Seeing is believing... well, not always.

A lie can go halfway around the world before the truth even gets its boots on.

In the days of Mark Twain, a lie could only get halfway around the world. Today it can make it all the way around before truth "gets its boots on." Today we live in a world of near instant communications. When something "newsworthy" happens anywhere in the world, within seconds people are spreading the news through their cell phones, and within minutes news of the event is broadcast through television and radio, posted on web sites, and eventually makes it into the next days newspaper. This is one of the reasons why I prefer to get my news from the newspaper. Since the newspaper is rather slow compared to other forms of media, someone had some time to think (at least a little bit) about the event and maybe even do some research before spreading what could be truth or fiction.

Another quote that I like, this one from the television show, The Outer Limits,

The search for truth is a uniquely human process; a quest guided by our perception of an event. But what happens to the truth when what we see and what we think we see are two very different things... Some say that the truth is only what we persuade others to believe. If so, we should be wary; for truth is easily and often hidden by the arguments of those who are false...

So why all these quotes about truth? Someone sent me a link today to a video titled Pallywood. You can view it yourself at seconddraft.org. This video shows how Palestinians stage conflicts with Israeli military to persuade the world how poorly they are treated. I found the video to be quite compelling. Some may claim that this video itself is staged, personally, I don't think that's the case. I do think, however, you should watch this video and decide for yourself. Eleanor Roosevelt in a speech in 1938 to graduates of the Todhunter School in New York City said:

"Don't dry up by inaction but go out and do things... Don't believe what somebody else tells you, but know things by your own contacts with life. If you do that you will be of great value to the community and the world."

I feel very strongly about those words. With so much information available to us at such unprecedented speeds we must remember not to believe everything we see and hear, especially if it's something you saw on television. Truth is stranger than fiction. If you hear something that sounds plausible, it probably didn't happen. If you hear something that sounds strange and bizarre, (like Israeli soldiers NOT shooting at Palestinians) it's probably the truth.

Another quote from Eleanor Roosevelt that I think is appropriate when thinking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is:

"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?" February 16, 1946

If you'd like to learn more about Eleanor Roosevelt, check out http://www.nps.gov/elro/who-is-er/index.htm. She was a very interesting woman and one of those great individuals who strived to make the world a better place for all.

Why wait until after Thanksgiving to shop?

From the ads in today's paper it seems like most stores, like they should be, will be closed for Thanksgiving. However I saw an ad with a coupon for the Sports Authority good only on Thanksgiving day. I can understand gas stations and grocery stores being open on Thanksgiving, but the Sports Authority? What do they think? Someone's going to run in for an emergency football to toss around on Thanksgiving day? I feel sorry for the people working there who deserve a day away from work to spend with their families and be thankful for living in such a wonderful country.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving except the management of the Sports Authority, or any other store that should be closed for Thanksgiving. Instead the management of those stores should be the ones working, not their staff.

Sony busted for rootkit install

The music industry still doesn't get it. They think they're going to make more money by making it more difficult for people to use the music they purchase as they see fit. Why would I buy a Sony CD if I knew I wouldn't be able to copy the music on to my MP3 player? Even more so, why would I buy a Sony CD if I knew it was going to install potentially harmful software on my computer? The fact is I wouldn't. However, if they made music I like available at reasonable prices in a convenient format such as downloadable that I could play on my MP3 player, play on my computer, and burn to a CD so I can play it in my car or stereo, I would be much more likely to buy their music and would probably buy more music. The number of songs sold through Apple's popular iTunes only proves this to be true.

If companies like Sony continue their old way of thinking about music distribution, forcing customers to purchase the same music separately for each device they wish to play it on, they're going to be stuck counting their old money and miss out on the opportunity to make new money.

Join the March

There was a great show on TBS tonight called Earth to America, a comedy event aimed at raising awareness to global warming staring many celebrities. This was a great show that was both humorous and informative, even though I already know a lot about global warming.

What most people don't understand is that the climate of the Earth is very delicate. The earth itself has it's own heat exchange system called the great ocean conveyor belt that works like an air conditioner, but at a global level. It keeps the temperature of the Earth stable ensuring that the summers don't get too hot or the winters too cold. They conveyor belt causes water to circulates through the worlds oceans transferring cold water from the poles and warm water from the equator. If this system ever breaks down the planet will experience a dramatic climate change as the oceans will heat up unchecked around the equator feeding huge amounts of energy into the global weather system resulting in hurricanes larger than any ever experienced.

