Let the dollars ciruclate

The McCain campaign has been attacking Obmama for "spreading the wealth around" basically Saying it's unAmerican to raise taxes on the rich. But as Wall street's meltdown proves, having to much money and power concentrated at the top is terrible. When the income gap of the top few widens this much it only leads to more greed, and gives way to abuse and spectacular failure. In my city, NYC, there is talk of the significant loss of tax revenue from all the Wall street guys who will lose there jobs and with them their 20 million dollar bonuses. The blow to the city would be much less if we didn't a have only a few people making so much money. The negative effects would materialize much slower and be much easier to contain. The bigger you are the harder you fall.

It's the same with industry, There should be no such thing as a bank that is "too big to fail" if a bank it too big to fail then it's a monopoly. We've done a piss poo job of breaking up Monopolies in recent history and it's no wonder since corporations of the world control our government. But if we agree that Monopolies are unfair, and go against America's competitive spirit, then why wouldn't the same logic apply to our taxes. When people get rich, even through hard work, they think they are entitled to every penny, but that's not the case, you still have a responsibility to society. You have to pay your share, if you don't want to pay more taxes then convince you company to pay your workers more. But like a large company, just because you make it to the top doesn't mean you get all the spoils automatically, if people, in this case the middle class and the poor, are being taking advantage of, then you should, and you will, be broken up.

I wouldn't call it greed, I'd call it fairness: but MD's character makes a good point:


For the record I haven't seen this (Wall Street) yet, but I shall like to.
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WOW! Since Moscow is just a stones throw from New York City, And I'm so close to the Eastern part of Russia, where I'm guessing by the looks of it like 80 percent of the population of Russia lives, I guess I have enough foreign policy experience to be Vice President too!! Yay! But don't get me wrong the part of Russian that's close to Alaska is super important, Enemies could be hiding any where in that frozen tundra. It's really dangerous too, don't forget it's where the Tunguska Event occured: an air burst of a large meteoroid exploded with a force about a 1000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, and like nobody even noticed, BECAUSE NOBODY F'N LIVES THERE!

Swamp Things

Lately I've been noticing homeless people rocking crocs. Real homeless people, not those posers on the subway. I'm not sure if they are wearing real crocs or croc-offs, if you will, but it makes sense, they are very comfortable, easy to clean, breathable. Keeps the feets nice and clean.
-s

China: 1, USA: 0

California is bigger then China, and not just in the amount of letters, From WIRED:

"Given all the news coverage about the rise of the Chinese economy, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world's most populous country is hogging all the world's resources, while the developed nations are fighting for scraps.

But, at least with transportation fuel, you'd be wrong. California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California's 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China's! (Or Russia's. Or India's. Or Brazil's. Or Germany's.)

That's according to the California Energy Commission's State Alternative Fuels Plan, which was posted online last Christmas Eve (pdf). The whole report makes for some fascinating reading because it's a blueprint for a low-carbon and renewable transportation fuel future. The dominant takeaway: it ain't going to be easy.

One more choice statistic: gasoline usage in California has increased 50 percent, that's 10 6.7 billion gallons, since 1988. Has there been anything close to a commensurate increase in quality of life here to accompany that rise in energy use?

But China's oil thirst is growing -- to almost 20 billion gallons in 2007 -- and perhaps as early as this year, China's 1.3 billion people will overtake California's 37 million people in total gasoline and diesel usage"

True Grit

True Green.

Probably the best all around game performance I've seen a team have in the NBA finals. Very impressive, and even though it was a blowout, amazing to watch.

And a great time to drive one.

There's a new Ford commercial running for F-150's, if you don't know, those are Ford trucks. The commercial uses employees to advertise the employee discount being extended to the average customer. The last line of the commercial has a guy saying "And a great time to drive one" Really? Is it? It's summer and it's 2008, gas is $4.00 a gallon it doesn't seem like a great time to drive one to me. It doesn't seem like a great time to drive for anyone. What a poor choice of words, an empty marketing line, obviously Ford doesn't get it.
-s

Cool Idea

would make the car lighter at the least.

