Thoughts of Mine

Theoretical Solution to Nuclear Waste - Self-Sinking Storagte

2010-06-22T10:03:00.001-04:00

A friend shared with me the July 2010 issue of Popular Science magazine because it featured a series of articles on "The Future of the Environment" and I'm a known treehugger and science nerd. One little snippet of an article about Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University, who foresees a nuclear revival. What caught my eye was a very intriguing method of dealing with the resulting radioactive waste.

Ausubel cites Russian and British research into “self-sinking balls” of nuclear waste with shells most likely made of tungsten and heated by their radioactive contents to the point where, once disposed of in deep holes in the Earth’s crust, they would melt the surrounding lithosphere and bury themselves several miles deep. “Nuclear waste is hot and heavy,” he says. “The idea of self-sinking capsules takes the heat and gravity as positive attributes. The idea is quite straightforward.”
While the capsules remain theoretical for now, Michael Ojovan, an engineer at the University of Sheffield in England who has published extensively on the concept, says that in addition to removing waste, acoustic monitoring of the capsules could reveal data about the structure of the Earth’s interior. “The [scientific] importance of launching such a capsule is on the order of an expedition to Mars,” he says.

Wow. It buries itself miles underground. That's stinking cool.

I'm not certain of the legality of reposting PopSci's concept drawing of the process, but I figure if its linked via URL, properly cited (Kevin Hand), and accompanied by a pleasant and honest recommendation (PopSci is seriously an awesome magazine, go check it out) then they may not mind too much.

It's a Problem . . . so Somebody Fix It for Me

2010-06-22T10:01:00.000-04:00

I'm encouraged to see the reaction of a number of friends to the tragic oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: vehemence towards BP, solidarity with those (people and animals) who are suffering, calls for a "BP boycott" to punish the at-least-negligent-at-most-malevolent corporation that is to blame (at least partially--let us not forget other parties involved, namely Transocean). Yet while well intended, these actions are ineffective and pointless in the long run.

A boycott of BP gas stations will do little. The gasoline from a given BP-branded station may or may not have come from BP. Similarly, a gas station under another brand may be selling BP gasoline. Regardless, sale of gasoline directly to everyday citizens to fill up their cars amounts to little of BP's overall revenue. Instead, the individual owners of boycotted stations will likely suffer. Ron Lieber describes how to have a real impact. Basically, use less gas (i.e. drives less), use less plastic, conserve energy, buy less stuff. Each of these actions have have a much larger effect than just switching to the gas station across the street.

But far more frustrating is the general attitude towards the issue: it is my problem, but I can't (read: won't ) do anything about it. A recent poll by the NY Times & CBS News finds

"Overwhelmingly, Americans think the nation needs a fundamental overhaul of its energy policies, and most expect alternative forms to replace oil as a major source within 25 years. Yet a majority are unwilling to pay higher gasoline prices to help develop new fuel sources." (emphasis mine)

It would be fallacious to extrapolate this attitude towards an increased gas tax to include all taxes, fees, or other sources of revenue to fund necessary R&D. But I'd bet my hat on it. My only hope is that those unwilling to sacrifice monetarily will do so by changing their behavior instead. I'll end on an excellent Letter to the Editor by Mark Mykleby in the South Carolina Beaufort Gazette:

   I'd like to join the blame game that has come to define our national approach to the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This isn't the fault of BP or Transocean. It's not the government's fault. It's my fault. I'm the one to blame and I'm sorry.
   It's my fault because I haven't digested the world's in-your-face hints that maybe I ought to think about the future and change the unsustainable way I live my life.
   If the geopolitical, economic, and technological shifts of the 1990s didn't do it; if the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, didn't do it; if the current economic crisis didn't do it; perhaps this oil spill will be the catalyst for me, as a citizen, to wean myself off of my petroleum-based lifestyle.
   "Citizen" is the key word. It's what we do as individuals that counts. For those on the left, government regulation will not solve this problem. Government's role should be to create an environment of opportunity that taps into the innovation and entrepreneurialism that define us as Americans. For those on the right, if you want less government and taxes, then decide what you'll give up and what you'll contribute.
   Here's the bottom line: If we want to end our oil addiction, we, as citizens, need to pony up -- bike to work, plant a garden, do something. The oil spill is my fault. I'm sorry. I haven't done my part. Now I have to convince my wife to give up her SUV.
--Mark Mykleby

FOOD!

2010-05-20T18:57:00.000-04:00

Update: As of May 20, 2010 I'm still going strong! A more appropriate label might be "extreme vegetarian" for various reasons, but I'm happy and proud to day I've maintained my pledge to go meatless. This post contains some of my reasoning behind my decision to go vegetarian. I realize it's a bit long, but it could be worse--I held back. ; ) All the best.

*Originally written Sept. 9, 2009 - Imported from Facebook Notes*

This is not a lecture. I am not preaching, entreating, chastising, challenging, or encouraging. This has nothing to do with you; this is about me. This essay is explicitly my thoughts, my views, and my conclusions. The purpose is to inform those who may care about how and why I reached these conclusions and to explain my reasoning to those whose opinions I care about.

I'm going vegetarian. (Strike that. I am vegetarian. I actually wrote this weeks ago, but never finished it. If you excuse a slip-up, I'm going on three weeks.)

I take pride in being a thinking person; Socrates said “An unexamined life is not worth living” and I agree. I've had the great luxury of time this past summer, and so I've put a lot of effort into analyzing this issue. Following is a summary of the primary reasoning behind my decision to no longer eat meat. I have tried to balance specificity for the sake of clarity with respect for any readers; there are a lot of gruesome realities when contemplating this subject and while I did not like reading or watching some of the things that I did, I forced myself to do so. Facing ugly truths is necessary when the truth itself is your ultimate goal. If I tagged you in this note, don't feel obligated to read all or any of it. It's simply because I thought you might be interested to know about my decision or that you have some related interests.

(On second thought, this is really long. And I've repeatedly cut chunks of it out, too. I don't expect anyone to read it entirely, but maybe just skim it? But w/e, I'll put it out there so it's there.)

(Final thought: it took WAY too long to write this and revise it multiple times. So split it into chapters if you have to, I don't care, but at least look at it so that it's somewhat worth my inexpensive and oh-so-abundant free time)

Humanity:
There are 800 million people in this world who are starving. 40 million people die each year from starvation-related causes. A couple facts sum up the whole point: 16 lbs of grain are required (on average) to produce 1 lb of meat. 1 lb beef requires 5200 gallons of water to produce, while 1 lb wheat requires 25 gallons. Another way to look at that: 4,000 gallons water required in one day's food for a meat eater; 1200 for vegetarian (300 for vegan, if you're curious). 38% of the world's grain is fed to livestock, which in turn provide humans with less nutrition than the grains themselves (70% of grain in the U.S. goes to livestock). I simply can't knowingly live to inefficiently. I just can't.

Environment:
I'm a treehugger, duh. This was what made me starting thinking about the topic in the first place. Again, I'll try to be brief.
A 2006 UN report concludes that livestock is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” Livestock is the largest anthropogenic source of methane, a greenhouse gas 20-25 times as potent as carbon dioxide. 1/3 of all fossil fuels in the U.S. Are used to raise and process livestock for food. A leading reason for rainforest destruction is for grazing space for cattle; another is for agriculture, much of which is specifically for consumption by livestock, not humans. Deep-sea trawling destroys reefs and millions of tons of unwanted sea life, “by-catch,” each year. By 2050 (some estimates say sooner), only 10% of all large fish species will remain; fisheries worldwide are expected to collapse.
Simply put, not eating meat is a hell of a lot “greener” (that word is becoming abused). And all of this harm for nothing; there is no necessity or benefit (aside from taste, of course) to eating meat, which brings me to:

Health:
No major nutritional body recommends a meat eating diet over a non-meat eating diet. The American Dietetics Association and World Health Organization both agree that vegetarian and vegan diets are perfectly healthy and if done right, can be healthier. Of course a vegetarian can still eat like shit and be unhealthy. But someone conscious of their diet can be perfectly healthy not eating any meat or animal products. Some things that helped to convince me further:
Vegetarians have less of the following: heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, cholesterol, blood lipids, and obesity.
An NIH study found that a vegan diet halted the progression of Type-II (adult-onset) diabetes and began to lessen its severity; the who stuck with it long-term eventually stopped needing medication. Basically, the adult-onset diabetes reversed. It un-onset (my term).
Dr. Esselstyn of the Cleveland Clinic has a 100% success rate in taking patients in “advanced stages of heart disease, most of whom were told by cardiologists that their condition was terminal,” and placing them on vegan diets, completely halting the progression of the disease.
A Cornell study placed local elementary students on a vegan diet. The principal reported more energy, better moods, and better grades on average.
The EPA reports 95% of dioxin exposure in humans comes from eating meat, eggs, and dairy, averaging 22-times the “acceptable” level.
Oh, and higher nutritional value and lower calorie content mean I can eat more without feeling guilty. : )

Religion:
I've heard the occasional religious argument, that God gave man dominion over animals, etc. I can't speak to this specifically, but does any religion say we have to eat animals? Or even that we can or should? Honest question, I don't know. However, “dominion” does not imply exploitation and abuse, which sadly is reality. Religion teaches compassion and mercy, does it not? So religion allows the consumption of meat, but what religion requires it? Numerous religions exist, such as Buddhism and Sikhism that forbid the consumption of animals. Also, on the idea that God places humanity in situations to test our goodness, perhaps God wishes humans to “rise above” the act of eating meat, to discover that it's morally wrong? If there is a reference in a religious text that explicitly declares it wrong to be vegetarian or vegan, I will immediately concede. In any case, we do not live in Biblical times. We do not stone adulterers. But to me the whole argument of religion is moot: maybe religion is not a reason to go vegetarian, but it certainly is not a reason not to. Oh, and Pope Benedict XVI condemns factory farming. (Funny thought: Christianity ironically does support cannibalism, in the form of eating your savior's flesh. And vampirism. Yes, it's symbolic, I'm only joking. But Jesus did say bread, coulda said T-bone steak)

Animal Welfare, Humane Behavior, and Morality:
The issue gets more difficult here. While in regards to my health, world hunger, and the environment the answer is clear to me, the issue of animal rights is more open. Humans are conscious beings, fully capable of thinking through everything we do. As we are highly intelligent, I believe we have a moral responsibility to attempt to decide what is right and act by that. We are thus obliged to do what is right if we can. The curse and blessing of our intelligence is that we get to decide what is morally acceptable behavior. So I must consider the ethics of eating meat.
Focusing solely on the argument of morality towards animals, if, for example, a chicken were born, lived a happy and healthy life, and was killed in a painless and humane manner for my consumption, I may have to reconsider my position. However this is not the case, so it is a moot point. What practices do take place are far from this. Animals, including fish, feel both pain and fear. This is not an idea, it is scientific fact demonstrated in legitimate studies. Furthermore, some of these animals are surprisingly intelligent. Cattle have sophisticated social structures and social interactions, pigs perform better on cognitive tests than 3 year old humans, chickens perform better than cats and dogs. But intelligence aside, these animals do suffer from pain and fear, and the following are a few exemplary practices that regularly occur:
castration and mutilation (such as grinding and searing beaks to minimize fighting and of course branding) without any sort of painkillers
animals being entirely conscious and able to feel pain while slaughtered, which is typically done by slitting the throat.
Workers and veterinarians have testified that many animals are fully conscious when the process of butchering is begun, including cutting off limbs and beginning to remove their skin from their body.
Pigs are routinely forced into scalding water to hair their hair burned off; similarly chickens are subjected to the same process to de-feather them.
In the dairy industry, male calfs are often used for veal, which consists of tying the calf down so it cannot move
Most dairy cows are forced to stand in stalls for the entirely of their life
In the egg industry, male chicks too small for meat are discarded. This process is often done by tossing them, still alive and conscious, into grinders.
Most chickens are kept in battery cages, so that they cannot move; after two years they are typically too poor quality to be used for meat and so are killed and discarded.
The abuse of antibiotics contributes to bacterial resistance; the unnaturally close-quartered conditions of factory farms breed viruses and diseases. While still contentious, there is respectable support for the theory that factory farming may have led to the H1N1 virus (aka swine flu) having mutated and spread.
Many animals are bred and injected with hormones to be unnaturally large in a very short time—including animals that are so large they cannot walk.
Fish, which can also feel pain and suffering, are surprisingly intelligent with complex social structures and a long-term memory (not the 3-second myth) typically die by decompression, crushed by the weight of other fish, or suffocation. Decompression's a fancy word, think about what it means.

These methods do not always occur, they do not represent every single animal that is raised and killed for consumption. But they do represent the majority. And I cannot be entirely certain where my meat comes from and whether the animals were subjected to behaviors such as this. Which brings me to a convincing argument to me: I could not take part in any part of the process of preparing meat and if I had to in order to eat it, I would not. Denial is a greater sin than ignorance. Turning a blind eye and allowing others to do things for me that I would not do myself for unnecessary convenience is a mark on my integrity. And Integrity is the last thing a man has.
I have the ability to get all the nutrients my body and mind need, to be entirely healthful, without consuming meat, which makes killing an animal for consumption entirely unnecessary. And in another's words: “intentionally inflicting suffering because of tradition, custom, convenience, or a palate preference is unethical.”
I had to ask myself: instead of wondering why not to eat meat, why should I eat it in the first place? There is no nutritional need to eat meat. The argument that it is 'natural' is fallacious on several levels (in brief: humans do not do much of that is “natural” and we do many things that are not natural--this argument is illogical and a double-standard on the basis of convenience). As a tradition, there is more sense in the Masai custom of a young man killing a lion as rite-of-passage than there is in for the sake of taste or pleasure.

Role Models:
What's more, I look to others for influence and guidance. I can turn to those I admire to learn from them. Don't give me some list of of pointless celebrities of actors (Brad Pitt's a vegetarian? Whoopdie-fucking-do), athletes (last I checked, I'm not good at sports anyway), and singers (and their opinion is worth more than someone else's because...). I don't give a damn if Alec Baldwin is a vegetarian. I do give a damn that Natalie Portman is a vegetarian (recently converted to vegan, as a matter of fact), because she's Natalie Portman, simple as that. So here are some of the people I've come across who were either vegetarian or vegan, and whose opinions and views I can legitimately respect:
Superman / Clark Kent (yeah, he counts)
Abraham Lincoln
Charles Darin, Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan
Leonardo da Vinci
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Deepak Chopra, Rousseau, Kant, Pythagoras, Voltaire.
Trevor Allen (just saying)

In fact, Albert Einstein said the following: “Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” One of his primary reasons was feeding the world's hungry.

Conclusion:
So for me, there are a ton of reasons not to eat meat. There's one to eat meat: taste. Will I miss it? Yes. Will I relapse? Almost certainly. A cheeseburger will come my way one day. In fact, I grabbed a turkey sandwich from Grab-It purely our of habit. But I strongly support that anything effort is better than none; going meatless just one day a week was easy. And I cut out red meat, and then pork, months ago. It was a slow process, and taking it a step at a time made it pretty easy, actually. The hardest part was the getting past the turkey sandwich... my turkey sandwich's are glorious and I've eaten them for years (the one-time fetus sandwich was not such a hit). But fact of the matter is, tastes are entirely changeable, and I have no shortage of options without meat.
Quickly, I have to touch on veganism. It has a bad reputation. Sometimes deservedly, sometimes not. I fully support medical and scientific animal testing, and I mean wholeheartedly. I think the default punishment for crazy people raiding animal labs needs to make those nuts be the guinea pigs instead—mandatory sentence. And as a scientist, I can tell you that even things that don't sound like they make sense, in fact do—basic research is hard to understand unless you in the field itself. Green-glowing fluorescent monkeys, cats, and mice seem senseless until you realize they've led to some of the most promising methods of fighting cancer. GMO's too. Fucking brilliant stuff. (Note: The military uses animals for medical training, but in the worst ways: as in take a goat and break its leg just so Random Soldier can make a splint. Same for burns, gunshot wounds, etc. That's just stupid and wrong. Shoot a Chinese government official instead, they're worth far less than goat. Or a televangelist, but that's another story for another time.)
There are also holier-than-thou vegans and vegetarians; and they're assholes. If I ever get arrogant about being all “eco friendly” and shit, smack me, seriously. I know I do it, but it's not cool and I need someone to call me out on it. But before you do, just make sure I'm not right.
One day, I'd like to say I'm vegan. Maybe it's something I'll work towards, I don't know right now. Or a reasonable vegan, maybe. I don't think I'll ever give up honey (it's honey, wtf?). I'm not sure how I'd ever move past eggs.... I gave up cheese months ago, though, and that was pretty easy. Now I eat it on occasion, sure. Milk? Replaceable. Milkshake? Irreplaceable.