To learn more about the great conveyor belt check out this page from The United Nations Environment Program or do a search for global conveyor belt.

I like to think of this in a different way. If you fill a glass with water and drop in a few ice cubes, the temperature in the glass will approach freezing and will not rise significantly above freezing until all the ice has melted. This is caused by the ice absorbing heat energy from the water. If you then take the glass and put it in the freezer, the temperature of the water will remain at freezing, but not below until all the water has turned to ice. I believe our poles work in the same way. If the Earth starts getting too cold the ice in the poles will grow giving off heat and keeping the Earth from getting too cold. If the Earth starts getting too warm the poles will start to melt absorbing heat and keeping the Earth from getting too hot.

It is a known fact that we are burning huge amounts of fossil fuels releasing huge amounts of heat energy into the atmosphere. This process also releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses which help to trap heat energy. It is also a known fact that the amount of ice melting in the poles is increasing. To say that there's no correlation between these two facts is like saying that it's just a coincidence that water starts to boil when you put it on a hot stove.

We must start now to slow down and eventually reverse this process. We must work to elect government officials who will work to help the environment and we must work to remove government officials who are only interested in financial gains. We must work toward developing means of transportation and energy generation that don't increase the production of greenhouse gasses. Examples of these are solar and wind energy. Being a water person, I came up with an idea of generating electricity from waves, but like most of my ideas, someone came up with the idea years before I even thought about it. See this page from the World Energy Council.

There are a number of things that you can do now to help. For one, check out the link at the bottom and join the march. Other things you can do is to reduce the amount of energy you use. For example, use compact florescent bulbs. I personally love them and only have incandescent bulbs is places where the lights aren't on very long. Reduce the amount of driving you do and use use public transportation when possible. When you must drive, plan out your trip so you drive the shortest distance and eliminate unnecessary trips. So far this year I've driven my car 1,624 miles and used less than 100 gallons of gas. I've also managed to reduce my electricity bills to less than $20 a month by turning things off when I'm not using them and using energy efficient appliances and devices. I've even expanded my energy conservation to my workplace by powering off everything in my cube when I leave for the day and enabling power saving options on my computer. There's a lot of little things you can do to conserve energy, and every little bit helps.

The smoking debate has gone to ludicrous speed

To coin a phrase from "Spaceballs: The Movie," the debate on smoking has "gone to plaid."

In the Voice of the People section of today's Chicago Tribune there were printed a number of letters about the "smoking issue." Most of them were pretty ridiculous, but there was one by Rex Krebs that particularly stood out as being utterly absurd.

If smoking is banned in restaurants, then I sure hope driving vehicles that burn fossil fuels is banned too. Give me a break, non-smokers. Haven't you realized yet that everything everywhere is bad for you? Quit complaining and suck it up like the rest of the real world. (I'm a fellow non-smoker.)

By this logic since everything's going to kill us, why bother using sun screen? Why wear a seat belt? For that matter, why even bother looking both ways before crossing the street? After all, everything everywhere is going to kill you. Personally I'd rather avoid as many things that are going to kill me as possible, including smoking, skin cancer, and being hit by a car, among others.

What I don't understand is you're allowed to drink alcohol just as freely as your allowed to smoke cigarettes. Yet if you force a child to drink alcohol or for that matter even provide a child with alcohol you can be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Yet it's perfectly legal to allow a child to remain in a smoke filled room provided they aren't the one's smoking. Isn't that contributing to the delinquency of a minor?

Why do smokers feel so strongly that they have the right to force their habit on everyone else? I think the next time I'm having a drink and someone lights up I'm going to pour my beer on them. After all, if they believe I appreciate my clothes smelling like cigarette smoke I guess I should believe they'd appreciate their clothes smelling like beer.

Cheney's alive

Vice President, Dick Cheney has resurfaced. His picture was on the front page of today's Chicago Tribune touring Gulfport Mississippi. And it only took him two weeks and an order from President Bush to get there. Now the only question is will he be joining Bush on the porch of Trent Lott's new "fantastic" house sipping mint juleps? (See Derrick Z. Jackson's editorial.)

VP MIA

Has anyone seen Cheney?

