The Redefinition of Political Stances

I have been listening to The 5,000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen lately. In this book, Cleon tries to impart the key principles that the Founding Fathers believed in that enabled the United States to become the most free and most prosperous nation in the world. The book challenges some of the viewpoints I have had of the Founders- it is a very interesing read if you are interested in history, philosophy, or politics.

The most interesting point that I have encountered so far, is that the Founders viewed the political spectrum in a fundamentally different manner. We currently place Socialist, tree-hugging liberals on the left side of the scale and intolerant, greedy capitalists on the right. The Founders looked at the Political scale in a very simple way as a result of their experience with the British Government. For them, the left side of the scale was Tyranny, the right Anarchy. To me this viewpoint is much more productive and helps unite a people. Since the vast majority of people do not want either extreme end of the scale, they would tend to find themselves bunched more towards the middle. Here is a picture of the scale:


The people left of center would strive to solve problems that arise and those on the right would ensure that we can afford the solution and that it does not infringe on our freedom. Although this is basically how the two parties work now, it seems that the parties are in a no-holds-barred tug-o-war instead of a partnership. A scale that pushes people toward the center would seem to be much more effective (the three heads of the Eagle are the three branches of government).

So does the way we draw the scale really affect politics? I believe that it does if we completely change our viewpoint and approach to the solutions that our government hopes to put in place.

By the way, who fits on the Tyranny side of the scale? Germany under Hitler, Russia under Communism, Britain and the Colonies under the Monarchy, the list could go on and on. Not the kinds of governments we want to replicate. I don't think any group of people live in Anarchy for any significant period of time- let me know if you have an example (Zombie Apocolypse?).

How Schools Stifle Creativity

I thought this was pretty interesting and am always interested in education reform. This guy is pretty funny, so give it a listen if you have 15 minutes or so.

Bullets are Sweet

Cool site for political research

No matter where you get your political commentary, I have found this site to very useful.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/

I was listening to Jonah Goldberg, author of "Liberal Facism" on NPR this afternoon and he was making the point that with the plethora of media sources (pinatas)we have access to, we are able to choose sources that agree with us 100% of the time. Many of these sources have no peer review process and are not held accountable for what they say.

My chosen sources are on this site and are sometimes correct and sometimes incorrect. Since I base my reasoning and positions on what I hear, I really resent it when I find them not to be true.

Anybody out there know of a balanced news source, or do I have to listen to twice the programming to hear both sides? PS- I do not consider Fox news to be quite so fair and balanced as they strive to be... I am not familiar with all their programming, so am still open to suggestions.

PS- their ratings are kind of subjective, so make sure you read the whole explanation.

School should be a 4 letter word - scwl.

see more Funny Graphs

Small things that I sweat pt 1

I know these are silly things to be annoyed by, but one day you will see me on the news being lead away in handcuffs. People will be saying "I guess this was just the straw that broke the camel's back".

- People that drive around with their fog lights on all the time. It is summertime in Utah. There hasn't been fog for months. Why must you assault our eyes with 4 headlights?

- People that leave time on the microwaves at work. We have 5 microwaves all in a row and during lunch there is a line for them. Every dang time I get to one someone else left like 7 seconds on it. Once I went up there after lunch- the area was deserted, but every single microwave had time on it still.

- People that say "addicting". Do you think your doctor sneaks into the back room between appointments, sneaks some painkillers and says "wow, this oxycontin is really addicting"? Addictive! Please say addictive!

Sometimes I just sweat the small stuff- more to come later.

Teh funnies

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

I love Dilbert (click the pic)

Problems with Politicians

Things that must go:

Senators make $174,000, which is more than 95% of americans make- and that is not counting all the perks.

No term limits- John Kerry is the junior senator for his state and has been a senator since 1985. Politics is not real life, it is Daes Dae'mar(nerd reference) and is an alternate reality full of games, perks, and self-importance. I don't really feel that a person living that kind of lifestyle for any amount of time can relate to me, much less represent the common man. Out of the 300 millions Americans, I hope that there are more than 100 people fit to serve as senators- we can afford to limit them to 12 yrs. Don't worry they get great retirement and health benefits.

