So much time and so little to do...

A red head tells her blonde sister that she slept with a Brazilian man. The blonde says, "OMG! You Slut! How many is a Brazilian?"

Phoenix, AZ is the #2 city for kidnapping. Number 1 is Karachi, Pakistan.

I've been hearing commercials on talk radio stations that mention Ron Paul! He's my favorite politician, but if he actually gets elected and starts going back on the things he's been saying for over 20 years, you bet your ass I'll call him out on it. I'm just happy he's getting that level of acknowledgement. Perhaps he has a chance in 2012.

"The more who ate for free, the fewer that tilled the fields."

I wish to see The Great Salt Flats. There was this movie that my family and I have watched a lot, and we watched just the other day that ends in the salt flats in Utah. It has been very nostalgic to me. It's just one of those good family memories. BTW, the movie is named "Warlock" which I think is great! It is a simple movie, but it works so well with me. I hope Kasey will okay the visit to the Salt Flats on our trip.

It feels perfect today and thus I wish to document it for future reference to perhaps find something that works to make it feel good.

For a week prior:

1. I did the stretches where I move my legs to the left and right from an lying down position to stretch the muscles (and often results in popping).

2. I have been watchful of my standing and sitting posture for a month or so.

3. I've been doing a two minute ab workout of the upper and lower abs, which I often noticed an immediate improvement to my lower back pain, albeit temporary.

Also, yesterday it was in the high 80s and today it has been around 92-96 degrees today.

http://documents.nytimes.com/draft-of-president-obama-s-financial-regulation-proposal#p=1

I'm putting this here to read later.

Edit: I've been glancing through it and it is page after page of terrible things. The Federal Reserve shall have complete power over all of private industry if they, I repeat, they decide it may be a risk to the economy. If they set the standards, then nothing at all stops them from doing whatever they want whenever they want.

Then there is a new agency that is going to be created. A new level of bureaucracy is all we need. *sarcasm* There is also a ton of new regulations that will stifle the progress of business in America and trading as well. It's just a bunch of garbage and is a definite power play for the government and special interests.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8104700.stm

"The reforms will enhance the power of the Federal Reserve to supervise and ultimately order the takeover of any financial institution in trouble."

Allowing a private organization that can print money at will to have the power to take over other companies that it sees fit. Hmmm...

"Its aim is to deal with the weaknesses that the sub-prime crisis and the financial meltdown revealed in the fragmented US regulatory system."

You mean the Community Reinvestment Act that Clinton signed in to require 40something percent of all loans to be sub-prime and that Obama was very much for at the time? Yeah, Obama has a good track record in that respect. *rolls eyes*

Crap, it took me like a half an hour to write this because of the talking guy here, so this is where I'll stop.

Courtesy of a guy named American Man on some forum:

"Doctors:
(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(cool.gif Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are
120,000.
© Accidental deaths per physician are 17.1%.
Statistics courtesy U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services.

Now think about this:?
Guns:
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
(Yes, that's 80 million)
(cool.gif The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age
groups, is 1,500.
© The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is
0.00188%.
Statistics courtesy FBI.

So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times
more dangerous than gun owners.
Remember, 'Guns don't kill people, doctors do.'

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT
LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must
ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!!!"

Just one of the many of stats that put gun-related death statistics in context.

I took an okcupid politics test and one of the questions asked about my stance on the following:

Should a company be able to fire workers that go on strike?

Of course they should be able to. If workers refuse to work and people are willing to take their place and the company feels it is better to just fire them and replace them than to listen to their demands, which would mean the individuals don't have essential skills, then they have every right to fire them.

I'm sure in many cases it might be more cost effective to listen to demands and give them raises or whatever, but firing the people should be an option. If you hire workers and they decide they don't want to work... need I say more?

edit: Although if there is a contract that says they can't fire people because of a strike, they need to be held to it.

Ron Paul's bill that will call for an audit of the Federal Reserve has reached 222 co-sponsors which means it is guaranteed over half of the House's votes. It will be voted on and passed to the Senate. If they pass it, then it is up to Obama to sign it in or veto it. I've very interested in what he would decide to do. If he vetos it, that will say a lot.

WHO 'declares swine flu pandemic'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8094655.stm

The key part of this to me is this line: "Official reports say there have been 28,000 cases globally and 141 deaths and figures are rising daily."

A little simple division and swine flu has a 0.005% mortality rate.

"The current pandemic seems to be moderate and causing mild illness in most people."

Not exactly the Spanish Flu everyone seems to think it is.

I've been just browsing bits of news here and there and came across something that I've seen in the past. Namely any criticism of Israel makes you a racist. Even saying that the US should stop foreign aid in the Middle East, including Israel gets you the "bigot" label. It's a good thing if you're Israel and you don't want the US to keep sending you billions a year and free military weapons and support, but people seem to be so reactionary when it comes to any comment on Israel and I don't understand why. To me it is just another country like Poland, Brazil or Niger. I have no special attachment to the people there and no dislike for them either. Hmmm...

