Flinging Poo

Tuition was raised by an average of 6.6% over last year. Overall, it could be said that inflation ( Consumer Price Index), has outstripped average wage increases. It is so much a part of common knowledge that it no longer outrages anyone and people just shrug their shoulders and say 'what can you do?' in resignation. Clearly, this is not the case for everyone, but for a large number of Americans, it is. If there was one thing that some of the Post-WWI Democratic Presidents did, it was address the gaping difference in income between the wealthy and the poor. What this did initially was to increase the size of the Middle Class. It was soon discovered that a well-financed Middle Class was the key to powering an economy, especially if they were in the majority. This expanded our economic power and enabled us to have enough money to throw around to field foreign armies without blinking. Then, Reagan came in with his "Trickle Down Economics". The assumption here was that y...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,,2196435,00.html The German-based Energy Watch Group ( EWG ), says that peak production occurred last year (2006) and will decline steadily at about 7% a year, with half of current levels produced by 2030. The International Energy Agency suggests there are 42 years left at current consumption rates, but the EWG says that real reserves left is about two-thirds of that. This suggests we have 28 years left at current consumption rates. However, as populations increase and as emerging industrial powers require heavier consumption (like China), this will increase demand and decrease the time left until these reserves are depleted. My own speculation is that we are very close to peak productive capacity now and that increasing prices will reflect a declining supply. I believe a more predictable figure to be closer to 23-25 years. This means that renewable energy sources will have to be embraced and pursued with much greater vigor so that demand for oil...

Art is supposed to imitate life, right? Well, often art doesn't. Let's take the role of hospitals in television. Some very respected and long-running shows give us the 'insides' (pun intended), of hospital life. More often, in movies and television hospitals are a prop. They are like automobiles to further the plot. You get hurt? Hey all, let's carry this party to the hospital! It's a field trip. Someone gets a broken arm? To the hospital! Got an elbow to the face? To the hospital! Granted; If you get a broken arm there's not much choice. It needs to be MRI'd, X-Ray'd, Scanned, gotten second opinions over, wheel-chaired, and oh yeah... set. How about a black eye? Oh, don't be a ninny! Go to the hospital! It's no big thing. Well, as long as money means nothing to you, that is. I fell off a bike. A couple of hours later I was driven to the hospital by my mother, who insisted that I go. They ended up throwing an IV of water put in my arm, seen ...

It was night in the city. It was a club like many others. Music blared and echoed and young bodies writhed and wiggled under it's tempting beat. Word had come down that the younger sister of Jose Callero had blown into town, was spending high and been seen with another man. No one knew this other man but he seemed at home with her and her entourage. The glint of steel had been seen peeking from beneath some of their suit coats but the word was hands off for now. They would just keep an eye out and make sure nothing went down without them being on top of it. Not even an hour ago a routine traffic stop netted a mid-level boss that pointed the finger straight at Jose's sister as the source. It was a fortunate turn of events at a fortunate time. The club had been cased out and young, hip men packing heat had been dispatched to be there long before she and hers did. They were there, in trendy clothes and trendy hair styles, flashing fancy watches and ready smiles. Behind their grin...

There are a couple of observations I've made regarding religion. 1. Religion never gets in the way of a good time. 2. Religion never stood in the way of one man killing another. 3. Guilt can be justified away. 4. God's judgment is random and indiscriminate. 5. Often the most pious are the most hypocritical. We claim we are a heavily-religious country. We have churches on almost every corner. Most of us claim believe in God, even if we feel strangely guilty or ashamed when asked if we're saved. We cry at funerals and pray to God when we need money or a home run or to be saved from an earth quake or rapist. We've gone to war for religion in the past and are masking this one in religious undertones barely concealed. So, why do we sin? We are tempted by the beauty of a big-screen goddess. We admire the contestants in a Miss America Pageant or a Playboy Bunny. We stare at our neighbors and some small part of us desires them. Why? is this not sin? If we are so religious, why ...

Let's figure on the Earth being 4.5 billion years old. How much time is left before we're gone? Let's count back. In a billion years we'll burn up because the sun, reaching the end of it's life, will expand greatly as a Red Giant and burn up the earth. In half that time the temperatures of the Earth will have been increased to the point that the oceans will have evaporated and Carbon Dioxide gone as a result and plants died off as a result of not having CO2. So, a most optimistic view has us dying off in half a billion years. That means we're already 90% the life of the planet. Let's look now a bit closer. 4.56 billion years ago was the first sign of life. The dinosaurs showed up 570 million years ago, but it was 360 million years ago before they started getting larger and more populous and when ferns and conifer trees started inundating the landscape. The vast majority of them shook off their mortal coils about 65 million years ago. We dropped in probably 1...

I come into work and every day I am passed by GM autoworkers on their way to the line. They look as you would expect. They wear jeans and cut-offs, shorts and t-shirts. They tend to be a harder-looking bunch. On the street you'd never know they were making over $60k. They don't wear ties or slacks, don't sport good physiques or nice hair cuts, but they're not required to. They punch in and do a long days work. I look at these workers pass me every day and I can understand why they are seen as 'hicks' and derided for their mullets. And yet, per dollar invested, the American worker remains the highest return on investment. How is this so? What is the typical American worker? Is he in retail with it's tight margins or grocery stores with their tight margins? Is he in factories like the one I'm in where the margins are rapidly diminishing as competition makes things more difficult. Is the American worker in fast food turning a buck, or owning his own small o...