get offline and go outside

I have just learned that a childhood friend died of cancer yesterday. We hadn't been in touch for awhile, but my memories of times together in elementary and junior high school are clear and trasured. He was a person of unflinching faith, profound kindness, and unquenchable optimism. He deserved better. Rest in peace.

Global Warming, Media Swarming, Hysteria Forming, Gore still BoringShare

Forgive me for the title. And forgive me for being political once again. I don't intend to do this often.

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Pretty often now I hear people talking about "Global Warming" or "Climate Change" always with the words "our planet is dying" hanging overhead. Some people say it's too late to turn back, whilst others beg for stricter emissions regulation, more efficient cars, and of course clean green energy.

But I stop and wonder "so what's the deal anyway?"

Let me first say that I don't know. I'm not going to tell you to shut off your car and put on a sock in your mouth to save the earth, nor will I tell you that you should start burning everything you have because global-warming/climate-change is pure fiction. I'm just going to tell you what I see.

1. The climate is changing.

I think that's the beginning and end of all demonstrate-able data on the subject. The climate is changing. How do we know? We can measure it. Pressure. Temperature. Weather patterns. These are all observable and can be physically verified. But knowing this doesn't immediately put me down the path that Al Gore wants me to go. He might be onto something, he might not. The appropriate thing to do is delve a little bit deeper.

The climate is changing. But the climate is always change. It always has been. So is the climate change we're observing a natural event, like a climate cycle, or is it a direct result of human activity.

Let's make a chart of the possibilities.


I just think it's a pretty big jump from the blue box to the red box. And it's stupid how, if you don't immediately connect the blue box to the red box, you're written off as a moron.

What happened to objectivity? What happened to free and open discussion? The scientific method by definition is objective, so ... what gives? Why the attitude?

The natural world is a huge system with infinitely many variables to try and consider, it's so immensely complex I should think it is always fair game for fair rational discussion about any part of it. In other words, being confident that we're causing climate change, via a specific set of activities, and that it is bad, and that we can prevent/limit/reverse it is a long chain of assumptions. A series of logical leaps. They might be correct.

But, try as you might, you can't demonstrate that absolutely. At least, it hasn't been done yet. And no one seems interested in doing it very thoroughly.

To me, the only real morons are the ones who aren't willing to come to the table and discuss it. Whether they be people deeply rooted in the conservative south and believe man can do no wrong, or they're in the upper crust of liberal environmentalism and are so convinced they're right they won't even look past their own nose. These are the idiots. Not the people in the middle saying "let's talk about it, let's collect more information, let's consider the entire equation."

So stop with the attitude

I spend a lot of time out in Herriman where four days a week, I live. It's peaceful. It's quiet. It's beautiful. But it's saturated with deer.

Today I woke up to a lot of rain, darkness, and colder weather than I would have liked. So, like a soldier, I put on my jacket and left for work ready to just tough it out.

I hadn't gone more than a hundred meters when this brainless deer decided to waltz right in front of me. And I mean waltz. It didn't run. It didn't even look afraid. And it totally misjudged my speed, which was about 30-35 miles per hour. Then, when it realized I was coming right at it, it stopped and stared at me.

This wasn't my first encounter with deer on that road. Deep have tried to commit suicide around me a few times, but none have been so committed to the idea than this deer today.

I hit my brake and felt myself hydroplane toward the deer. The rain, combined with my crappy tires, and let's not forget the idiocy of the deer, all were plotting against me.

So how did I miss the deer? I don't know.

I pushed in the clutch at the same time as the brake, I think I intended to downshift but never had the chance. And when my car didn't stop I cranked the wheel hard to the right as an attempt to gain some kind of traction and go around the deer.

Just before I hit the deer my car managed to get a foothold on the road again and I got around it, but in so doing---because I had cranked the wheel to get more traction---my car swerved hard to the right. I turned hard to the left, hit the gas, and regained complete control.

Me one, deer zero.

Now I'm not so much against hunting as I was before. If the deer want to die anyway, better someone else gets them than me and my tinfoil Japanese sedan.

I think for the first time in its history this blog is going on a political tangent. Which is, apparently, the jolt it needed to be reborn. Yes, I haven't blogged in a long, long time.