New Brookshirelyn

Brooklyn NY has about 2,500,000 million people in 70sqm
(Brooklyn is 96 square miles but some of it is water)

That’s about 35,714 people living per square mile (actually Wikipedia says 35,900 something but they may be excluding parks or something so lets just use 35,714)

The total US population is about 300,000,000 million
Using the Density of Brooklyn as a guide, all of us could fit in to an area of about 8,400 square miles

In other words if wanted to we could all move and live in the state of New Hampshire (8,969 sq miles) And have extra room for more parks (‘cause Brooklyn could use more)

And If New Hampshire were square it would be about 100 miles wide, you could ride a bike to the other side of the “country” in a day. Of course for that we’d have to get rid of all those cars and have bike highways instead, other wise the traffic would be terrible.

Take a poll, ask your friends if we all lived as dense as they do in New York (you can use "New York" as a relative stand in for Brooklyn) what state could we all fit into, I bet you'll get a lot of answers like Texas and Alaska.

(Brooklyn image from Ork Posters)

UGLY

Echo and I were at Columbus Circle today and I was disappointed to see what they did to this old building. I think it looks really boring and ugly the new facade looks like a Air conditioner or something else industrial, gray, and depressing. Couldn't they have kept the spirit of the old building and just added some windows? (that was a problem with the old building). A lot of people had said that the old building wasn't "beautiful" but was important enough to preserve, but I disagree I had always liked the building the way it was and I'm not ashamed to say I thought it was beautiful. But then I again I like most 60's Arch- and think a lot of new buildings like the redone 2 Columbus Circle lack character and look drab.
-s

OLD:





NEW:

Discovery Pizza

No it's not a pizza with surprise toppings hidden in the crust or something, It's a discovery I made the other day while Getting a few slices at the local parlor. I've gotten pizza 500, if not a thousand times before, and most of the time I stop to season said slices with Parmesan cheese. I love how the grated cheese gets in the cracks and soaks up the orange pools of grease. Anyway, If your like me using the cheese shaker can be a challenge, after a few quick shakes the holes on the shaker usually get clogged. Resulting in a reset motion that turns the shaker right side up again so you can shake some more ('cause the first little bit you get is never enough). But on this fine day I made a great discovery my friends, one only needs to hold the shaker at a 90 degree angle to avoid clogging, and steady flow of cheese can be evenly distributed across your slice. Ummm taste the time saved, taste the mastering of the art of eating pizza, taste the cheese.

Sweet

Found online

This is a post from a discussion about Brooklyn. It was not from me. But I did find it funny. Here it is in two verions, first as is, and second edited to omit the parts I feel don't pertain in my case:

Park Slope gets the hate because many people, myself included, perceive it as an epicenter of rampant hypocrisy.

In Park Slope, it's more like:

"I'm a liberal that lives in a million dollar apartment. I care deeply about social justice - I learned all about it when I was growing up in the suburbs, and I learned about it some more when my parents sent me off to college upstate and paid for my summer abroad in London.Now I've leveraged that education into a high-paying job in marketing/ publishing/ broadcasting/ fashion/ that allows me to really express my artistic side. Because I'm not a 'suit,' I dress kind of funky and Bohemian - and believe me, it costs a lot of money to look both shabby and chic! I love going out to the local restaurants in the 'nabe' with my friends of similar educational and economic background. When we meet up, we sometimes kiss each other on each cheek, like we're Europeans. Then we scrutinize the quality of the food and beverages that we're enjoying, because the Food Network has made us all authorities on culinary and gustatory matters, and we like to sound sophisticated in front of one another. While we're eating things like pan-seared sea creature, we often discuss the importance of diversity in our neighborhood, and in our lives. Even though we live in a neighborhood that is among the whitest in the city, we're deeply interested in the culture and traditions of others. When we're at Whole Foods, we always make a point to smile at the immigrant cashiers, as long as when they're bagging they don't smoosh our expensive loaves of European style bread. We all agree that when we have children, it will be vitally important that they be exposed to other cultures at an early age. Of course, none of us will be having kids anytime soon! We're all so wrapped up in the little insignificant dramas that make up our lives, that we could not possibly consider pregnancy before the age of 45.