To sum up: you just spent (how long?) reading this when you coulda done a million better things. Or I coulda just said “I'm going veg. I got my reasons.” But I didn't say that and you chose to read this. Because I think my reasons are valid and important and want them to be out there for anyone to question. And you read this because you give a damn. Something made you interested enough to at least listen to my rambling. I welcome all comments, criticisms, questions, praise and scorn. Be it public or be it private. But I'd like to end on an important and pleasurable note: milkshakes.

Thank you.

Docket 08-205 - Goliath Wins

2010-05-16T11:28:00.000-04:00

In light of my recent decision to pick up blogging again for whatever reason, I thought I could go back and re-post some previous things I've written (mostly on Facebook), at least to have them in a single location. So for starters, this is basically just stolen from Maddow's rant on the Citizens United case a few months back. In brief, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court declared limits on corporate spending in political races to be unconstitutional, citing the First Amendment and identifying corporations as "persons," an absurd idea by many measures.

*Originally written January 22, 2010 - Imported from Facebook Notes*

Regardless of whether or not you like her, Rachel Maddow summarized the recent Supreme Court Ruling as follows. While I'm hesitant to cry 'doomsday for democracy', I do in essence share those views as expressed here:

"And now, a bolt of lightning has struck the entire American political system. . . .

The Supreme Court today swept away rules that go back more than a century—rules that have constrained the way that corporate interests can influence the American political system. In 1907, Congress passed a law banning corporations from donating money directly to politicians. Over the next century, Congress passed a number of laws aimed at stopping corporate money from completely controlling America‘s political debate.

They‘re laws that have been upheld multiple times by the Supreme Court. Like in 1990 when the Supreme Court ruled it was constitutional to restrict corporate political spending. Or 2003, when the Supreme Court ruled specifically that the McCain/Feingold corporate campaign finance rules were OK.

Well, today, in one of the most radical Supreme Court actions in years, Justice Roberts and Alito and their five-member conservative majority overthrew at least a decade of settled law and congressional action and multiple Supreme Court precedence to wipe those laws away. Corporations are free to inject unregulated billions, absolutely unlimited money into the political system now.

If you are a regular person who‘s ever made a campaign donation before, forget about ever having to do that again. What‘s the point in individual people trying to influence politics with donations if Exxon or some other company can quite literally match and therefore cancel out the combined donations of every single individual donor in the nation whenever it wants in one check? And it can do it every year, in every campaign, in every state, in every race.

Going forward, corporations will be able to use unlimited money to support or oppose candidates in federal office. This isn‘t CEOs, individual rich guys using their private money. It isn‘t people forming political associations to do political work. It is big business being allowed to use its profits to flood the airwaves with ads against one candidate or for another.

So, if you‘re, say, a giant health insurance company who doesn‘t want the current system to change because you‘re making a killing, there‘s now nothing stopping you from tapping into your company‘s millions of dollars of profits to try to defeat a candidate who will vote against your interests. And you can do it without limit. If you have $2 billion in your company bank account, and you see stopping health reform as an existential (ph) issue for your company, you can and your shareholders probably think you should spend all $2 billion of those dollars running ads against health reform directly. Feel free.

This ruling rolls back decades of protections against corporate interference and control of governance. Justice John Paul Stevens read from the bench his scathing 20-minute dissent of the court‘s decision today. He said, “The court‘s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation. It‘s a rejection of the common sense of the American people who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”

Today‘s ruling affects everything going forward. If this ruling is not curtailed somehow through legislation, I personally think it is impossible to overstate the impact this will have on American politics. Every major issue that our government deals with will change because the field has just been dramatically tilted, like 90 degrees tilted toward corporate interests.

Different Kinds of Smarts

2010-05-04T11:19:00.001-04:00

I begin with a triumphant note, received on a glorious day. The day was last Friday, April 30. The note was an A.
Last semester I had a certain professor for my Thermo/Static Mech physics course (P313), and he was tough but fair. Thermal Physics & Stat Mech involves generally simple math, but an enormous range of concepts.

I was fortunate enough to have this very same professor this semester for Electricity & Magnetism I (P324 - electro/magnetostatics, not dynamics). With a 53% on my first exam and a C at the midterm, I was determined to struggle my way up to a B by semester's end. With enough work and dedication, I averaged 3/4 on all subsequent problem sets (4/4 on two of the last three psets), a 97% on the second exam, and topped off with an 85% on the final. I landed an overall A course grade. Combined with several other magnificent and deserved outcomes that very day, I went to bed damn proud.

I finish with a somewhat embarrassing sequence of events, caused by confusion, with a humbling outcome.
I start an internship in downtown Cleveland in the next week or two, so I, being the responsible "give myself plenty of time, cover my tracks, just in case, redundant fail-safes, etc." kind of guy, decided to "practice" my commute. I've had little experience with Cleveland's public transportation (just the Red Line rail, aka. "the Rapid," a few times freshman year, plus a few poorly-planned bus trips with generally bad outcomes), so I spent an hour the night before looking at possible routes to get from A (my apartment*) to B (Galleria @ East 12th & St. Clair Ave. NE).

I was incredibly confused. The University RTS Loop is large and, at first glance, terribly confusing; mostly because that whole intersection (including Cedar, MLK, Carnegie, Stokes, Stearn, Euclid, River Styx Blvd., etc.). Maybe take the Red Line to Tower City, but it's a decent walk from there, unless I go a block southeast and take #246, or cross Superior to take #1 . . . or just the HealthLine down Euclid to Public Square, then a 4- or 5-block walk from there. I could even hop the 32 down to the RTS loop if I were really lazy! But instead, why not take the most convenient route, #9, that stops right at my destination!

Turns out the 9 only runs downtown a few times in the morning and not all in the evening (wtf?)! I only found this out by hopping on the 9 and the nice lady saying "You know I'm not going downtown, right?", "Wait, what?", "I said I'm not going downtown." "Oh, sorry. . ." -slowly turn and step back off the bus.- So my morning consisted of two hours of walking around local streets to sit and watch buses drive by to figure out what stops where and when. Somehow I handled the D.C. metro without any problems for a week, but I suppose buses are inherently more complicated due to their structure.

The Upshot. My grades include Thermals Physics & Statistic Mechanics: B, Electro-magnetostatics: A, Public Transportation: F. Cheers.

*Yes, it is somewhat unwise to publicize that my apartment is around here, but I'm moving within a month anyway.

2010-04-26T15:24:00.000-04:00

While the latest outbreak of scandals surrounding sexual abuse in the Catholic Church system is only the most recent of a long line of such atrocities, stemming back decades. Specificities of the many incidents aside, the Catholic Church has demonstrated an attitude and behaviors of significant consequence in their response. Alleged abuse is handled internally; even priests who turn themselves in, admitting guilt, go to their superiors, not the police. Why is this? It's because these people believe their preferred sacred book is of higher authority than the 'the laws of man.' In their eyes, they are responsible to a 'higher power' than the authority of our civilian law and government. Such thinking is detrimental and a threat to society. Possible consequences for this mindset are far-reaching, but we can already point to two macabre results: conspiratorial sexual abuse & terrorism.

Faith in itself is not necessarily responsible for this arrogance, nor even is organized religion. While I have my qualms with both, it's important to recognize that neither requires this superior mindset. But we can point to individual systems and persons as guilty of malfeasance, and the Catholic Church and Pope are front and center.

The Pope's claimed infallibility and rule by divine right is equivalent to a monarch's "above the law" status. It is anti-democratic (not that the Catholic Church makes an efforts to be democratic) and immoral, in particular by claiming such status on the basis of his own belief. At least an old monarch was placed above his/her own laws within his/her own domain. But for the Pope or any part of the Church to claim any authority whatsoever over the laws of sovereign nations is not only unfounded, but unenforceable to the extent of any individual or group making claim to whatever divine authority they have based on whatever fantastic system they choose to believe.

