Feel good

Oi...

I just finished my Samurai Armor!! oh yeah... feels good..

one more day till Spring break so I feel good...

Listening to Buddha Brand so.. no political rant today, because it's all good..!

~R3D

Three years later

Ok so I know where I was when Shock and Awe happened.. I was in a chemistry class watching Baghdad light up like a roman candle. No one knew what would happen afterwards...

I'll admit I haven't read Cobra 2 yet, but I will read it soon. The truth is according to MSNBC's Meet the Press:

"Exactly three years later, millions have voted in free elections and a parliament have been seated. But 2,300 Americans have been killed, more than 17,000 wounded and injured. The war is costing $150 million dollars a day and there are still 130,000 Americans on the ground."

If you didn't watch the interview last sunday you didn't miss much except for a few sound bites from Gen. Casey. A few I found interesting was:

"I wouldn’t categorize Swarmer as a major combat operation. It was an operation to go out into a almost uninhabited area."

"if he [the enemy] is dumb enough to mass again like he, like he did in Fallujah, then, you know, he’ll have to bear the consequences."

"I think people need to, to put this in a little bit more perspective and not think so much about what they’ve seen on television over the last three weeks, and think about what’s been going on here over the last three years."

"...the levels of participation increased, the levels of violence decreased..."

(earlier interview) “By this time next year... Assuming that the political process continues to go positively, and the Sunni are included in the political process, and the Iraqi army continues to progress and develop as we think it will, we should be able to take some fairly substantial reductions in the size of our forces.”

"I don’t want to sugar-coat it, the situation here is fragile"

Situation Fragile is an understatement really... just google "iraq" and you'll see that many assumptions about Iraq are wrong and we should of left years ago...

~R3D

Protest in Portland

There was a protest is Portland today... I went and thought is was pretty good. I only watched it for a little bit, but am glad to see people stand up and speak out against people who do not have the interests of the people at heart...

Maybe i'm just another liberal democrat.. maybe not..

I identify with the independents. I'm neither a hardline D or R. I like some of both. I also share the views of the liberitarians, green party, and other ideologies...

If it were up to me (and it's not) I would put an end to this "craps style" take all election process and set it up with percentages. For example, instead of Texas always being a R. State, it would be 90% for R and 10 % D(Austin is pretty much a D town).

Well hopefully people will get hip and vote the right guy in for their state that takes power away from the Bush Dynasty.

~R3D

excerpt from a economics test

thought it was an interesting thought...

Q. How does society gain or lose from this change in market structure?

A. The United States market is said to be changing everyday. In America’s production era (1910-1970) the economy was heavenly depended on skilled blue collar workers. However, new firms from outside the country, who have lower marginal private costs, have forced US industries to compete to the point that they have to find cheaper labor and thus force manufacturing plants in the US to shutdown and fire skilled laborers. On the other hand, America is very dynamic and in most cases jobs just get shifted from the tangible industry to the service industry.

Some economists have said that this solution is best for America, but the solution is only somewhat good. The manufacturing job to service job switch is entirely depended on the worker. If workers cannot afford retraining (and there is no government support to retrain workers) then the plan is flawed. Also, the desire to change jobs is alarming too. From a purely economic stand point, the switch of labor industries is pretty straight forward, but from a worker who is in his mid to late 40’s, who had a pension, 401k, etc. that is now unemployed; there is no solution for him.

Often manufacturing industries just layoff employees and never call them back. In Georgia, unemployment was at an all time low. Recently, KIA agreed to build a 1.2 million dollar plant in Georgia which would re-employ 2,500 previous workers who did not switch careers to the service industry. The move was said to be a step in the right position; yet, the deal came with serious draw backs for Georgia’s state government which granted next to nothing in taxes in order for the deal to take place. The question this brings up is that while jobs are changing and the market becomes more and more “globalized” the repercussions might out weigh the benefits.

As for whether society will benefit or loose from more firms entering the US market is based upon whether or not Americans’ income will not be able to afford the products due to large-scale unemployment, age discrimination, loss of 401ks, increasing tuition for community colleges for re-training, etc. If we are to make this transition so that society will benefit, then we must address ways to help the American help the economy by providing him with some financial security.

That's all I could muster for that question.. I truely believe that waiting 10 years for the U.S. economy to just "flip" to a service based work force is too long... Action is needed now! what can the government do?

(after ending this war on terror)

1. Start assisting workers who have been layed off to retrain by offering tuition breaks at state community colleges,
2. Give incentives for business owners to hire re-trained workers,
3. stop trying to figure out "mobile retirement plans" and "mobile healthcare packages" and start giving incentives to American businesses to keep their retirement packages, healthcare, etc. (i.e. Make it affordable for the Business and the employee)
4. Protect American workers... help those who have lost a job to India/China.
5. Stop saying it will fix itself, you know it's wrong so stop doing it...