(anyomnous)

I'm a liberal that lives in a million dollar apartment. I care deeply about social justice - I learned all about it when I was growing up in the suburbs, and I learned about it some more when my parents sent me off to college upstate and paid for my summer abroad in London.Now I've leveraged that education into a high-paying job in marketing/ publishing// broadcasting/ fashion/ that allows me to really express my artistic side. Because I'm not a 'suit,' I dress kind of funky and Bohemian - and believe me, it costs a lot of money to look both shabby and chic! I love going out to the local restaurants in the 'nabe' with my friends of similar educational and economic background. When we meet up, we sometimes kiss each other on each cheek, like we're Europeans. Then we scrutinize the quality of the food and beverages that we're enjoying,because the Food Network has made us all authorities on culinary and gustatory matters, and we like to sound sophisticated in front of one another. While we're eating things like pan-seared sea creature, we often discuss the importance of diversity in our neighborhood, and in our lives. Even though we live in a neighborhood that is among the whitest in the city, we're deeply interested in the culture and traditions of others. When we're at Whole Foods, we always make a point to smile at the immigrant cashiers, as long as when they're bagging they don't smoosh our expensive loaves of European style bread. We all agree that when we have children, it will be vitally important that they be exposed to other cultures at an early age. Of course, none of us will be having kids anytime soon! We're all so wrapped up in the little insignificant dramas that make up our lives, that we could not possibly consider pregnancy before the age of 45.
xx

Awesome. I want one.

It's called the Tenori-on.

Very Awesome lady from Iowa

Obviously Leslie Hall is not for reals, but she is still hilarious. Sort of a middle America female Borat you might say. Besides crazy rap videos such as this, She has this awesome gallery of "Gem Sweaters" and she even has names for each sweater. The one she's wearing here is called "Genie of the Lamp".

The Whitest Boy Alive

Gotta love that band name, pretty cool video too.

Welcome to America

Two examples of how we treat college students:

The Eye of Quebec

Really Cool lake up in Canada. Found it by accident while looking on Google maps. A combination of Universe-made and Man made,
From Wiki:

"an annular lake in northern Quebec, Canada, the remnant of an impact crater (astrobleme) made approximately 212 million years ago, towards the end of the Triassic period. It is the 4th largest impact crater on earth. The island in the centre of the lake is known as René-Levasseur Island. Mount Babel is the central peak of the crater.

The crater was created by the impact of a 3 mile wide asteroid which excavated a crater originally about 62 mi wide although sediments and erosion have since reduced its diameter to about 45 mi.

The Manicouagan reservoir and René-Levasseur Island
are sometimes called the "eye of Quebec."

The lake was enlarged by flooding from the massive Manicouagan or Manic (Manic 1, Manic 2...) series of hydroelectric projects undertaken by Hydro-Québec, the provincial electrical utility, during the 1960s. The complex of dams is also called the Manic-Outardes project because the rivers involved are the Manicouagan and the Outardes. The lake covers an area of 20,990 square feet. Its eastern shore is accessible via Quebec route 389.

The Manicouagan lake acts as a giant hydraulic battery for Hydro-Québec. In the peak period of the winter cold, the lake surface is usually lower since the turbines are run all the time at peak load to meet the massive electrical heating needs of the province. The surface of the lake also sees record low levels in the extreme periods of heat in New England during the summer, since in that period Hydro-Québec sells electrical energy to the joint New England grid and individual utilities in the United States."

Google maps link Wikipedia page

Simpsons movie THIS FRIDAY!!

Self Portrait

Haven't done one of these in a while...
O

3rd world and the 3R's

I think third world countries and countries like India are in a much better position to change then us. The reason of course is because the US is a society of disposability, More and more of the things in our lives are one use only. More and more things last less and less, and more and more advertising encourages us to think out with the old, in with the new. In a way this makes life interesting, it keeps things fresh, allows us to be mobile etc. But in most cases it just creates more garbage and encourages us to want more! more! more! instant gratification. It makes us less patient, less caring, and less creative. The 3rd world has a different mindset. They know the value of things, mostly because they are poor. People in other countries get more use out of everything than we do here. 3rd worlders are more self reliant, they still have skills to build things for themselves, and fix things for themselves. And so I think in the near future, when 3rd world countries make pro-environmental changes, they will have a much easier time of it. It will make sense to them. They understand recycling; and using less to achieve more. For us, it's a totally different mindset.