It is not to a bishop or archdiocese to judge and punish priests. That is the duty of a civilian court. Every alleged case of abuse by a priest in the US should be investigated by DoJ and handled accordingly. These men are NOT outside of the law, regardless of whatever claims to be responsible only to some higher being.

This inevitably relates to the Pope's supposed "diplomatic/legal immunity" within certain states. Geoffrey Robertson outlines the absurdity of this idea in The Guardian:

"The anomalous claim of the Vatican to be a state – and of the pope to be a head of state and hence immune from legal action – cannot stand up to scrutiny. . .

. . . In 2005 a test case in Texas failed because the Vatican sought and obtained the intercession of President Bush, who agreed to claim sovereign (ie head of state) immunity on the pope's behalf. Bush lawyer John B Bellinger III certified that Pope Benedict the XVI was immune from suit 'as the head of a foreign state'."

And Hitchen's on the origin of the Pope's supposed immunity:

"The UN at its inception refused membership to the Vatican but has allowed it a unique "observer status", permitting it to become signatory to treaties such as the Law of the Sea and (ironically) the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to speak and vote at UN conferences where it promotes its controversial dogmas on abortion, contraception and homosexuality."

I strongly agree with both Hitchens & Dawkins in their supporting Robertson's and Mark Stephens's efforts to have the Pope arrested for "crimes against humanity" during his visit to Britain. Rather than point you to the UK's Sunday Times's misleading article, I suggest Richard Dawkins's clarification of the matter here.

Here's a very good NPR story (~9 min) on the handling of a US case.

Here is a BBC article on campaign to arrest Pope Benedict XVI.

Post Script: I'm hopping on the bandwagon

I've decided that I'm no longer beholden to the U.S.'s Muggle laws, for I am a wizard according to my belief in the 7 Holy Texts. I am only responsible to the UK MoM's American counterpart: The U.S. Department of Magic.

Sustainable Value - WSOM, CWRU, NEO, and Beyond

2010-04-11T09:31:00.000-04:00

*Originally written April 9, 2010*

At this afternoon's Public Affairs Discussion Group, organized by the Center for Policy Studies at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Dr. Roger Saillant was to speak about Business and Sustainability. In the end, the discussion encompassed far more. centering around his vision for the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value, Weatherhead School of Management (WSOM), Case Western Reserve University, the Greater Cleveland Area, and beyond.

Dr. Saillant spoke hopefully about efforts to incorporate sustainability into all of its offered courses. The University itself is worker on a similar goal to coordinate curricular and research activities on sustainability. Meanwhile, collaboration on ideas abounds, from the city-wide Sustainable Cleveland 2019 vision, to region-wide cooperation with Oberlin College, to larger efforts to exemplify a sustainability-centered system of values for the nation as a whole.

The talk was riddled with interesting information, views, and issues. Particularly striking was Dr. Saillant's metaphor for changing today's societal mentalities as a critical long-term goal. He described how centuries ago, when beginning work on a massive Cathedral, the lead mason knew he likely would not live to see the final building in all its glory. But he nevertheless dedicated himself to building the best quality foundation he could. Because without the proper foundation, the entire building could not survive, and no generation could enjoy it.

Short term goals of the Dr. Saillant and the Fowler Center include significantly raising Weatherhead's rank of #33 in the Aspen Institute's Global Top 100 business schools and boosting Case Western Reserve's grade of B- on the College Sustainability Report Card, which he believes can largely be accomplished by re-organizing the endowment information that CWRU already makes available (CWRU's Endowment Transparency grade was an F, two years running).

A good Q&A session followed, with recommendations to read Slow Death by Rubber Duck and to watch Janine Benyus's TED Talk on "Biomimcry in Action" (careful, TED Talks are addictive). The event ended with a poignant reminder of the stark truth: that the Earth's changing climate is already past tipping point. But Dr. Saillant's aim is to motivate through a positive focus, one of an achievable sustainable world. And he does a good job inspiring others to believe (and to act), too.

Long Time, No Post

2007-03-16T19:30:00.000-04:00

Well. It's been a while. My last post was over two months ago. Sure, I could list off excuses, but hell, nobody cares. I've just been busy; that's life. So a couple things that came to mind:

It is ok to wish harm to someone if you feel your reasons are just enough. After a crazy lady flew by me on 33, weaving through traffic, I thought Jeez, she could really hurt someone driving like that. It wasn't actually that clean or concerned, but we'll keep it like it is. After the few minutes of deliberation in line at Subway, I concluded that it's ok to hope she gets injured in an accident, hoping she may t hen realize the dangers of driving like she does and she'll pose less of a risk to others. :-D Where's my halo?

A note on some of the not-so-good, not-so-bad, just really, really annoying parts of having Tourette's Syndrome:
A. Having a pen in your mouth while driving because you needed to write something on your hand at the last/next red light, and you twitch your head around and the pen flies off into the back of the car. Now you lose.

B. Chewing. Any questions, ask to look at my cheek and/or lip at any given time.

C. Clumsy + involuntary motor tics = many things, but particularly spilling water on one's
shirt. That can be good, though, in some circumstances. ;)

Has anyone tried suing the RIAA for privacy invasion? I don't know much about IP addresses and how they track people and whatnot, but hell, if you're being sued for $25,000, you might as well try and sue back. It's the American judicial system! Can't do it anywhere else!

And finally a couple notes/thoughts on Strickland's State of the State Address, of which I only heard the first half-hour, then I got bored and went inside.
-Regarding education, he plans to eliminate vouchers. Ignorant as I am, I've heard from a couple credible sources that vouchers are beneficial. For those unknowing, a voucher is a chunk of money from the state that a student can take with him/her to a different school, should he/she wish to leave, but it has specifically to do with charter and private schools. That's all I know.

-I want to make it plain and clear: there is no such thing as "clean coal" any more than there is a free China. Now you know my position on social oppression. In fact, thought I am a supporter of Barack Obama, I'm debating withdrawing my support because of his pathetically weak stance on the environment. "Clean" or "liquid" coal is in many cases far worse than oil. Obama supports clean coal usage. He also supports ethanol and E85. Keeping it brief and trying not to rank, E85 is, like clean coal, a propaganda tool by corporations to appear evi-friendly. If you want to cut dependence on foreign oil, sure, go for the ethanol. If you give a damn about the environment, take the ethanol and shove it. Edwards, however, has a very pro-environmentalism stance. It's intriguing.

-A quote Strickland used from Edison: "Opportunity is missed by most because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work." I just like that.

-He mentions health care for those below poverty and those under 21, which I like, yadda yadda, and now I've bored myself. How sad.

I'm not really saying anything that's worth being said, so I'm going to go enjoy some Salmon.

What? Louder, please.

2007-01-11T15:03:00.000-05:00

I just have to comment on the hilarity of the dedication to tradition in politics. To this day, matters are voted upon by saying "aye" or "no" at the appropriate time and the Speaker at the time decides who won. It's pretty much standard proceedure for someone to object and demand an electronic vote, which they always do, but it's still funny to observe those passionate issues such as the stem cell bill today where the congresspersons yell surprisingly loud 'NO!' rather than a simple declaration, as is usual. Of course, the Speaker, in my observation, calls it in whatever manner he is in favor, and it's put to electronic vote. Maybe our most effective politicians would be those with plenty of strong experience in a student section, like myself. Heck, we can yell for, depending on the sport, up to 90 minutes straight at the top of our voice. ;) Something I'm very proud of.

Ah, C-SPAN, you bring to light our most embarrassing realities of governmental proceedure.

Empty Promises and Soon, Empty Fishing Boats

2007-01-10T15:59:00.000-05:00

While the approval ratings dwindle, the rest of America has already woken up accepted the painful reality: we elected a monkey. From a purely environmental standpoint, a "monkey" is a terrible comparison; monkeys make up a very necessary part of many ecosystems and generally benefit the region. Ours is more like that monkey in the black and white film washing a cat in a sink: rather entertaining, but truthfully good for nothing.

Think Progressive has even compliled a list of of the "president's" previous rhetorical promises for cleaner energy and independence from oil. This year the Financial Times said that Bush will be giving a State of the Union address (Jan. 23) centered around energy. Al Hubbard, constucting this new energy policy, foresees “headlines above the fold that will knock your socks off in terms of our commitment to energy independence.” For some reason, I'm yet to get out the champagne.

