could have a destabilizing effect on the country's Asia-Pacific neighbors and could spark an arms race with China.

Dang all of the worlds biggest capitalist counties will be involved in an arms race against a communist country. Gee I wonder if we will win. Been there done that.

"Australia joins a long list of countries, including South Korea, Japan, Britain, and Israel, which are working with the United States on its missile shield."

Man if the Japs and the Aussies are on our side who can stand against us. I am entirely serious about that. Their a few counties that scare me because of their drive and overall toughness. Germany, Japan, China are in that list. Australia would be they only have 20 million people, though they can work on very important small parts of the missile defense shield.

cube

Contact with the outside world

My email to eddie glen.

Subject:Eddie Glenn i love you and owe you money.

Not really but I wanted you to read my message and to thank you for you gift to the world of the album UN-PC.

I ended up getting it for free from a friend (who apparently got if from you while she was in school), but i would like to send the required fees for the CD and also purchase you last album.

If you have any additional albums from sell i would like to purchase one of each also.

I wrote a post about you on my blog.

http://sandcastlesandcubicles.blogspot.com/2004/07/eddie-glenn.html

cube


update:
Orginal Post

Eddie Glenn

"I've got my whisky.
I've got my gun.
I've the day off of work from the factory.
I've got a sawed off barrel of fun.
I've got some theories you need to hear.
...
You see that car parked across the street.
No don't look now you have got to be discreet.
But behind the wheel there sits the guy
Who follow me to all the guns shows
and keeps a list of all the weapons I buy."

Part of whisky/gun by Eddie Glenn from UN-PC (partly because it was made on a Mac and secondly for this reason).

Glenn’s first album, "Un-PC," was a collection of purposefully offensive satirical songs along the line of "Talking Arab Blues." The album features songs from the point of view of a conspiracy theorist with a gun and a conservative advocating forced genocide on the elderly. Glenn recorded the album because he felt like everything has gotten too politically correct.

The eclectic folk singer, Eddie Glenn, is starting to be known as one of the most interesting songwriters in northeastern Oklahoma.

You are kidding me, there is more than one of those in northeastern OK.

Anyways, here is the point. I love this singer/songwriter. So I am going to do a post, for my extremely large congregation.

I will do the leg work and find out if this contact info is still correct. If it is I will update this post and tell you that it is. So you can get you own copy of this wonderful CD. Also all correspondence with Eddie will be posted.

Eddie Glenn’s CD is available from Eddie Glenn Records, P.O. Box 1999, Tahlequah, OK 74465, for more information, e-mail eddieglenn@mac.com.

cube

Moral relativity

These ancient conquerors lived in a very different world to us, and where they got was because of their own hard work," he added. "We can't really judge them morally."

That is a load of crap. Murder, rape, stealing have always been wrong. Just because you add a few thousand years to an murder it does not change the nature of the act.

That is like saying the white farmers who took slaves and beat them were not doing anything wrong. Maybe the acts by blacks during the Rodney king riots were justified. Maybe we can't judge the communist, or the Nazis, or the recent terrorist because they lived in a very different world than we do today.

The unchanging nature of morals allows us to judge them.

cube

Women's rights

"the wife is to subordinate herself to the husband ... The woman is to place herself under the authority of the man."
...
Even Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas claim Holmes does not have a "fundamental commitment to the equality of women in our society."

Women don't want total equality with men, they will get the power and the money. They will also get the shorter lifespan and the additional stress that comes along with that life style.

They might yell for equality, but then want to take off months from work to go be pregnant. Is equality be treated exactly they same way or is it being treated equally? For example if I got pregnant could I get some time off to care for my child.

I love when people who don't read the bible, but take one verse from the bible and critique it. They do not talk about the passages that talk about a husband's commitment to his wife, and his duties. Notice how close all the verses are.


Ephesians 5:22
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
(Whole Chapter: Ephesians 5 In context: Ephesians 5:21-23)


Ephesians 5:24
Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
(Whole Chapter: Ephesians 5 In context: Ephesians 5:23-25)


Ephesians 5:25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
(Whole Chapter: Ephesians 5 In context: Ephesians 5:24-26)

Ephesians 5:28
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
(Whole Chapter: Ephesians 5 In context: Ephesians 5:27-29)


cube