Auto future

The new highway standard of 35MPG in 2020 is pathetic. We have had cars in the past that have gotten much better mileage than that, and indeed have cars today that get much better mileage than that also. Passing such laughable standards for more than a decade from now is not even trying. My hope is:

1. Gas stays high and continues to go up

2. Viable Plug-in electric cars, and half plug-in half flex fuel cars on the market ASAP.

3. The American public doesn't get suckered into Hydrogen, that we can see that carrot for what it is.

One current obstacle to Plug-in hybrids is there limited range, but I'm not worried about that all, the ranges will grow, the batteries will charge faster and faster in the future, and it can't be hard to set up a "gas" station with everyday plugs and outlets. Take your average gas station design and put solar panels on top of the island and you're almost in business. And even if there weren't enough stations around, I'm sure a alternative would pop up on the Internet. Someone would design a site and practically overnight a community of people all over the country, who would let you charge your car at their house, would be created. Imagine that, no more oil companies manipulating the market, just everyday people deciding what they want to charge. It would be a communal "let us do this ourselves" instead of "let's get fucked over at the local gas station where we have no control" I watched a very inspiring speech yesterday, which was basically about the power of the Internet as a tool for bringing like minded people together on a scale as never before, there are many examples of it; and I think it if our government, our auto companies, and the oil companies continue to make the wrong choices and think they can advertise the common sense out of us, then before you know it we'll have more examples of how the Internet can helps us do things for ourselves.

Top 10 Favorite games of all time

In no order, there were many others that came to mind, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple great ones, but these are certainly 10 of my favorites.

Conditioning

I was thinking today about how people function in their daily lives, A big part of it is routine, social norms, and conditioning. Just like when your a kid and it's a hard adjustment to make to go to school. Graduating from college and entering the working world can be hard as well. And I believe it has a lot to do with adjusting to the working world and being conditioned. It makes sense that young 20 some thing's have a lot of angst. It's a hard adjustment to make and to accept. But that's what 95% of do, we accept things the way they are, we even eventually find comfort in the things we used to despise. Your work becomes you, you become your work. I can only imagine what's it's like for people who work two jobs, it would be like you (the real you) doesn't even exist. It's sad to think that the amount of hours we work, how much vacation time we have, it's all just a system. Nothing about it makes it legitimate, or the right way, or the only way to do things. America is great, we do well here, but were not exactly innocent either. It's so sad that we as humans are so conservative and so ruled by fear, that it hinders a lot of the freedom that is possible for all of us.

Urban Vs Rural

A basic choice. If you grow up in the suburbs your kind of stuck deciding between the two. Most people who live in suburbs either don't make very much money and have service economy jobs, or they are older and are doing pretty good and probably have moved after living in a city for a number of years. For an example take the NYC metro area. There are rings of affordability radiating from Manhattan, of course they aren't perfectly even but still. First you have Manhattan Jersey city, Expensive Brooklyn, Queens. A little further out and you have the Bronx, Newark, the bad parts of brooklyn, and LI? I admit I barley know anything about Long Island. Then a little beyond that you have very expensive areas of New York, CT, and Jersey, Places where it's still an easy commute. Then just a little further it gets cheaper again, but the commute is a lot harder, the areas ranging from underdeveloped to somewhere in between good and bad. It's kind of a commuter nether region. The kind of place one moves to and after awhile tries to find a job somewhere other than the city, or decides to suck it up and move back. At least that how it seems to me. The ironic part of this is, I would like a small piece of land for cheap, close enough to NYC to commute. I'd just like to build a tiny house, tiny. But this is impossible. I can either have a small piece of land near NYC for astronomical prices, and not be able to afford anything else. Or I can have 50acres in the country but no good tranportation or job options.

Larchmont NY

Echo and I enjoyed a nice little walk yesterday (3.5 miles). Larchmont is a well manicured, and one could say well funded, town. It felt more down to earth than Greenwich though and is laid out more agreeably. It was very relaxing, cool fresh air came off long island sound, we purchased some lemonade from some enterprising kids, and admired some very nice houses. The first real day of spring. Today it's already 86 degrees, but I won't get into that.