As far as I remember this country has had a President and a Vice President. The big question is "where is our Vice President?"

Every day the newspaper and TV news is filled with news about Bush. Where he was, what he said, what he screwed up... but I can't remember when the last time was I heard anything about Dick Cheney. In the last week we experienced the worst natural disaster in the history of the country. The present spoke about it (although he took his time to do so) and has flown down to the disaster area, met with victims of the disaster, promised aid, etc. As far as I know The Vice President hasn't spoken a single word about the disaster. I haven't seen him on TV. I haven't read about him in the paper. In fact I did a search on the Chicago Tribune's web site for articles about Cheney and couldn't find anything significant. The only reference to Cheney I found were articles that Bush, Cheney, and Rice were going to meet with someone, or Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were going to meet with someone, or that the Army demoted a Halliburton contract critic and Cheney used to work for Halliburton. None of these articles say anything about what he did or what he said. Where is he? Does he care? Is he doing his job? Is he still alive?

Since I couldn't find anything significant about Cheney in the paper, I decided to visit whitehouse.gov to see if there was any information. After all, the White House should at least know where he is. To my surprise there was nothing about the Vice President on the home page. There ware articles about the President meeting with residents of Mississippi, visiting Louisiana, visiting the American Red Cross, his nomination of Judge Roberts for Supreme Court, nothing about Cheney. At the top and bottom of the page is a link to the Vice President page. On the Vice President page, unlike the President page, there was no section titled "Latest Headlines". There was only a section titled "Speeches and News Releases" that contained one speech for the entire month of August, and six speeches from July. (Incidentally, there didn't seem to be any speeches from the first half of July.)

That last time I remember hearing anything significant about our Vice President was on September 11th, 2001. We were told that when The World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists and The Pentagon was attacked that the Vice President was moved to a secret bunker for his protection. I think he's been living there ever since. Either that or he went back to working for Halliburton and hasn't had time to do his real job.

When Al Gore was VP we heard about the things he said and did. When Dan Quayle was VP we heard about the things he said and did. When George Bush was VP we heard about him. Doesn't it seem strange that we don't hear anything about Dick Cheney?


Here's some other questions to ponder:

• Doesn't it seem strange that since George W has taken office that the number of government documents that have been declassified has dramatically dropped and the number of documents that have been classified has dramatically increased? What is Bush really hiding?
• Doesn't it seem strange that a company associated with our Vice President, Halliburton, has benefited so greatly from the war in Iraq?
• Doesn't it seem strange that gas prices are at the highest anyone can remember, car manufactures are selling record numbers of gas-guzzling vehicles, oil companies are earning record profits, and our President has a connection to the oil industry?

Smoke out Chicago

As I was walking to the office this morning I saw an ad on the back of a bus for Smoke Free Chicago. This is an organization that's trying to convince the Chicago politicians to make Chicago a smoke free city. I think it's a great idea. I personally hate it when I walk into a restaurant and smell smoke or go to a bar or night club and have to leave after a few minutes because I can't stand the smoke. Some of these clubs are so smoky that after being in there only a few minutes my clothes reek of smoke.

Their web site also has a list of smoke free restaurants in Chicago. If you hate smoke like me I suggest you patronize some of these places and if you live in Chicago contact your alderman and the mayor and help make Chicago smoke free.

Listen Hear

Have you ever noticed that we have two verbs used for perceiving sound, listen and hear?

If you think about it, hear is a verb used to describe a passive action. To hear something all you have to do is be in a place where you ears can pick up the sound, but listen describes an active action. To listen you have to focus and pay attention to what you hear. The dictionary defines listen as "to make a conscious effort to hear."

I think most people use this words fairly interchangeably, but don't really think about the difference between these two words. For example, when you're plugged into your iPod or have the radio on in the car are you listening to music or are you hearing music? I think this is the reason there's so many accidents with cell phones. When you have the radio on in the car you're hearing music, but your focus is on driving the car. When you on the phone you tend to do more listening rather than hearing therefore your focus is more on the phone than on driving. There's also the problem of speaking which tends to take away even more focus from driving.

In today's fast paced world I think many people don't take the time to actually listen. This is a big problem with interpersonal communication. Too many people have conversations where they just hear the other person speak and don't take the time to listen to what the other person is saying. How many times have we heard a child say to their parent, "alright already, I heard you." But the real question is did they listen?

