The World According to Me.

All this uproar and anger towards British Petroleum, as if they have some secret plan for success they simply have not invoked. The very vocal, very boisterous American minority is having rallies and letting their feelings be known that they hate 'big oil'. But very few of them seem to understand a few things, one this is not near the greatest spill in history and two the vast majority of the products they use every day that contain some from of petroleum. It is one thing to say lets get off our dependency on oil as a fuel. Remember though that oil is used nearly as much for heat as it is for propulsion. So in order to get off oil, as they would advocate, you'd need to find a cost effective way to create the same amount of heating fuel as you do propulsion fuel. Not an easy task. People also seem to avoid researching this topic at all costs. In 1979, following all the OPEC and oil-embargo nonsense, Mexico had the second largest oil spill in recorded history (the first being...

The Texas School Book Depository, wait that isn't it, the Texas Board of Education is writing a new social studies book. More so, deciding what topics or buzz words go in. This is important because the vast majority of education in the US is based on the recommendations of this board. Some items being debated are whether to write Barack Hussein Obama, Barack H. Obama or simply Barack Obama. Other questions are how America is viewed in the world and Americas origins and "exceptional" traits. To simplify a few of the questions one can ask, 'how are the other Presidents names listed?', Obama should be no different than the others. The latter questions become more difficult. It is my opinion that as an educational system funded by US tax dollars it is an obligation to be objective but tilted in the upbringing of US students. These are students, the goal of the school system is not to indoctrinate one way or the other, but specifically not to push students away from ha...

Dems are suggesting emergency inspections of all 'enviro-hazard' possibility oil rigs. And they want the oil company to pay for the inspection. A Senator from Louisiana wants 40% of oil revenue from the government to go to the gulf for clean up efforts. The US needs to be very careful how it handles this. We all want the mess cleared up, and engineers on both the government and private industry side have been working since April 20th to solve this crisis, that said we must not use fear-legislation to void ourselves of oil production. Can you imagine the sheer cost of oil with a failing Euro and if private industry decided that 'working for the US was simply not worth it'. Do you believe China or Russia would offer the same regulation? How about waters off of Cuba? This needs to be extremely well thought out, something Congress does not do well.

Ask yourself this, when in history has the United States at a Federal or State level ever levied a tax and then repealed it completely? Article Legislatures have a nasty habit of misleading their constituents into believing things can be temporary. They do this by stating things like "budget gap" or "we may need to cut schools", they use these because they are buzz words to open the door to taxation. Who wants to see little children standing on the street because the school can't afford to bus them in? Nobody, that is what the legislature preys on. The critical problem is that legislatures have proved zero ability to keep budgets in line, instead they tend to increase their spending and absorb anything that was a surplus. Sadly states that find themselves creating temporary taxes will find relatively quickly that these taxes become constant, they may get reduced, but much like the "Homeland Security Level" they will always exist.

Read this, it will some up all this weeks news that really matters. Everything else is simply non-sense: Oil Spill - Can we all just stop talking for five minutes? Yesterday was all a flutter because some scientists, who haven't actually been down 5,000ft to the well site, claim that British Petroleum is essentially misleading everyone to the spill amounts. So all the news agencies were picking their respective sides. What should have been the focus is fixing the problem, stopping the spill. We can figure out afterwards who lied and what the damage is. There should have been more focus by the media on the fact that Transocean, who owned the Deep Horizon rig, is attempting to limit their personal responsibility so simply 24M dollars. This is a company that makes over 660M a quarter. Unless there was some paperwork in the lease contract between BP and Transocean that stated BP was responsible for any and all damages to the rig or aftermath there of, how do they not share equally in r...

Redistribute the wealth, get rid of that high and mighty richest 10% of the world, send the money to the poor countries. Well there are a couple facts you need to consider in these statements; 1) The USA is the richest country in the world and in fact is the center of the richest 10% so when you advocate redistribution of wealth on a global scale of the richest 10% you are advocating, if a US citizen, the removal of your own pay check. 2) How does wealth get created once the richest 10% is gone? 3) How do you stop the inevitable civil war and class war that follows such a move? It is simple and feels good to say "help the poor countries" however this is not a sustainable model for human civilization. Governments have tried for years to adhere to a concept of 'sharing the wealth of many', it has never worked. It doesn't work for a few simple reasons; absolute control brings absolute destruction, once the average citizen or peasant has their own wealth and food remo...