Additionally, Bush recently opened a large area in Alaska's Bristol Bay up to drilling. Bristol Bay is one of the most important fishing areas in the world, home to salmon, cod, red king crab, halibut, and herring. What's worse, the site where they intend to dig is right on top of the feeding grounds of one of the most endangered whales in the world: the North Pacific Right Whale. This basically puts this administration in a nutshell: selfish interests without the slightest care for consequences. Senator Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, worked in 2003 to convince Congress to lift a moratorium on drilling there and succeeded, which goes to show that even the state's own Congressman doesn't give a damn about protecting one of the states strongest industries and their oldest tradition.

What a happy day.

Words of Iraqi Children

2007-01-04T16:16:00.000-05:00

From CNN.com, Carl Perry writes:

It was just an idea – talk to kids. Find out what they think of the war. When you interview adults here in Iraq – you often get a filtered view of reality. On the other hand, kids can’t lie. They will always tell you the truth – and really, it’s the truth we’re interested in.

So, one morning I set out in the neighborhood looking for kids to talk to. With me, the over talented cameraman Dominic Swann – neither of us had a clue if anyone would talk to us. Our fixer kept smoking – shaking his head, letting us know that this in all likelyhood would be a failed mission. Of course, it’s Baghdad so our other options were try this, or sit in the office and wait for the violence and live shots to begin.

It took over three hours of talking to people before we found a 16 year old boy who was willing to tell us his thoughts. His first one, “Saddam was better than the Americans.” We’re off to a great start – I thought. “Any hope for Iraq” I asked. “None,” he said.

“This is going to be a very uplifting piece” our stringer said immediately. Such is Iraq.

Kids in Iraq are wonderful. They run the same routine anytime they see a foreigner. First they send a scout. He appears from no where – checks out the situation, then disappears. Depending on his report to the others, flocks of kids start to arrive. In this case, there were at least a dozen.

One became the leader. He pointed out everything that had changed – the trash, the blast walls – the western security. He told us he wished he could play football without fearing for his life.

I asked one final question to the group that had arrived. “How many of you have lost family members in this war? Everyone raised their hand.

“Welcome to Iraq,” said my stringer.

From Net to Chains

2006-12-04T17:25:00.000-05:00

For those who don't know, the freedom of the internet is at risk. A hotword lately has been "net neutrality," though few know what it means. In a bad summary, net neutrality is the protection of the internet from corporations that want privledge in its use. Congress currently has a bill (H.R. 5252 / S. 2686) the would eliminate the internet's protection. The Daily Show explained it best, I think.

When you get on the internet, you send "packets" of information out and receive "packets" back. This is how you get your pictures, graphics, text, all the good stuff you enjoy so much. Net neutrality ensures your packets and Verizon's packets are treated equally. Without net neutrality, the corporations that pay the most money get privledge, and your packets... well, they may get there eventually, they may not. Of course, if you paid more money, then those corporations would like you better. Then your packets have a better chance of getting where they're going. Maybe a site isn't so nice to Comcast, so maybe no packets end up getting to of coming from that site. Oops. Oh well.

Now that's really a rather gross explanation. For a better one, check the link in my Links Collumn to the right of the page; they provide a much better explanation.
Anyway, I just felt like putting something to do with the subject up here.

And Then There Was Hope...

2006-12-03T19:01:00.000-05:00

A re-post from a favorite blog of mine: It's Getting Hot In Here.

Stéphane Dion has just been elected the new Federal Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. (Equal to leader of “Democrats” in the U.S.)

Dion was the previous Minister of the Environment for Canada before the Conservative government came into power in February. Dion was also the previous President of the United Nations (U.N.) Conference of the Parties and Meeting of the Parties (COP/MOP) on climate change. He lead Canada and influenced many countries in the world to make last year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference in Montreal, Canada, an INCREDIBLE success.

In his victory speech tonight he noted that the number one goal in Canada right now should be sustainability. Thank you Dion. And thank you everyone who voted. Dion is one of the few politicians whom I have been genuinely inspired by. He also is a dedicated supporter to the youth movement, stating at the U.N. last year that ‘the youth may just be the most important constituency here at this conference.’

This new position also makes Dion the Leader of the Opposition, as the Liberal party is the opposition in Parliament. With his dedication to the most important issues, I can only see Canada’s future getting brighter.

By Zoe Caron

The Terrible N-Word

2006-11-27T14:54:00.000-05:00

So, I suppose I should mention that this opinion is coming from a middle-class, suburban white kid, attending a small country school with little exposure to black culture. Nevertheless, I'll throw out my 2 cents.
With the recent outburst of Michael Richards, there has been a call by black community leaders and figures for a voluntary stopping of the usage of the infamous "n-word." They say it's just offensive, there's no reason for its use or existence. Using the word is "unacceptable." This annoys me. I am by no means discriminatory towards any race, creed, sexual orientation, etc., and that's something you'll just have to take my word on. But the idea of eradicating a word from existence by command is absurd. Listening to and NPR article on the evolution of language, it was mentioned that language changes form and rules on its own, and without some sort of authoritarian rule, no person or group can demand change in a language; it happens on its own. To me, however, referring to any word as "unacceptable" strikes a very negative chord. I'm reminded of a very enjoyable post by Keith Olbermann regarding Bush's remark on a certain train of thought (I recommend everyone give the article a good read.) I believe this way of thinking applies to words as well. Words are the only communicable representation of thought. Limiting language implies limited thought, as strongly implied in Orwell's 1984.
Now, true, this particular word could probably be effaced without much loss of freedom of thought. However, lines must be drawn, and in my opinion the line exists at the very beginning. No words can ever, EVER be forced out of existence, whether that word has a beautiful, positive meaning or a terrible negative connotation. Expression can never be cut down.
If one is looking merely to reduce the power of racism by destroying the power of this racist word, then calling for an all-out stopping of its use is doing the exact opposite! A good quote to remember: "Fear of a word only increases fear of the thing itself." No wise thinker said this one; it was in a Harry Potter book. Why do curse words retain their power of expression? It's due to their lack of use! It words like "fuck" or "shit" are used on a regular basis, do you think those words imply the same level of passion? No, they are simply used as normal words with normal implication; they do not express the same extreme emotion as they once did. The same idea works in reverse. If you know someone who never uses foul language, when they curse you are astonished, but you recognize his/her level or frustration, right? Of course you do. If people want to reduce the power of this "n-word" then by God just say it. Encourage everyone to say it. Push it to the level of frequency that it becomes an everyday word. In many places it is already, but the commonness of the word must traverse racial lines; white people can say it too. Everyone should be allowed to use this word, and often. What would happen then? If anyone tries to use it as an insult, a negative epithet, would anyone care? Would it get the slightest response of anger? No, it wouldn't. It's now the norm. To remove a word's meaning, you must remove its taboo.
So, really, why all the fuss? My comment on any argument founded on the use of this word: Get over it.

Inexcusable Inefficiency for Clutches of Cash

2006-11-25T17:56:00.000-05:00

I write merely to mention my digust with the Standardized Testing Organizations' methods of reporting scores to intended schools. Aside from the ridiculous level of difficulty regarding the simple lack of communication from the ACT website preventing me from even reporting those scores, I particularly want to mention the cost and procedures.

While Collegeboard charge $9.50 per school, I assume this price well covers the cost of printing, sorting, handling, and mailing the various scores from various students to various schools. While I'm very confident this can be entirely done in complete automation by machines with minimal (if any) direct human involvement, the cost suggests that it is done mostly by hand with several levels of verification to prevent incident in such an important task. However, I'm fairly certain that the reporting of scores can be done quite easily and efficiently over the internet with minimal risk of forgery or mistake with secure networking. After all, what do you think's going to happen to those scores as soon as school gets them? They're going to be entered right into a database with all your other info, and that useless paper copy will be shredded and thrown out or put in a file never to see daylight again. Heck, with my inexperienced progamming skills, I could write something up to take requests and send out scores with few mistakes.