Now, as some of you may know, I voted for President Obama in both the primaries and in the general election. Mostly because he seemed like a genuine, well-educated, family guy who had the kind of unifying leadership principles this country so often is lacking. When the primaries rolled around I picked him over Hillary because I see her as (aside from being a remarkable symbol for women) a divisive "take sides!" sort of person. Not my cup of tea. Then, when the general election came, I saw Obama as the obvious choice (for me) since I saw McCain (former moderate) turn into a sell out to the right wing and, if that weren't enough, his choice of running mate was beyond insane. The threat that he could die and Ms. hockey-mom Palin could be in the white house was way too dangerous to ignore. So I voted for Obama.

But today I feel a little betrayed.

Obama has always been a supporter of having a public option for healthcare. I think this only makes sense. In terms of RGDP we are spending more than any other wealthy country and, unlike the others, we're not providing healthcare to everyone. If you're rich you're in good shape and have little waiting, but if you're poor you can just die in the gutters. Meanwhile the insurance companies (who I really blame) have enjoyed immense influence in our legislature and have become exceedingly fat and wealthy by what I view as cooperation, think OPEC.

Now, it's true that rising healthcare costs are somewhat explained by new more expensive technology (like MRI machines) but that does not account for the cost difference between the US and say any other wealthy country. In terms of income we pay around 16% for healthcare while the next highest is Canada at only 10 or 11%. That's too large a gap to ignore.

My opinion has always been that by creating a public option we'll force the insurance companies to streamline and instead of charging abusive rates they'll actually have to become competitive. (Right now though they're like the robber barons of the gilded age.) The idea behind a public option isn't to socialize medicine to the point where government is in charge of everything and just screws it all up, the idea is to create an alternative to the greedy insurance companies that will force them to be more competitive and offer better rates. i.e. healthcare costs go down for everybody. (Imagine if there were some kind of public option for gas instead of buying from OPEC, wouldn't that be sweet?)

Well that's the basic idea. And to me it makes sense. Especially when I toss in my personal view that everyone, including the poor, deserve access to healthcare as a basic human right. You might disagree. And I respect that. But at least know where I'm coming from.

Now the main difference between Obama's plan for healthcare and Hillary/Edwards was the idea of a personal mandate. Which basically says "Buy healthcare or the government will charge you $4,000 a year for not having it." Hillary and Edwards supported that, Obama did not.

Obama pointed to Massachusetts under Mitt Romney (yes Mitt put "socialized" medicine into place when he was governor of Mass, that should throw some of my religiously conservative LDS friends into an infinite loop) but a problem with the system that Obama pointed out was that while a public option did reduce costs, it didn't reduce them enough for some people. In other words some people were so poor that even the subsidized healthcare was too much. So they had to pay the fine because it was cheaper than the healthcare.

Obama correctly pointed out that these people, who are already bad off, are now worse off. They still don't have healthcare and now they have to pay a fine. Definitions aside, my view as an econ major, is that this is a tax on the poor. Which is everything I was against in the first place!

So I rallied to Obama's plan but now as healthcare reform is before the Senate, Obama seems to have reversed his stance. And is now favoring the individual mandate.

The justification behind the mandate is: Young people who choose not to purchase the subsidized healthcare will still end up in the hospital and middle and upper-class America will have to foot the bill for these peoples' injuries, who are effectively sponging off the system. The problem with that argument is that it assumes the subsidized healthcare will be "so freakin cheap" that literally everyone can afford it. That wasn't the case in Massachusetts so why would it be the case nationally?

Not to mention the point that young people (who will be the ones proportionately unable to afford healthcare) are also the people who use it the least. Sometimes we get injured but we're rarely sick. So the amount of sponging we'll be doing is minimal. So why fine people who are already struggling to afford increasingly expensive college costs not to mention rising housing and food costs.

Why screw the young people now?

Yesterday we threw my mom the most awesome surprise birthday ever. Thanks to Kate, Kim, Kylee, and Rachel. We filled the house with all kinds of colorful birthday garbage: balloons, streamers, signs, part favors, etc. And then we loaded the house with excellent food and lots of surprise guests. Cousins, friends, neighbors, everyone my mom likes. And then we had the best time.

It was soooo worth skipping Calculus for. (Like THAT was a hard decision.) :)

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures yet but maybe my Mom will send me some.

My friend put me on to this cool webpage where you customize yourself as a hero and then, based on your choices, the site withh generate a hero name for you. Here are mine.

Me now. This is my secret night-stalking evil-fighting identity.


And when I'm not in cognito this is the real me (with hair, since I still say that's the real me that I recognize)

You should make your own and, when you do, hit me up with the link

I made this in about six minutes. Nothing special, just some bad "photoshopping" done in MS Paint. But it still makes me laugh.

Introducing Smoker the Bear. Not since Joe Camel has smoking been so cool.