I think if we spent more time actually listening to each other instead of just hearing each other there would be a lot less conflict and disagreements. I know I'm going to try to make more of an effort to listen, how about you?


On a similar topic, have you ever noticed all the verbs we have for making sounds? Talk and speak, yell and shout, sing and chant. Why do we have so many works for making sound but so few for perceiving sound? I'll save these ponderings for another time.

Celebrate Independence Day by... going to the mall?

Every year on the fourth of July I'm always puzzled by all the stores that remain open for a national holiday. Why is it that the malls are closed for Christmas, a religious holiday celebrated only by Christians, but are open for Independence Day, a national holiday celebrated by all Americans regardless of race or religion. For that matter, why are the stores closed for Thanksgiving, a holiday commemorating a successful fall harvest by the pilgrims after a difficult first year in this country, but open on the Fourth of July, a holiday that celebrates the formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776, the founding of The United States of America and independence from England.

When I worked in the retail industry I was always disgusted that the store had to remain open on the Fourth of July. Instead of being able to spend time with my family and enjoy a day of freedom, I had to be in the mall dealing with customers who a vast majority of were recent immigrants and foreigners, people who had no idea what independence and freedom were all about.

In my eyes the Fourth of July is the most important of all American holidays. If you consider yourself a patriotic American you should boycott malls and stores. If no one patronizes the stores on Independence Day maybe management will take a hint and close the store next year so the workers can spend The Fourth the way it is meant to be enjoyed. Don't go to the mall, don't go shopping, buy all your groceries before the 4th. Instead spend the day outside with family and friends enjoying the freedom the comes with living in the greatest country in the world, the land of the free and home of the brave.

Worker Shortage? Not if you're looking in the right place.

Someone finally gets it.

I wrote about three weeks ago about how large companies were complaining there will be shortage of IT workers in coming years. Jim Rapoza understands the real problem. (See eWeek) The problem is not a shortage of IT workers. The real problem is a shortage of IT workers who are willing to work 80 hour weeks for low wages.

My big question is when will companies learn the economics of employment. If they paid their CEO only $1 million instead of $20 million they could hire 190 developers at $100,000 a year. The real question is will a $20 million CEO earn a company more money than a $1 million CEO and 190 developers? Based on the fact that I've always worked on development teams of less than 10 people and we were able to turn out some really neat products I would think you could develop profitable ideas with far less than 190 developers.

I think our companies should stop whining about there not being enough H1B visas for them to import cheaper IT workers and cough up some bucks and pay developers what they're really worth. Their current method of operation, layoff and outsource, is only going to lead to a real shortage. They also need to realize that developers with experience really are worth more money than a novice developer. Simply knowing the proper syntax doesn't mean you'll produce great software. Through experience you learn efficient algorithms and clever techniques that a novice would be oblivious to or never even thought was possible. If you need to chop down a tree you can use an ax or you can use a chain saw. Both will get the job done, but one will do it a lot more efficiently.

Bushisms for the history books

Great column by Molly Ivins in today's tribune on her favorite topic, Bush.
On May 24th, Bush once again demonstrated his mastery of the English language with this great quote, which he has been rightfully criticized about.

"See, in my line of work, you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

Hmmm. I never knew truth and propaganda meant the same thing. Let's look it up shall we.

Propaganda

1. the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person


2. ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

Truth

1. (1) : the state of being the case : FACT (2) : the body of real things, events, and facts : ACTUALITY (3) often capitalized : a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality b : a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true c : the body of true statements and propositions

Looks to me like truth and propaganda don't exactly mean the same thing. Propaganda can contain truths, but propaganda by definition is not the truth.

The other item Molly wrote about was Bush's repeated use of the phrase "culture of life" and how he said "The use of federal dollars to destroy life is something I simply do not support." I think Bush is confused on what "destruction of life" really means. How can he say he doesn't support federal dollars to destroy life and at the same time wage a very expensive war using federal dollars that is doing a very good job at destroying life. According to Ivins article more than 1600 American's have died and more than 15,000 have been wounded. Bush has some nerve to stand before the people of this country and defend the right to life of a frozen embryo while at the same time sending fully formed (and thawed) citizens to their death on the other side of the world.