The outrageous $26.50 fee for "rushing" delivery is understandable. Anything that shoves its way up the priority list must be adequately supported (in this case, by payment). But this fee moves the shipping time from 3-5 weeks to 2 business days. That, my friends, is lame. If sending the scores in two days is at all do-able, then 3.5 weeks as a normal standard can be no more than a crude business practice to encourage people to pay the extra sum for a quicker delivery. I might also remark that were the system done entirely electronically via the internet (a series of tubes, yano, not big trucks), the process could occur immediately upon verification of the payment method. It could even be done on non-business days! GASP! Productivity on the weekends! Nooo... that'd be too efficient. And we know who pays for lack of efficiency: the customers.

I close with a quote from a delightful movie and not the slightest bit related to this post's topic:
"I know, I am merely remarking on the paradox of asking a masked man who he is." --V. :)

To The Deserving Nice Guys

2006-11-23T22:44:00.000-05:00

I was going through my old files and came up on this. It definitely deserves publishing.

This rant was written for the Wharton Undergraduate Journal
This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.
This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.
This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing "serious" between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: "oh, but we’re just friends!" And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.
The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as "oh, he’s too nice to date" or "he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me" or "he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!" or the most frustrating of all: "no, it would ruin our friendship." Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.
So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. You do have credibility in this society, and your well deserved vindication is coming.

I salute and I drink to that.

God's Commission or Human Morals

2006-11-21T21:36:00.000-05:00

I had to respond to a quote for PED. It's not pulitzer-worthy, but i still like it. And I like to share what I'm proud of.

“We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.” -- Millard Filmore

It's odd. I originally planned to write this essay agreeing with the above quote, chastising the American government for its past self-proclaimed righteousness and unrequested interventions in the past; I thought that's what I'd be writing up until this past minute. For some reason the argument sprang into mind, almost defensively, that no, we have no obligation by God (this coming from an agnostic), but we do have the oft-forgotten obligation my human decency.
Today's world is froth with argument over what's the “correct” moral code. Stem cells: kill to let live? Fundamentalism: do evil means justify personally-preferred ends? I Can't Believe: is it or is it not butter?! Most people (oh, yes, including myself) have the curse of instinct ingrained in their mind, which manifests itself as absolute certainty in oneself. People have to believe they're right. If any attempt is made to live life always questioning one's intuition, progress will grind to a halt. Unfortunately, this necessary mindset of the courageous Confidence has a sick, malicious brother: Arrogance. It's this Arrogance that creates the conflicts rising from difference in opinion.
However, even with the radically contradicting views that exist today, there is a general need for moral conduct, which permeates all areas. The good news is, it's inherent. Even science backs up the intuitive caring for the general good of the group; just ask Scientific American Dec. 06. There are situations in which action is necessary, even the worst of actions, to right a wrong. These situations are rare: the Holocaust, bio-terrorism, destruction of organized religion (oh wait, that's not a uniformly shared opinion... ), but they do exist. The difficulty is recognizing them as early as possible, so that immediate action can be taken. If we knew about the Holocaust earlier, maybe we would have acted sooner.
Regrettably, recognition of such events comes as a sloth. Even now we face such an event that we will be judged by for generations to come and we do nothing. Four hundred thousand dead isn't enough, I suppose, to warrant action, only a spot on the “To Watch” list, which in itself is a cruel, pathetic joke.
I am by no means defending all of America's actions. Given the opportunity, I'd probably controvert the majority of what America's done; most of it was done out of ignorance, I might add. But I am saying that in certain circumstances, such a God would sign a statement of power to be given to the U.S. to do what is necessary (although we wouldn't ask, we'd act before and assume it's in-transit; preemptive action, yano?).
Sometimes one source policing the world, however unjustified, can prevent such atrocities from ever happening in the first place. Do the ends justify the means? Do they ever? It's not a matter of my opinion or yours, or even the United States', it's a matter of faith in humanity. And I mention it as I did in my previous essay, let's hope my naivety stays intact for a while.

Well Put, Sir. So What Now?

2006-11-07T17:41:00.000-05:00

Just before the elections, my PED teacher handed out a short opinion on the increasing violence in Iraq to his Current Events class. Knowing I was interested, he gave me the same and followed it up with this email he had sent to someone asking his opinion. I thought it was very well phrased and so I like to make it available for others to read. I plan to get the aforementioned opinion and edit this to put in it here, also. The email goes as follows:

Interesting viewpoint. Good points, but also sounds like a bitter conservative upset that their viewpoints are not appreciated by a majority of people. Again, is it necessary to fight a war in Iraq to fight a war against terror? There are some very interesting points but an equal amount of questions about our choice of foes. Why didn't we keep our strength of force in Afghanistan? This country wants us there. Their country was hijacked by a true terrorist regime that was imported into their country. We liberated them and had a great opportunity for a base of operations to attack terrorist groups. Now we don't have the forces to protect Afghan people, nor ourselves. The Taliban is returning in force and we are unable to effectively convince the Afghan people to remain loyal to us. They feel we are full of empty promises.
We supported both Iran and Iraq during their 2-decade war against each other. We turned out heads when Iran cried foul because Saddam used chemical weapons on them. Several thousand were killed from his use of chemical weapons. We said there was no conclusive proof so we couldn't condemn him. Then we turnaround and make a preemptive strike against his country on allegations of weapons of mass destruction. We supported him when he was killing his own, but when he waged his war of rhetoric against our power brokers, we attacked. Also, who is making these military decisions. It doesn't appear they consulted too many historians on the Crusades. The lesson from the Crusades was that it is much easier to initially take Islamic land than to keep it under Christian control.
I guess the essential question still remains: Should we be fighting in Iraq?
The question is not whether the terrorists are good or bad. BAD. Or, should we be actively fighting terrorism. YES. Should we support our men and women in out military? YES. Can we still be patriots and question decisions that our elected representatives make? YES. Are people cowards just because they disagree with the War in Iraq? NO. What country were the terrorists from 9/11 from? SAUDI ARABIA. What country did the Taliban enter Afghanistan from? PAKISTAN. What country allows the most jihaddists through their border into Iraq? SYRIA. What two countries are providing the most financial aid to all of the Islamic terrorist groups? SAUDI ARABIA and IRAN. In what country was the American embassy bombed and many Marines killed and to this day Marines do not have a force in this country? LEBANON. What countries are supporting the armed, hostile takeover in Lebanon? PAKISTAN and IRAN. The leader of what country and has stated many times that Israel needs wiped off the face of the earth? IRAN. Again, the question is- Why are we fighting in Iraq?
What country was Timothy McVey from, who, in Oklahoma City, orchestrated the 2nd largest terrorist attack in America? And he claimed to be a true patriot.

Again, these were the words of my PED instructor, but I'm proud to display them here.
In light of the recent elections and the events that followed, I'm excited to see how things will play out in the near future. Democrats have swept control of the House and the Senate and promised much in the way of change. Change for the better or change for the worse is open to interpretation. They have stated plans to take action within the first 100 hours to raise the national minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, cut prescription drug costs, lower interest rates for college loans (something my father's very supportive of ;) ) and more. As for whether or not events will change too terribly much in Iraq is left to see. Any change that does happen should not and hopefully will not (and most likely cannot) happen to suddenly or dramatically. Aware of the seemingly racist character of the following statement, it is based in fact so I'll say it anyway: Rarely does any good come from sudden dramatic changes in the Middle-East. Any changing of tactics should be done after careful thought.

At home here in Ohio, the minimum wage has been raised to $6.85 and smoking has been banned by law in all public places, including restaurants, bars, and such. A much-needed school levy passed, and my congradulations go out to Lancaster for that.

But now this entry is becoming more of my ramblings and less of an objective observation. So I quit.

Aspirations to Ashes, Dreams to Dust

2006-11-02T21:07:00.000-05:00

I went out on Tuesday. I drove a friend down to Chillicothe to watch the Regional Semis for Boys D-3 soccer. It's about an hour drive, so I didn't go just out of interest, I went cuz it my school was playing and about half the players on the team are good friends of mine.

It was a struggle from the get-go. I won't play out the game, as that's not my point, but it was a very good game. The other team was unexpectedly skilled and fast. We scored 14 min into the second half, and they countered ten minutes later. It was to sudden death and ended all too quickly.

The moment the ball crossed the line, time froze. The other side erupted in cheers and soon died down. Half an hour later, we were all still standing there. No one had moved. The other team and fans had all left, but not a soul had stirred on our side. Players began to slowly make their way back to the bench, but others remained behind: the seniors.