Multi-million dollar election campaigns- the ones with the most money often win.... does that sound right? I have no idea how to address this issue, but something needs to be done. It would seem that many Presidents are somewhat beholden to those that, in effect, got them elected by donating to their campaigns.

Representation without taxation- 40% of americans pay no income tax, but are able through their votes to control how that money is spent (and how much). The top 10% of earners pay 72.4% of the income tax burden. If you are a politician, who do you want to cater to? you need to cater to the bigger group with more votes so that you can get re-elected a million times and keep your huge salary and perks. Is there any wonder that there is more and more government spending? If you don't contribute to the pot, why do you get such a large say in how it is spent?

Commercial Break blast- Have you ever noticed that commercials are like 20 decibels louder than the show you are watching? Right when I am slipping into a nice sugar coma during Conan O'Brien BAM! super loud car commercial with alarms going off. Does that sell more cars somehow?

Disgusted

Cap and Trade passed the house today. Why, oh why, would we tax production at a time like this? Really? Obama has admitted in previous interviews that under his plan "electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket". I work as a business analyst and know what companies do when they find operational costs rising- they move production overseas. Who thinks that is a good idea?

Guess what happens tomorrow? Everyone in the house goes home for vacation. They honestly brought this up on the last possible day, talked about it for 5 hours, and voted. Guess how long this bill is? 1500 pages. That is as long as Atlas Shrugged. I tried to read it once- could not get through it. Imagine how much worse a bill like this would be to read. They received the bill yesterday. The House is voting on a bill that they have not even read.

I wonder how many people that are pushing this bill stand to gain from this.... Nancy Pelosi has investments of 50k to 100k invested in Clean Energy Fuels corporation. Rep. Edward Markey, the author of the bill, has 51k to 115k invested in the First Hand Technology value fund . Al Gore has a Venture Capital firm that has invested heavily in a software company that helps companies track their carbon emissions. Do you think this bill might benefit them? I am not saying that the only reason they are pushing the bill is because of the money they will receive from their investments, though there are some that believe Al Gore could make over a BILLION dollars on this. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth to hear that they are passing a bill that will hurt all Americans financially to lower carbon emissions when there seems to be plenty of dissent around the nature of global warming, and they stand to gain financially from it.

In my opinion, the government should be in lockdown mode right now. It is like we just lost our job and have 2 car payments and a mortgage, but we are going to spend five thousand bucks to convert our car to run on bio diesel. Pure genius. Please do me a favor and don't re-elect people that are voting for bills they haven't even read. This and much other recent legislation seems like a rush to get as much of the liberal agenda into law as possible while the Democrats have the majority and while Obama's approval numbers are high. I can't imagine they will stay high after things like this. I can't imagine that global warming is on many Americans' hot lists in the wake of record high foreclosures and unemployment.

I am going to find a way to get you a link to a documentary made be BBC that is neck-deep in scientists that do not believe that global warming is caused by man-made carbon emissions called "The Great Global Warming Swindle".

Octahedron

Ok- a new Mars Volta album comes out tomorrow called Octahedron. It is apparently their version of an acoustic album. The album is not acoustic, but is significantly more mellow than their other albums. It is also more melodic with less progressive meandering. I am a huge Mars Volta fan, so I love it. My wife likes it more than the others because of its more mellow feel and I assume that it is more accessible than any of their other music. As an online reviewer said "Welcome back to planet earth."

This album should be listened to alone in the dark with some kind of visualizations on your computer over headphones to catch every nuance.

This is one of the slowest starters of any album- basically no sounds but a slight hum for the first minute and a half and no drums till just after 5 minutes in.

The lyrics are much less abstract, but still kinda out there. There are 8 tracks- I assume this ties in with the title, which is a shape (two pyramids attached at the base). This music is pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum from Rancid- songs take a long time to develop and are much longer and more complex. The song length average is about six and a half minutes.

Check this album out if you are a fan of the band, and if you aren't, this is a good place to start.