One of the best arguments on the right to life of frozen embryos in the whole stem cell research debacle was a letter to the editor in the Tribune the other day. The argument was that if a firefighter ran in to a burning building and there was a freezer filled with 100 frozen embryos and a 5-year old child, the firefighter wouldn't even think twice about saving the child.

I highly recommend you read Ivins' column [from May 31, 2005,] it's well worth the read.

Comcast sucks

And Comcast wonders why I won't use them for internet service...
I turned on the TV this morning to watch Sunday Morning on CBS, unfortunately the cable is out, again. Good thing I get internet access from the phone company who gives me 5-9's (99.999%) reliability. I'm lucky if Comcast can even give me 2-9's of reliability. I couldn't even call them to complain because their customer service line is busy (I wonder why?) and their web site is completely useless. Their site doesn't give you any information about service problems and instead just tries to sell you stuff, which even that it can't do well. It's too bad there's no real choice of provider because given the chance I'd switch to another company pretty quick.

The American Job Destruction Act

The American Job Creation Act is a farce. Congress passed this bill with the promise that it would help keep American jobs in America. Unfortunately the only jobs it will help keep in this country are CEOs and other executives.

The American Job Creation Act will permit corporate American to bring back any portion of the $650 billion in profits earned overseas during the past decade, while avoiding most of the income tax liabilities they normally would have to pay.

To qualify for the tax cut companies must file a reinvestment plan showing that they intend to spend the profits they bring back on hiring workers, capital investments, research, acquisitions, advertising, or debt repayment. By doing this multinational companies have a one year window to return foreign profit to the US at a rate of 5.25% instead of the normal 35%.

The biggest flaw with this bill is it doesn't require companies to create any new jobs with the money they bring back. The idea is that if corporations have more money they will hire more employees. This is backward thinking. Given the choices they have on how to spend this money

I'm sure you'll see a number of companies using it for acquisitions or other things that either save the company money or make the company money. Money that is normally used for these things will go to their top executives and their best shareholders as part of the usual shell game. What incentive do they have to hire more people? On top of that, the fact that they are able a lower tax on that money means that American citizens will either have to pay more in taxes to make up the difference, or suffer cuts in government programs because there is not enough money to fund them. It seems to me that instead of helping American workers find and keep jobs, this bill does nothing to help American workers and instead may even hurt them.

If the congress wants to pass a bill that will truly help American workers they need to give companies incentives for hiring and retaining American workers. Tax breaks for bringing over money currently stored in foreign accounts may bring more money into this country, but doesn't do much to stimulate our economy. The real way to stimulate the economy is to have a large productive middle class. People who have jobs buy homes and cars, take vacations, and spend money on many other things. People who are unemployed or underemployed are going to spend their money only on essentials. When will congress ever figure that out?

Where'd everybody go?

The Herold Sun reported that IBM and university officials are predicting a critical shortage of IT workers in coming years. Owen Astrachan, a professor at Duke said there is an unbelievable decline in computer science majors and smart people are no longer even signing up to take their introductory courses.

What I don't understand is why this decline is so unbelievable. For the past few years IT companies have been laying off IT workers by the thousands, salaries for IT works have been dropping instead of going up, and thousands of IT jobs have been outsourced to countries like India. Instead of working with local institutions to develop the next generation of IT workers, companies are using H1B visas to bring in foreign workers who won't complain about unreasonable work conditions and cuts in pay. Why would students want to go into a field where there's nearly a 100% chance that they'll be laid off and their education will go to waste because someone on the other side of the world is willing to do the same job for only 10% of the pay for American companies more than willing to pay it.

If America is really serious about remaining a leader in the high tech industry, our policy makers should make some serious changes to encourage businesses to help encourage local talent. There should be incentives for American companies to hire American workers and penalties for mass outsourcing of IT departments. Tax breaks for companies that fire here and hire there only work to encourage students to choose a career in a more stable industry and encourage the current IT workforce to change careers to something other than IT. I know too many former IT workers who are now working in law, accounting, education, or something else because they finally said "enough is enough" after the 3rd or 4th time they got laid off.

$1.5 Million for a bus stop?

It's good to see our federal tax dollars are being well used.
Republican Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska, who Alaskans refer to as "Uncle Ted" has appropriated $1.5 Million to build a bus stop in front of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Meanwhile here in Chicago, the CTA is threatening to substantially cut service for Chicagoans in July leaving several hundred thousand commuters (including yours truely) scrambling for a way to get to work, not that $1.5 Million would make much of a difference for the CTA.

