Wednesday, 25 March 2009

2 fer 2 of 2 weeks in review

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In my last 2 fer I condensed a bunch of stuff together.  This because I was sick, and while I'm not as sick as I was then I'm still not feeling the best so this is a condensed entry also.

A really big solar panel!I read a cool factoid today concerning solar energy powering the entire united states.  If we as a country built a solar panel field in the middle of one of our deserts that was 92 miles on each of four sides, this solar panel field could provide enough electricity for our entire nation.  No more gas, coal, nuclear power stations.  Something to think about heh!  In furtherance of this, we probably wouldn't want to have all our enegy eggs in one basket due to transmission issues and loss or security concerns, so perhaps build a 2 mile square solar farm in each state.

Here are some very cool vids I saw in the last week or so.

75% Christian.
More news about AIG.
Repair CDs with a Microwave (this is a spoof, don't do this.)
Hairy Highlights from the World Beard and Moustache Championships.
Things from around the United States That are Illegal!
These are Illegal Too!
This guy hooks a shark and goes for a surf ride.
This is a bunch of croc... hehe.
This looks pretty fun, floating lanterns.
Only do this if your totally bored and have a death wish, toss a little molten iron around.
Some of you have heard of the zoot suit, today's ladies will soon hear about the zap suit.  Pretty good idea to prevent unsavory males from attacking women.

The Ecojet by Jay LenoIf your not sure what to buy that person in your life who has everything then check out Etsy, an online store to buy and sell all things hand-made.

Seems Jay Leno is designing and building a Jet Car for the common man.  It's called EcoJet.  While your at his website you can check out his pretty cool collection of cars.

Hubble has captured a rare celestial alignment where several of the moons of Saturn can be seen passing across the face of the ringed planet.

I totally understand the site at the next link.  Damn Interesting is a website about, well, its about pretty darn interesting things!  All kinds of things.

"You have enemies?  Good.  That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." ~ Winston Churchill


 

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Posted by sentiant at 12:35 AM in Mike's Weekly In-Digest-Ion
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Saturday, 21 March 2009

Disabled face crisis in Illinois if Governor Quinn gets his budget

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Once again, you damn politicians respond to external stimuli (the current financial crisis) with another hair-brained knee-jerk reaction.  Governor Quinn of Illinois unveiled his budget Wednesday, and its guaranteed to hurt, everyone.  Quinn asked lawmakers to support a $26 billion construction program that would build new roads, bridges and schools around the state, supporting some 340,000 jobs.

Quinn's Insanely Stupid Illinois BudgetPaying for the massive initiative would mean raising the fees for driver’s licenses, license plates and title transfers.  Quinn also wants smokers to pay more. He proposed increasing the tax on cigarettes, now 98 cents a pack, by an additional $1 over two years.

I can tell you really thought about this Quinn, perhaps not from a disabled persons point of view though.  We disabled are already struggling to maintain our independence because of higher food costs.  We disable now also have to contend with higher rent because more people have been forced into the renting sector by the foreclosure crisis and on top of that we the disabled have also been hammered by 10 percent medical cost increases year upon year for the last 7 years.  And now you, Gov. Quinn, want to slam us to the ground with higher fees for licenses, car plates and car titles.  And a lot of disabled folks smoke, nothing much else to do other than watch tv or lay in bed being sick, and while not the best of enjoyments, it is a little pleasure in the lives of some of this societies most neglected citizens.

So while your proposed budget puts 340,000 able bodied back to work, it will unfortunately send 10-20,000 disabled into nursing homes (which will increase the costs of the state significantly) because they cannot drive to their medical appointments because they can no longer afford the stiffer fees your wanting to impose on us.  For those of us that do go ahead and pay your higher fees, it will be a choice of freedom that transportation affords us or food or medical care or prescriptions or seeing family.  All of Which will be made worse because you said spending for the disabled will be held constant.

Upon further reading I have one big question, How did the state of Illinois go from a $250 million dollar surplus under Jim Edgar to an $11.5 billion deficit under Rod Blagojevich?  What the hell could this state possibly have spent all that money on?  It sure in the hell wasn't the roads, or better health care, or better education.  Oh, but thats not the worst of your packet of good news, I read in your proposal that you want to put our state into further debt, to the astounding amount of another $26 billion!  Are you insane?

You talk about having the $11.5 billion dollar deficit to erase, but in the same breath you state Illinois has plunging tax revenues and increasing demand for services which in my way of accounting means a longer payoff period for that $11.5 billion, if it ever could get paid off under those conditions.

By one of the many ways to measure the state budget, your proposal would push spending to $52.9 billion in the fiscal year beginning July 1. That’s up $2.1 billion, or about 4.1 percent.  Again, are you insane?  The people are losing homes, going without food, have no jobs and yet you want to increase state spending not by simple and manageable millions, but billions!

Gov. Quinn, here is a new and scary idea for you and that cabal of elected thieves in Springfield.  Stop Spending!  Reduce Spending!  The Illinois Policy Institute suggested "lower taxes, restraint in spending, and working to create a business-friendly environment that empowers entrepreneurs, investors and workers instead of expanding the government’s role in our lives."