What's startling is that we were ranked number 1. We were supposed to take it all, the second state title for our school ever. We were District Champs for the third time in a row, and this was to be the culminating year after previous successes.

Mr. Swartz ambled over later and explained. Nine of those senoirs had been playing together since they were four years old. This was the to be the final triumph: the state championship, but it disappeared. I can sit here and type away all night, but I'll never be able to explain the tragedy that was felt after this event. I looked around and parents were crying. Fans and friends and even first-timers to watch the team were crying. The crowd gave a couple sporadic attempts to cheer up the team, with applaud and hollars, but it was pointless. Mark, one of my best friends for years, was squat down in the middle of the field, head in his hands for I don't know how long. A couple of brave souls tried to console him, but it took Coach to go out of bring him back to the bench. I hadn't seen so many of my friends so torn apart, tears on all their faces.

In one of the most beautiful moments I have ever seen in my short 18 years, as most of the players finally started coming back across the field to the crowd, the parents and families set out to meet them. Fands headed over and there was hugging and praising. Overall, though, there was a thick silence that lay over the entire field. Mr. Swartz said he thought it's be sad, but not so much like a funeral; but that's what it was. It was the death of a strong link between these men, who grew up playing together, working toward this one last chance at success.

I could not be an athlete. To be an athlete is to face the constant battle between victory and loss. I couldn't handle the prospect of glory being ripped from my grasp in an instant. I'm not as strong as these people.

To think the day before this game, they had all been wearing these three District Champ medals, dreaming of the few weeks ahead, where they'd prove themselves to the whole damn state in Crew Stadium, but it didn't happen.

I witnessed a death, a funeral, and a mourning within an hour. A mutual, overwhelmingly heavy sadness fell upon everyone there and I cannot even begin to explain how it felt. Being uncomfortable in such situations, I stayed out, on the side of the field watching the contagious grief and futile attempts to console. I wasn't as involved as many of those people in the program, so despite my pain, I couldn't begin to imagine what those people experienced.

I write this to recognize the strength in today's athletes, to memorialize this tragic event, and to express my pride in my team.

And for us, there is no next year.

Apathy Run A Muck

2006-10-22T16:55:00.000-04:00

I read over a draft I wrote for a college admissions essay a few weeks back. I've decided not to use it and decided it's not worth the effort to thoroughly edit, so there are quite a few glaring errors. Deal with it. I posted in on here because it seemed to have a strong message to it, and I certainly didn't want it to go to waste. Being on my computer, it'll probably never be seen again after today. Regardless, enjoy, whether or not you agree.

-------------------
I've spent days, even weeks avoiding writing this paper. It's not just any paper, only the most important paper I've ever had to write. This paper decides a lot things. So it's kind of a bid deal. An open-ended prompt is refreshing and yet annoying. Being allowed to write about anything, nothing seems good enough. There aren't any clever thoughts that I've had that would seem genius to readers. There are no amazing stories of heroic bravery or determination, no tales of hardship or terrible grievances that I've endured. Additionally, I idealized this paper so much that I, being a very opinionated person, could never express any strong opinion I have out of fear of being wrong somehow, due to lack of experience and knowledge. Heck, I'm only 18 years old; I haven't been around for very long. Somehow it struck me to write about something that bothers me not just a little, but so much that I've lost friends over it. It's a sweeping mentality that's taking over everywhere without discrimination. The latest craze here in America?
Apathy.

Ever since I was a little boy I've wanted to make a difference. Not just a small difference, a huge difference. Not just in my community or even my country, but the whole world. I've wanted to do great things so that people will know me by name and see me as an example. As I've gotten older, I've grown used to school and used to life in general. Now, I've had my slip-ups. I've had a lot mis-steps in life that have led me in directions that don't turn out too well. Those places weren't really where I wanted to go. But I've always found my way back, and in general, I've stayed on a good path. Coming into my final year of dependency and required schooling, I see more opportunities to do things, to take action, be prolific. It started out fun, following my tree-hugging days in elementary, I began to respect the environment more. I recycle, pick up trash I see laying around, and ridicule others for littering. With age, I've become more interested in politics. I became interested just in time for one of history's biggest and closest presidential races. I suddenly started caring what sorts of things were happening around the world. My interests in science and computers took off. My last science fair project had implications in dramatically lengthening the time available to transport living organs and it even had some relevance to cancer research. I found myself converted to non-proprietary software and now I roll my eyes every time I hear the word Microsoft. All these interests, among others, have led to me joining like-minded organizations: The Sierra Club, Ohio Academy of Science Student Advisory Council, Sex, Etc., a registered Linux user. I've begun actively researching and communicating with my Congressional representatives; developing presentations and plans to educate my school and community on global warming and to get our mayor to join the Mayor Climate Protection Agreement and more.

So now I have way too much I want to do and not near enough time to do it. I've lost some of the activities that were most important to me because they were only good for me and not for others as well. I've noticed opportunities, too many opportunities, to do right wrongs. I've also noticed there are too few people to do them. Becoming conscious of so many wrongs that need righted fooled me. I thought I was simply joining in the fray of everyone else taking action to fix these things and better the world. But I look around me at school and everywhere else and I see so little action; so much complaining, but nothing done about it. A teacher showed me a quote on the very first day of school: “We are more aware of our rights than out duties.” By God isn't that the truth. The next time I hear someone complaining about Senator so-and-so, but they've never bothered to contact that representative, I'm going to punch them. “Well,” I thought, “I'll just set an example. People will see me caring about and acting for something and they can follow my lead.” Oh, no. How naive. Living in a small community and attending a significantly small school, extreme views on just about anything is out of the ordinary. Aside from an unusually large Goth population, everyone in our school is very typical. Expressing my relatively radical beliefs renders me ostracized by many people I once respected. Of course, it's a two-way street. I'm sure a significant amount of the ostracizing was done by me. But I couldn't help it. How could I associate with people that refused to take action for something they believed it, always armed with excuses as to why they don't? Now, it's not like I don't have any friends. I have plenty of average friends, several good friends, and one amazing girlfriend. But still so many people I know refuse to do anything about anything.

I inevitably digress from my real point: the world doesn't care. A 30% vote turnout for non-presidential elections? Seriously? The people who actually make the laws and the people who practically run our state and even our own city just aren't important enough to warrant a few hours of our time once or twice a year? The beauty of democracy is almost non-existent today! If I walked up to someone in a mall and asked, “Do you think the Electoral College is an out-dated system?”, they would stare at me blankly. A few braves ones might ask me what the Electoral College is. This attitude isn't just surrounding politics. A friend of mine complains about the terrible gas mileage his giant V-8 gets, when there's a usable sedan in the backyard that nobody drives. Around here, the bigger your truck is, the bigger of a person you are. That's how we measure in my home town: how few miles does your truck get to a gallon of gas? I'll bet mine gets fewer! We have booming suburban development locally, but it's not cutting down huge forests or old trees, and there's no shortage of green space. We have incredibly beautiful falls, and our air is always fresh. So naturally most people around here assume there's absolutely nothing wrong with the environment. Global warming isn't an issue here, it's just a stupid idea. Recycling isn't necessary. If it doesn't pay off for me, then why bother? The mentality is sickening, but it's prevalent.

It's painful to watch the world around me turn more and more towards a completely apathetic lifestyle. The mentality that “It's not my problem, let someone else deal with it.” is becoming more commonplace. People with positions of power find themselves less supervised, and so they do what they want. After the Industrial Revolution, there was action taken to get children out of factories and improve working conditions. Large companies had to shape up. Do you really think corporations today follow the same improved moral standards that they did for the few weeks in the 1800's when everybody was paying attention? No, because nobody paying attention. They follow the same bottom-line morals as they did when the Revolution began.

I don't want to give the impression that I believe everyone and everything in the world is corrupt and bad. It's by no means that way. There are many great people who are doing wonderful things, dedicating time and resources in vast amounts to better the world. But my concern is with the everyday Joe that you see at work or at school. What does he do? What does he even care? It's the masses that are becoming so apathetic. And unfortunately, it's the masses that have the real power, they just don't realize it. History seems to show that it takes a series of extremely terrible tragedies to get the public riled up about anything. Even a few years after 9/11, the country's as polarized as it has ever been before. The world as a whole is fighting over ridiculous things.