Tom Wilson, Anchorage's director of public transportation said they plan to replace the existing simple steel and glass, three-sided enclosure with something having better seating and lighting. Most likely it will be heated and completely enclosed and may even include heated sidewalks to ensure it remains free of snow and ice.

Here in Chicago most of the bus stops have been replaced through a program spear-headed by Mayor Daley at no cost to the city. In fact the city makes money from the deal. Citizens Against Government Waste has ranked Stevens number 1 on their list every year since 2000. I think "Uncle Ted" should think about giving up his number 1 spot on the list, find a better way to spend $1.5 Million of our transportation funds, and give Daley a call to learn how he can make money building bus stops instead of spending it.

Get your butt out of here

I JUST DON'T GET IT!
Why is it that most smokers I see just casually throw their cigarette butts anywhere when they're done with their smoke? Do they think its just going to magically disappear? If someone dumped their trash out the window of their home or the window of their car I think most people would call that person a litter-bug and insist that they pick up their trash, yet when someone flicks their cigarette out a car window or drops it on the ground at a bus stop nobody says anything.

The next time you're standing at a bus stop or EL station look around and try to count how many cigarette buts are lying around. I can guarantee your bus or train will arrive before you finish.

Nature of the Bush

Well, it's been over a week since I started this thing. I thought I'd have so much to post, but I've been too busy and there hasn't really been any news that pissed me off enough to rant. It's been slowly building, so here's my rant.

In today's Chicago Tribune there was an interesting commentary by Derrick Jackson titled "Bush policy drives out the butterflies and the bumblebees." Now I happen to love monarch butterflies. Nothing defines a great summer day more than spending it in front of the Lincoln Park Zoo watching them flutter about in the garden. They're also fun to watch out on the lake as they float past the boat. I'm always amazed that they're able to go that far out on to the water.

Jackson's article spoke about how the monarch butterflies migrate thousands of miles every year from Mexico to the United States using a highly specialized system based on UV light. The Peggy Notebart museum also has a good display showing how they're able to do this and the route they take.

So what do butterflies have to do with President Bush? Well Bush is working to lift the road ban in forests and open them up to logging destroying yet more wildlife. This doesn't affect the monarch's directly, but it does lead to more areas of wilderness that the monarch's have to navigate around. They are already loosing large amounts of their wintering homes in the Mountains of Mexico due to illegal logging. Jackson quoted a biologist from Sweet Briar College in Virginia who said he was in an area of Minnesota last August where there was noting but soybeans for miles. Even with binoculars he couldn't spot a single weed in the crop. He also didn't see a single bumblebee in a 2-mile walk. All this shows that the use of pesticides and industrialized agriculture is eliminating natural pollinators on a national scale.

He concluded the commentary by saying that all the sophisticated navigational gear in the world won't do much good if the monarch butterfly has nothing to eat and nowhere to go and that it might be 20 years before we lose the monarch migration at the current rate of habitat loss. Decisions like Bush's to reopen the forests to road building only speed up the the destruction of the environment.

So my questions are will my children or my grandchildren get the chance to experience the joy of spending a lazy afternoon in a garden watching monarch butterflies flutter about from flower to flower? My other question is how does George Bush have so much power in the short time he's been president to do so much destruction to the policies that protect the environment?

I think we as a society need to take a look at what we are doing to our world. We need to encourage our lawmakers to pass legislation that will help to preserve our environment. Mother nature has taken millions of years to give us beautiful and wonderful creatures yet we're able to destroy all of it in what seems like the blink of an eye. Shouldn't future generations have the opportunely to see and experience the wonder's of nature that our generation takes for granted?

My First Blog

Welcome to my new Blog. I've been meaning to create this for a while now, but I was trying to go about it the hard way by writing the blogging software myself or trying to incorporate open source blogging software. Had I known I could create a blog with Blogger and still host it on my site I would have done it long ago.

Anyway... What I plan on posting here are all of the things that tick me off when I read the paper. These are the things that make me say, "I just don't get it." Who knows. Maybe some of you will actually find this interesting. For me it's more therapeutic because if I can write about it, it's less likely to piss me off. I'm also curious on just how many people actually want to read the rants of an average middle class person.

Jordan