I'm a freaking coffee addict. I have enjoyed coffee since I was about 16 years old. The stories your parents are told by doctors when 'kids' drink coffee is usually; they will have their growth stunted. Well I'm 6'2" and my parents were both well under 6' tall. So I don't think that played out. I'm trying to make a transition from coffee to tea. Coffee has been found to have some relatively good benefits to the heart in recent studies but the considerable levels of caffeine and inflammatory responders isn't so hot. Tea has outstanding properties literally across the spectrum of the human body. Everything from reducing cancer risks, increased cognitive capability, helping the heart to the intestines are all items encompassed by teas. The trick to teas are as follows: don't add milk, add citrus (lemon, etc), drink 4 minutes after pouring. I drink roughly 6 cups of coffee a day, my attempt is going to be to reduce that to maybe 1 cup a day by t...

With the recent BP oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico a lot of environmentalist are grabbing the soap box to get off oil. In theory I agree 100%, reduce your need for a fossil fuel as much as you can. But I don't say this to save a Polar Bear, I say this because I'd rather we had fuels we can recreate than ones that are dependent on discovery. My position is start simpler: 1) define what type of power we want vehicles in the future to utilize. (once we can decide on this, we can move forward with R&D. Right now we are stuck in the Beta vs VHS era where every company is competing for the next best thing, focus the industry) 2) start replacing other items instead of "gasoline". (come up with realistic replacements for lubricants, tar, plastics, rubber, soaps, etc.) 3) it would be interesting to see estimates on power grid use for example: what if all residential homes used 75% less power grid electricity? what if all commercial real estate over 50,000sqft was required...

I follow a series of news groups pretty regularly including: CNN, FoxNews, USAToday, WSJ and so on. One thing I've noticed that seems universal between all of them is the low level of education of their readers, primarily their commentators. Those would be people that respond via different social media to the articles presented. Routinely the audience takes only the headline, rarely the article and never an outside source, before weighing in with their ever beloved 'opinion'. This morning I watched a series of confused souls on CNN mock or praise the recent Obama pick for the Supreme Court. I'd argue that 90% of the people who posted their comments did not research the history of the Supreme Court, the history of those nominated and the practices and policies utilized. Instead remarks like "what a great pick" or "look at the fat lesbian" were the posts of choice. Three prime current events that point to the overall lack of universal education or even...

Well today is the day, May 9 2010 - Mother's Day. You wake in the morning at dawns first light; Children are quiet and nestled in sight. You ready yourself, for the day that's ahead, and gracefully rise and move from your bed. You begin your day with others in mind, not wondering when you will have your own time. Undaunted and purposed you move through in your way, dressing the children and preparing the day. An exceptional person, there is not quite another, Everyone in the home is glad to call Mother. Happy Mother's Day Rebekah.

Why be exceptional when you can be average. I mean there is far less risk when you lower the bar enough to step over it. That is essentially what Fed Chairman Bernake told students the other day. "Don't go for the Gold" in his words, maybe that is because he is printing dollars and hasn't used the Gold standard since 1971. Or perhaps because 1oz of Gold is worth one-thousand two-hundred and twenty-two of his paper Monopoly money. Who knows why he'd make a remark like that, maybe he was thinking of the decisions he has made in life. Leaving the Prof world for the finance world, stepping over his knowledge base for the salary it entailed and assumed 'power'. Fact is, you don't usually here financial icons telling people to settle for happiness over wealth UNTIL they have achieved their wealth, then they immediately know all. Just a tad hypocritical, but hey this is America. I keep thinking of the terms from the Constitution; 'promote the general Welf...