According to the Illinois Policy Institute, Illinois ranks 48th in economic performance, doing better than Michigan and Ohio.  Wow, that's something to be proud of.  Keep in mind there are 50 states and the even bigger den of thieves known as the District of Columbia (while technically not a state, its counted as one).

Sure governor you know your asking a lot of lawmakers heading into an election year, telling them: "I hope you’re applauding at the end of this (budget) speech."  You forgot one thing.  You forgot to ask us how we, the disabled in Illinois, feel about your budget.  For the fact of it, did you even ask anyone in the state?

For you citizens of Illinois who are serious about bring state spending under control, Please Read Illinois' Sunshine Report.  And well come to Illinois Stupid.

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Posted by sentiant at 6:24 AM in Government in Illinois
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Monday, 16 March 2009

What does Jante Law have to do with the Inventor of the Internet?

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A QuakerI actually wrote this entry at 4 am when I couldn't sleep.  You gotta hate those system freezes that occur for very vague reasons, or so say the logs.  On to my post topic.


I was reading about Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web as we know it.  Just so happens that Berners-Lee submitted his seminal paper laying out the processes by which the web would work in March of 1989, thus making March 2009 the 20 year anniversary of this technology which would go on to make such a profound change in the way we learn, buy, live and communicate.


It was while reading his bio over on the wikipedia that I noticed he is a practitioner of the Unitarian religion.  Unitarian Universalists believe in complete but responsible freedom of speech, thought, belief, faith, and disposition. They believe that each person is free to search for his or her own personal truth on issues, such as the existence, nature, and meaning of life, deities, creation, and afterlife. UUs can come from any heritage, have any sexual orientation or gender identity, and hold beliefs from a variety of cultures or religions.


The wiki entry went on to say that Unitarianism and Quakers share many principals.  This caught my attention because some of my descendants were quakers back in the U.S. slavery era and were active in the underground railroad which spirited away slaves from the south to freedom in the north.  So naturally, I had to wiki quakers to reacquaint myself with what the quakers were all about.


Seems that Quakers are an egalitarian bunch.  Quakers hold a strong sense of spiritual egalitarianism, including a belief in the spiritual equality of the sexes. From the beginning both women and men were granted equal authority to speak in meetings for worship.  So I popped on over to the wiki entry for egalitarianism to refresh my understanding of this concept from a religious point of view and noticed a reference to something I had never read about before, Jante Law.


It just so happens that under political ideologies related to egalitarianism there was a reference to a concept called Jante Law.  Hmm, what is this I thought, so being the curious discipulus of vita that I am, I clicked over to the wiki on this subject and found that Jante Law is a conceptual non-existant law created by the Norwegian/Danish author Aksel Sandemose in his novel A fugitive crosses his tracks for the citizens of the town wherein this novel takes place.  Though Jante Law can be summed up as, "Don't think you're anyone special or that you're better than us", there are ten different rules in the law as follows:

  1. Don't think that you are special.

  2. Don't think that you are of the same standing as us.

  3. Don't think that you are smarter than us.

  4. Don't fancy yourself as being better than us.

  5. Don't think that you know more than us.

  6. Don't think that you are more important than us.

  7. Don't think that you are good at anything.

  8. Don't laugh at us.

  9. Don't think that anyone cares about you.

  10. Don't think that you can teach us anything. 

Seems to me these folks would be lots of fun at a saturday evening bowl-a-thon or better yet they sound like a bar brawl waiting to happen.  Most certainly if such a place existed it would be a psychologist's dream come true.  Anyway, that's how reading about the inventor of the internet led me to learn about Jante Law.

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Posted by sentiant at 12:21 AM in Mike's Weekly In-Digest-Ion
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Monday, 9 March 2009

Word's are fun! No really, they are...

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Did you learn a new word today?I found this very cool site called the Phrontistery.  At this site, you will find the International House of Logorrhea (an online dictionary of obscure and rare words), the Compendium of Lost Words (a compilation of ultra-rare forgotten words), and many other glossaries, word lists, essays, and other language and etymology resources.

I'm in archaic word heaven!

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Posted by sentiant at 11:47 PM in Mike's Daily Blah Blah
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Friday, 6 March 2009

Nuclear War Citizen Preparedness Training

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nuclear bomb mushroom cloudWith the Dear Leader saber rattling again as pointed out by Acta, I thought it best to provide my friends and family with some simple training that will save their lives should this mongoloid parasite from North Korea decide to launch a nuke.  This topic of preparedness is a pretty hot topic now days even at the TED conferences where Irwin Redlener gave a great presentation on how to survive a nuclear attack.  This is an alternate link to the previous link for those who don't mind quality being lower. 

1 year weather forecast:  cloudy and 5000 °F!

 

 

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Posted by sentiant at 8:00 AM in All about The Land of the Rising Sun
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Sesame Street weighs in on the Economic Crisis!

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Sesame Street affected by economic crisis of 2009Sometimes I just have to take a break from shouldering the stone of dissent.  I found the following little ditty, and upon hearing it, promptly laughed my ass off.  Not sure if its Sesame Street, perhaps in an evil alternate universe, but a Sesame Street type muppet is singing about American greed.

Be warned, this video is not politically correct and has lots of profanity.

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Posted by sentiant at 7:44 AM in Mike's Daily Blah Blah
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