There is more too, just open your ears for a minute and people will help you.. Toyota has a slogan, "Buy Toyota parts to keep your Toyota a Toyota." Well I say, "buy/sell American goods to keep your American Business an American business!!!"

~R3D

Happy Saint Patties day...


Today I was finishing up my samurai armor project for an Art Class and one of the things I was making was a samurai helmet. Well to make it I decided on a variety of things, including a bicycle helmet, but I ended up using an old East German WW2 helmet. It was thin steal and I thought it was going to be easy to drill through. However, that gosh darn helmet took the abuse of three drillbits and one cobalt bit and not one hole was made... dang...

I ended up torching it and eventually made a hole, but if you ever run into a whacko with a drill, grab a commy/east german helmet to protect you!!

News today was same ole same ole.. Hopefully things will slowdown soon and I can get back to posting, emailing, and working on fun stuff...


~R3D..

The world around me

Yesterday I saw something that was interesting...

In the Economics classroom, the chairs were arranged differently that day. All of them were lined up in rows. Typically the chairs are lined up with a few on the side of each wall facing each other and then a couple of them in the middle sort of facing the front. What was interesting was when students entered the room and saw the arrangement they spent 5 or so minutes re-arranging the chairs to the exact way they had them before..... Weird huh? Perhaps not. Just interesting...

what's going on today?

According to UNIRIN News, bird flew has been confirmed in Afghanistan in six samples of birds.
The strain was only found in birds, which means no human cases... yet. That doesn't stop Afghanistan from ordering the slaughter of all chickens to prevent it from spreading... While this kind of responce is effective, there is better ways to help rid your nation of bird flu like washing your hands everyday.

My take on Bird Flu is that it's a problem, but a reason to go to war over. However a war on disease would atleast have a better outcome then this endlist war on Terrorism. The real terror is showing up too late to help it any further or even worse not doing anything at all.

After the Earthquake in Pakistan, America tried to rally forces from around the area to help out, but they were uneffective. In fact, we didn't make it a #1 priority. The result is that people who lived in the mountains recieved aid from al-Qa'ida. Turns out there was a local training camp near by and the recruits were dispached to help victems with food, water, and aid...

Showing up late and not tackling small problems like Avian Flew OVER THERE will result in a worse problem when it reaches here.

good times!

~R3D

Day 1 Imagine

Today I was looking at cars in Britain. They have this diesel technology that Americans will most likely never have. Particularly, this turbo diesel design I'm attracted too. Perhaps if things weren't so expensive I wouldn't have to search for another car... Bush and his stupid energy policy!

Ya know, in the year 2000 (B.9/11), Bush talked about alternative resources.. yeah that's right, in fact he's talked about alt. energy for years and nothing has come from it. You think "flex-fuel" is a solution? hah! no way... that takes almost twice the energy to produce.. Get off of it. The war on terror is the war on ideological differences on oil policies and the greedy men who hold the oil card close to them.

What is Persia without oil anyway? Answer: it used to be a rich and vibrant place who traded in Gold, Spices, Silver, and other exotic things. Ever wonder what Osama Bin Laddin's dream is? His dream is to restore a broken world that used to rule the middle kingdom of Europe and West Asia.

This stuff about Iran is another hoot. Sure, Iran is a threat and their capibilities to produce Nukes might come around in say 10-15 years... OMG!! Yeah, I forgot in 10-15 years we'll either own the middle east or start a massive religious civilwar between the three tribes. I say that first Russia needs to think about what is worse: Trading enriched uranian with a crazy theocracy or maybe trading that uranium with someone else. Who knows...

We'll see next week when all hell breaks loose in the SC. Good luck.. Bolton! You'll need it..

Also big in the global news today:

The United Nations General Assembly just passed a new resolution creating a new (more efficent) Human Rights Council. 170 countries voted in favor with 4 opposed and a few abstaintions. Get this... the U.S.A. voted "No" yep... what was Bolton's responce?

"We did not have sufficient confidence in this text to be able to say that the Human Rights Council would be better than its predecessor. That said, the United States will work cooperatively with other Member States to make the Council as strong and effective as it can be." (see here)

Yeah right.. Over how many years of work did Kofi Annan put into this and the U.S. doesn't agree that it has "sufficient confidence" HAH! give me a break. What Bolton is saying is that he's displeased with the voting of members into the council. He said that the Resolution didn't include Annan's proposal for a 2/3 majority vote from the member states to elect it's 47 member board of directors.

Voting proceedures? really? Sure corrupt governments do corrupt things all the time, but come on Bolton stick up for helping the world for once! Turn off the one way phone like to Carl Rove and Condoleezza Rice and think about what the heck you're doing... Save the people, not the politics...

That's all for now

~R3D