"Obama announced today that he was very encouraged to see that unemployment in the United States is crossing that critical 10% threshold. It was only a matter of time before we'd correct that 7% unemployment debacle led by the Bush administration, the President joked..." Wait, reverse that apparently he was overly excited by 290,000 jobs being created, not the loss of more than 290,000 jobs which led to the increase to 9.9% in unemployment. Article

This show is funny, like an estrogen rich "Cops". show It was very timely, one officer pulls over a truck on suspicion because most of the illegal people runners go a certain path. So she pulls a truck over to check it out. And no, it wasn't profiling, it was at night and she decided to pull the car before ever seeing who was driving it. She asks the driver where he is headed "New Mexico" he answers, she asks for his ID and how many people are in the car with him, '9' he says. Nine people, she asks if any are children "1" she asks 'how old', "2" the driver responds. She then asks the driver to step out of the car, he does without complaint. She asks anyone else in the vehicle if they have ID and if she could see it, out of 9 people 3 people had IDs, so she looks at the driver outside of the car ands reads an ID. "So how do you know Rita?" she asks. The driver looks puzzled, she asks again. The driver has now response...

Regardless of why you came here, if you are illegally here, you are a criminal. Point of fact. So how do you help this problem, first you have to ask why? - Looking for work - Escaping violence - Looking for a better future Those are some ideas I could come up with off the top of my head as to why you would be willing to break a Nations laws. If those are the reasons, how do you provide a path for citizenship to make people citizens that genuinely wish to be citizens and how to you get those that just enjoy being criminals out? We should spend a portion of our border control funds setting up institutions that would easily accept and be overtly obvious to bring in those fleeing violence. The US has a long standing practice of brining in any Cuban that can hit our soil. We need to have similar practices in place for any immigrant trying to flee violence. If you are looking for work and want to be a citizen, we need similar institutions in place along our borders to get people in programs...

The Problem: Herniated L5/S1 disc causing severe sciatica Example MRI: What is Sciatica: Sciatica causes pain, a burning sensation, numbness, or tingling radiating from the lower back and upper buttock down the back of the thigh to the back of the leg. Severe sciatica can make walking difficult if not impossible. Sometimes the symptoms of sciatica are aggravated by walking or bending at the waist and relieved by lying down. So what about the pain? Sciatica is often characterized by the following symptoms: Pain on one side of the buttock or in one leg that is worse when sitting Burning or tingling down the leg Weakness, numbness or difficulty moving the leg or foot A constant pain on one side of the rear A sharp pain that may make it difficult to stand up or to walk So what caused it? A herniated L5/S1 disc Interesting facts: - Herniated discs in the lumbar region are very common in active males age 30-40 - At the one and two year mark both surgical and non-s...

Contrary to popular belief, fuel isn't the main way we each individually consume oil. To those that think "we need to get off oil dependency" you need to first remedy the following completely, before worrying entirely about energy: When petroleum is refined, its various chemical parts are separated and some become gasoline, some lubricants, some asphalt, and others the raw materials for plastics and rubber and many more things. Here are some examples of what can be obtained from petroleum (crude oil, natural gas, and/or viscous or solid forms): Fuels - like gasoline, diesel, propane (many people use propane to heat their homes), heating oil Heavy bottoms - like asphalt, bitumen, tar Petrochemicals - used as a feedstock for many everyday products: plastic gadgets, tools, bags, toys candles clothing (polyester, nylon) hand lotions petroleum jelly perfume dishwashing liquids ink bubble gums car tires ammonia heart valves and many more

There has been all this talk about the devaluing of the dollar and rising cost of gold, well check this out. Greece just worked out a Euro bailout that is undisclosed to terms and amounts. I'm wondering what the effect will be come Monday morning on the Euro vs Dollar and market for Gold and other commodities. There has also been chit-chat about the life of the Euro now. Who wants currency for their country tied to a multitude of other countries, of which the economies are failing severely? What shock wave would be sent if the Euro collapsed? What happens to the dollars value? This could be good or bad for the US economy in certain aspects. It will be an interesting week next week. Hopefully in the bailout for Greece there are stipulations on what and how money is spent. Remember, you simply can not promise everything to everyone. Union debt has crushed Greece.