PS- make sure you read the lyrics on this one as you listen- it adds a lot to the album.

The End of Personal Responsibility

I love the interwebs but, like any technology, it can be used for good or evil (much like the Allspark). While there are many pros and cons of the internet, one con that has been bothering me lately are the byproducts of its anonimity. More and more sites now allow comments- youtube, News sites, etc. And everyone seems to think that they should be total jerks to everyone else on the site. I would love to see what would happen if these people were face to face. I have a feeling people would be a lot nicer and if not, there would be some first class beat-downs handed out (or possibly a lot of wildly flailing nerd-fists as pocket-protectors sail through the air, dislodged for the first time ever by an unprecedented amount of physical activity).

What happened to manners? What happened to even the lowest level of respect for others? You gamers out there know what I am talking about. Many servers are filled with people with mouths like truckers that love to bash on everyone else in the game. BTW- the term "noob" as an insult has run its course- please try something new PLEASE!

The same sort of disrespect and distance from consequences has spread to basically all forms of media. See this "sort of" apology from David Letterman to Sarah Palin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X6FUwBmclo (just don't read the comments because they are horrible).

Apparently his jokes are fine because she is conservative... seriously there was a time in this country when he would have been shot by her relatives for less. Sure, we have free speech, but we are not free from the consequences of our speech. How about we all just take a step back and try being a little classier (San Diego)?


PS- totally found a conservative idiot that crossed the line http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/06/14/2009-06-14_pol_gorilla_is_related_to_first_lady.html

Really????? Come on people!

Let the Dominoes Fall

OK- just got the new Rancid album: Let the Dominoes fall. I have been listening to these guys since High School and they haven't really ever let me down. Their sounds changes very little- just enough to keep me interested. I am a little disappointed in the liberal hollywood ranting in this album- way too cliché for a counter-culture punk band. There are a couple softer songs on this album and some guest vocals from someone who sounds like Oscar the Grouch (see "L.A. River").

Civilian Ways distinguishes itself with a bluesy sound, but the next track goes right back to standard Rancid till the last track, which is mellow.

In true punk fashion, they fit 19 songs into 46 minutes for all the ADD kids out there.

If you like music at all, check the album out. This one is best enjoyed while driving with the windows down. Which windows you ask? The windows of the coolest vee-hicle ever. Seriously, the paint on that car could grate your face off as it drives by- probably rupturing your eardrums with its Zombie-Bear-Pig deterring music as it flys by.

PS- if you have never listened to Rancid before, get ...And out come the Wolves or Life Won't Wait.

Coolest Vee-hicle ever?

W00t! This just went to the top of my list of wants. Why aren't these in mass production yet? Check this link out http://tenttop.home.att.net/ .

Ok- so it can go anywhere, seats 8, and has 3 doors per side. Once you get where you are going, bam! Tent on top with mattresses. This makes it much harder for the zombies/bears to sneak up on you and drag you kicking and screaming from your tent. Ohh snap- I just thought of zombie bears.... I'm not gonna sleep well tonight. (Fact: Bears like beets slightly more than humans, so throw some around your camp to keep them busy.)

Next feature- quick release bumpers double as 5 foot ramps. What did they have in mind when they designed them? Driving across small ravines? Jumping you dirtbike over the tent top? Maybe it is to be used in conjunction with the trailer that this is set up to pull. You could throw a Rhino on there with a .50 cal mounted in the bed and use the ramps to load/unload when you need to do some quick running and gunning.

Let's talk about the paint job on this thing- not your namby-pamby glossy paint job. This paint is actually pickup bed liner with coloring in it. Have you ever seen how tough that stuff is? If Chevy were still using their old "Like a Rock" slogan, they would have been all over this thing.

*shakes head to clear horrible "Like a Rock" song out of head*

This is for sale- if anyone buys it, consider me your new best friend, because you are obviously overflowing with awesome.

First Post

Behold, the greatest and most wonderful blog ever imagined by humankind! On this the ninth day of June, the very course of the world will be changed. You may be sitting on a complete seat as you read this, but trust me my friends, you will only need the edge of it.