First, I shall add that I have to pay nearly $200 a month in association fees and all it seems to do is cover people planting flowers in front of the building, which I'd be happy with grass, water utility, insurance for the bulding (but unit owners must insure their unit), and having someone vacuum in the hallway a couple times a week. Lovely.

Well anyway, after 5 years of living here, I got something in the mail. It is the new rules and regulations. Basically, you're not allowed to do anything or change anything in your condo. That means I'm stuck with those hideous vertical blinds which make up one entire wall of my place. but I'm justing going to glance through this and point out what I think is worth pointing out:

All new owners (not me) must go through an orientation with Management. I've never seen management, but I'm sure they exist, for they take my money every month. This orientation will cost you $100.

There is a move in AND move out fine of $350. So if I ever move out, I owe them $350 just because. Do they do anything to help you when you move, you ask? No, nothing, they just collect your money. I thought I owned a condo, not rented an apartment.

No animals allowed in the elevators. Perhaps they have a problem with them peeing in the elevator? I forsee this one getting broken a lot because, well everyone here seems to have a dog and I always see them coming down the elevator. I don't think my neighbor, rotund as he is, could go down the stairs without killing himself.

You must have carpeting. No hard wood floors. Well, a lot of units have hard wood floors already, does this mean they have to tear it up? I'm not a fan of carpet, but I still have one and it looks like as long as I'm here, I always will.

You can't have an advertisement on your vehicle nor a "For Sale" sign.

Pet Fee of $100 per dog or $25 per cat per year. Also, a pet may not weigh more than 40 pounds. I guess a lot of the people with big dogs (mostly women) are going to have to get rid of them. Pet fee? YOU OWN THESE CONDOS! It's like you live in an apartment only you have to buy the apartment. You can't actually do anything with them. To anyone who ever considers buying a condo, don't. Just go rent somewhere.

You must get written permission to sell your condo.

Trash must be placed inside a 13 gallon plastic garbage bag. No more, no less. =O

This almost makes me want to go to these board meetings.

People often say both are different. Others say they're basically the same thing. So I typed the title up there into google and read the first half dozen entries trying to explain the difference. Every one I read said different things that conflicted with each other.

As far as I can tell, Socialism is phase 1, the government owns all corporations and/or regulates all to a large extent. It redistrubutes money as it sees fit, controls the money supply and interest rates, etc. Communism is phase 2 when the government takes over all forms of life, controlling wages, often the same, though we know that there is still the elite group that gets special treatment and it also says that they have no central leadership, but I know Russia and China sure did. Ultimately it would have no money at all, but as far as I can tell, that hasn't happened in a real life example.

I might as well mention the flip side.

Capitalism, which is an economic system allows for individual property ownership, free markets unregulated by government where the market decides prices and distribution of goods. The driving force, of course, is personal profit.

What does the US have? I'd say 70 percent socialism, 30 percent capitalism. The Socialism side is growing with help from the media blaming everything that is going wrong on Capitalism, even though it is greatly constrained by regulation. It gets blamed for the sub prime mortgage crisis even though that's the fault of government. I can't remember the name of the act, but I had posted it on this LJ before, where banks were required to lend about 50% to subprime borrowers to avoid "financial discrimination. Thank Carter, Clinton, W. Bush for that. The economic cycle and bubbles are also blamed on Capitalism, but that's the government's fault in the form of the Federal Reserve (not government, I know, but they delegated the power) who sets artificially low interest rates and prints unseemly amounts of money, while selling treasury bonds to foreign nations to finance debt so that politicians can do anything they want with minimal taxes.

I'm tired, consider this rant finished... for now. MUA HA HA

This is a short segment about mostly Canada's health care system and its shortcomings. I'm just putting this here since you only hear about the good part of these things. This points out some bad things.

It is being discussed to add a national sales tax to the list of taxes we pay. Why does no one in government (generally) try to cut spending instead of always raising the amount of money they take from us? I heard the Republicans used to do that way back when, but not in my lifetime.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/government/a/al_gore_energy.htm

Al Gore's home uses 20x the national average of energy per year.

"Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006."

"Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359."

Wow, and I only used 60kWh last month. That means the ultra-green Gore uses at least 306.66x more power than I do per month.

The Legend of Zelda for the NES was the first game I ever beat. Woo!

Based on the entire speech with the comment from the last entry.

Also, think about it this way. Say a case is about a woman being raped. Would it be a good idea to have a jury full of rape victims? How about make the judge a rape victim too? Nobody can understand what is the woman is going through quite like a rape victim, so they should be able to make a better decision because of that? It's the same thing as Sonia is saying. You want justice to be blind so nobody gets any special treatment. It is difficult to find people who can't relate to someone's situation, so what you really want is a judge that has a proven track record that they can look past that and make a fair judgement based on the word of law and the Constitution. Her saying what she said shows that she will bend or break the rules with her decision because she feels for someone's plight because she can relate to it.

Here is her speech: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6444523/Sonia-Sotomayors-2001-speech-at-UC-Berkeley