There's no real way to wrap up this sort of topic. There aren't any intelligent quotes to throw out, no glimmers of hope or positive prospectives. It's just reality. And all we can hope is that something, something will get people to change. Not just for a week or a year, but for generations to come, lest we end up right back where we started. We can only hope.
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Of course, I think I wrote that in a spurt of frustration, but whatever. Now I have to get back to composing a usable essay. I'm not usually a procrastinator when it comes to important things, especially something as important as a college essay. However, I've foolishly blown the whole college deal out of proportion. In addition to constantly tricking myself into believing I'm much smarter than I really am, I've also exagerated the importance of going to "the" college. Which honestly places me right among those "fools" I've often referred to who only care about going to fancy ivy-league schools. I just replaced those with top science schools. Once November is here and those essays are done, apps submitted, interviews completed, I can focus on more realistic goals. Goals that are probably better for me anyway.

I'm rambling.
Good-bye.

The Latest

2006-10-20T17:33:00.000-04:00

I decided it's simply stupid of me to keep putting off blogging until I come up with something worth reading. Nothing coming out of my mouth (or from my keyboard in this case) is ever worth listening to.

So anyway, I highly recommend a visit to The Loop Show's site, created by the very, uh, unique Luca and Nolan. If you've got only six minutes to spare, and need a good laugh, the enjoy. With four good episodes and more coming, what's to lose?

After former Congressman Mark Foley sent sexual instant messages to 16-year-old male pages, suddenly disappeared to rehab for a month, blaming the whole problem on alcohol (because alcohol changes your sexual orientation from middle-aged women to teenage boys magically), he later reported that HE was victim of a priest's enjoyment decades ago, even releasing the priest's name. Well, what's the priest's excuse? Surprise! Alcohol. Congratulations, the world is actually getting dumber.

1 in every 166 children has Autism. Their only hope is proper education, as a cure is still very far off.

NFL supporters are attempting to make the Monday after the Superbowl a national holiday, right up there with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Election Day won't become a holiday any time soon, but National Hangover Day might be created for the 40 or so million Superbowl viewers.

An enjoyable read: Top 10 Reasons Why Guys Won't Commit on MSN.
Let me just say there's some valid reasoning in there.

I recommend two songs today: Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Fransisco and I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor. Why is every single word always capitalized in song titles?

Finally, I leave with a link that everyone should follow. Even if you only have a few minutes to spare, educate yourself a little: Crisis

In the words of the wise Edward Murrow: Good Night and Good Luck

p.s. everyone should see that movie.

Furthering Knowledge, Furthering Inaccurate Contradictions

2006-10-11T20:31:00.000-04:00

I'm spending tonight (or at least a little time right now, until I get too bored to continue) cramming for the SAT tomorrow morning. Being dedicated and motivated, I obtained plenty of study materials before summer even began, and even made a plan on how to approach studying, set goals, etc. Pretty good, right? Well, I had a surprising number of commitments during summer, and studying got pushed to the back of my mind. I had a good run in August, but that came to a screeching halt when school began. We're told to take challenging courses, right? Yeah, so my time's full doing the massive assignments for classes and other obligations, college apps, etc. that I simply have no time to study. So how is this fair? Those expected to do well on these ridiculous tests have the least amount of time to dedicate to them. Now I'm just venting, which I said I wouldn't do...

Regardless, I took a break and continued some reading from Wednesday. Thought I'd link to a good article I found detailing recent events in the study of evolution.

A counter to the argument is found here.
(Edit: upon watching an argument posed on the Colbert Report, an excellent point is made. The above article falsely interprets that evolution has occurred by chance. Natural selection, however, is a process that involves chance only at the level of accidental mutations, which happen countless times in each of us every day. Rather, it is a process of slight advantage having a pronounced effect with the passage of time. No chance there.)

Granted, neither article is very long, but both are provokative.

I found a few other articles I plan to post and comment on, but not now. Now I must return to studying...

If Jake has 3 blue marbles and Joan has 14 green marbles and Becky has 26 yellow marbles, what is the ratio of the sun's mass to the radius of the percentage of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in North Africa as of 1873 in the river-crossed region of...

2 + 2 = 5

2006-10-11T15:43:00.000-04:00

I've been having some annoying troubles with my car lately. I love it to death, but as a young gun, I didn't drive it so nicely. That's not suprising, especially if you know me. Well, to make a long story short since I don't feel like recanting the entire saga right now, I got a rebuilt trans, new exahust pipe including a new cat, and a new clutch set-up. All was well for a few weeks, then on my way home from class, something seemed not quite right. It sat in the garage for a week or two until the mechanic could finally have us bring it in, he adjusts the exhaust (which the shifter was hitting) and he things that should have solved the problem.

Well, this whole situation was based entirely on my experience with the car. It popped out of gear a few times, and when I shifted, it seemed to "fall" right out, without much of a push from me. Sometimes, it plain wouldn't go into gear, i.e. sitting in the parking lot once, it refused to stay in first, I had to let go of a the clutch a few times and really push to jam it in there. So we called our reputable mechanic, yadda yadda. Well my dad, the mechanic, his buddy, no one could really feel what I was describing. It made sense to them in a way, and I suggested the alignment on something was off, I suspected the collars. Regardless, they're convined it's probably fixed. So I drive it home, and it feels no different than before I took it in. It still feels like it won't really "lock" into gear. The more I play with it, try putting it in different ways, how I rest my hand on it and how I push on it (mind out of the gutter, people), the more I wonder if I was even feeling anything wrong in the first place!

I'm providing a lot of superfluous information, as I often do. The point is, this got me wondering. The whole "am I just crazy?" scenario reminded me of Orwell's 1984. For those unfarmiliar, Wilson has many unusual thoughts in a very restricted, controlled society set in the "future" in "Britain." Enjoy the "quotes"? I do. With thoughts that go completely against his society, his government, the world he lives and was raised in, he begins to wonder if he's insane. If one person thinks something totally different from every other person, does that make him wrong? Does it make him crazy? He meets a girl, she thinks the same way, he's convinced he's not crazy; he's very much certain that even a single person can maintain his/her sanity while the rest of the world goes bonkers. Throughout the book, this comes back into question and towards the end there are some very intriguing mind games being played, both on Wilson and the reader. With a surprising ending (in my opinion), it of course makes a great read provokes thought from any intelligent reader.

Well? What if you were convinced of something? You were picked up by a UFO, the government planned 9/11, Crab-People have their own society underground and are planning to take over the world by turning everyone metro, or maybe something on your car just doesn't feel right. No one else can tell. Everyone knows you're wrong.

Are you?

We say Good-bye, only to look forward to the next Hello.

p.s. I'll feel really stupid if no one gets the South Park reference.
p.p.s. I feel even stupider now, because I'm really writing this to no one.

First of Many to Come

2006-10-08T21:26:00.000-04:00

Following a fiasco at my school almost one year ago, I (along with many others) directed myself away from blogging and any association with it. We decided it might be best to keep our thoughts to ourselves, away from the prying eyes of the over-zealous high school administration. Following a friend's example, I later created a MySpace site. That, then, became the newest rage and suddenly the whole event turned into a giant Cyber High School. Great, and all I want to do is get the hell out of high school. That site didn't last long.

Eventually, I convinced myself to create a new blogging site, considering I'm very vocal about my opinions and what better way to get them out there? Who knows how any strange soul would stumble across my site, as I have no plans to publicly announce its creation? Regardless, this blog will provide an outlet for my many, many thoughts, ideas, and such. I may not have the cynical, sharp sense of humor or my friend Kaleb, nor the wit or charm or vocabulary of... well, Kaleb, but I feel I can provide enough of an entertaining read that some intelligent or at least mildly interested folk will provide a consistent reader base. I'm not trying to go nation-wide published or anything.

Note that this site will NOT be a medium for ranting, venting, or the like, as that's what began the whole catastrophe last year. No, this will be no more than a collection of excerpts from my Mind. Thoughts, if you will. Thoughts that belong to me. Thoughts... of mine. Creative, huh? (sarcasm here)

Anyway, there's really nothing left to mention. Well, the coincidence that today is in fact my 18th birthday. Yay. Happy Birthday to me. :)

All that's left will be hit upon tomorow, or the next day, or a day following that.

The First Farewell.