Life in Utopia

Strip Poker 10

2009-02-07T00:09:00.005-05:00

Strip Poker 9

2009-01-25T05:29:00.010-05:00

Sim U

2009-01-13T22:44:00.004-05:00

You are the president of an up and coming place of higher learning. It is your job to take this school from farm league to ivy league. You get to design the campus, recruit professors, and try to get and keep students. You can pick what subjects are available to students based on what facilities you have and what facility you recruit. The better the professor the more they cost to keep at your school but the more prestige that bring. But the better your school the more you can raise in tuition and from alumni donations. If you do well alumni will donate buildings etc to add to your campus. You also have to have room for the students to live and play. Sports, "the Quad", dinning, the student union and even frat houses, all to make your current students happy and attract new ones. Will you be an MIT or the top party school?
As you progress you get more advances degrees and buildings. You can start a research center and maybe find a cure for cancer or open a tech center and attract corporate sponsorship or build a football stadium to attract crowds and TV audiences.

This is not really a game but I wish it was. I've had this idea running around in my head for years now. Ever since I played SimCity. A few years ago they came out with a really lame expansion pack for The Sims but it was nothing like what I was thinking. The only fun thing about the sims was when I got my male sims to fall in love and take a roll around in the heart shaped bed. (I even made nude sims) but that all got old fast.

Strip Poker 9

2009-01-13T22:35:00.004-05:00

...who the Hell cares what you think!

2009-01-13T22:26:00.003-05:00

It's been a little while since I last posted. I was busy with the holidays and work etc. But I was also discouraged that no one has made a single comment or even rated any of my posts, so I thought "what is the point?!"
But this week I realized that I missed it. Maybe I'm not doing this because I have to, or because I'm trying to please my readers (which I don't think exist), but because I have ideas that need somewhere to go. Without this outlet, they just float around in my head cluttering things up. So I will continue my posts but not because I care what people think but because this is something I want to do and who the hell cares what you think.

Strip Poker 8

2008-12-14T10:14:00.001-05:00

It's a Wonderful Fluff

2008-12-07T19:51:00.003-05:00

Strip Poker 7

2008-12-07T08:52:00.006-05:00

"Tax the stupid people!"

2008-12-02T07:42:00.002-05:00

My partner and I got into a heated discussion on what the best way to reduce CO2 emissions. I favor two things one, a cap and trade market for CO2 and changes in tax policy. If you added a tax to CO2 (and other things that are bad for the environment) and reduced income taxes (or completely eliminated them) you could offset the higher prices of products and energy in the short term and give people an incentive to pick environmentally sound products because those products would be cheaper then their dirtier competitors. The cost of dirty energy, shipping products from far away would also go up. But companies that produce sustainable products and energy and local companies would have lower taxes (and lower cost of doing business) then companies that do not, giving them an advantage, and allowing them to undercut dirty company's products prices and ultimately allowing them to win in the marketplace.

The point is that we should use tax and regulatory policy to reward corporate behavior that is positive and penalize corporate behavior that works contrary to the public good. The same goes for cap and trade. It gives incentives to companies doing the right thing (reducing their emissions below the cap) and give disincentives to poluting (having to buy credits or pay a fine).

If you want to learn more (or see data to back up these ideas) check out the Earth Policy Institute and the book Plan B 3.0.

I'm curious?!

2008-11-30T14:46:00.004-05:00

I'd like to know what you think of my blog, please write comments or click the reactions checkbox below each post to vote. Thanks!

Confessions of a Former Fundamentalist Christian: Part 2

2008-11-30T14:11:00.004-05:00

So to get away from the pressure of the Christians and at the same time remove myself from “temptation” I transferred to a tiny Bible college in Pennsylvania. And yes it was surrounded by cows. I went from a school of over 20000 to a school of around 1200. It was a big change but I think it was the best decision I could have made at the time. A friend of mine from my youth group days was also going there. So I at least know someone else there. And the people were very accepting. I was still not out of the closet, but I was learning to be myself more and more. The professors were much more liberal then I think the students. They didn’t want you to believe something just because your parents did, they wanted you to discover it for yourself. I met some good people who I hung out with, whom I felt comfortable being myself around. There wasn’t that pressure to be the perfect Christian around them.
Many nights I would stay in the computer lab working on papers and such and one night I stumbled upon someone’s stash of gay porn on one of the computer lab computers. It was hidden pretty well and this was in the early days of the Internet so to get pictures you had to get them from a newsgroup in a text format then use some program to decode them and view the images. Not as simple as it is these days. I copied the files and figured out how to decode them. Then viewed them in the graphics lab. I had never seen pictures of guys having sex. I remember in one picture a hairy guy was fucking another guy on a towel outside on a beach. The most I had ever done with a guy was a blowjob, (although one friend did come close to it when he dry humped my ass crack). The pictures also meant something else; they meant that there were other people like me out there. That even other Christians were gay.
I began to accept my identity more and more. I finally accepted that I was gay. The first person I told was a friend of mine, Mark. I was so scared to say the word. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought he was actually very cool about it. He said he used to think that he might be gay too, but he was dating this other friend of mine at the time (a girl).
I was going to tell my roommate but before I could tell him he said something about how disturbed he was by his previous roommates, how he had found KY in the fridge and how they had been so blatant about having sex with one another and he could not take it if I told him I was gay. So I let the mater drop. But I think I had found whom the porn belonged too.
I stayed at school one summer to work and became good friends with Dave, I eventually told him I was gay, he was totally cool with it. I still considered myself to be a Christian but I learned that maybe I could be gay and a Christian too. In one of my classes we learned around the civil rights movements and there was even a part about the gay rights movement and stonewall. I did my senior paper was on homosexuals and the holocaust.
I returned to my old school one time to visit my old friends and I told them I was gay. It was like I had some kind of disease. Most of them did not talk to me after they found out. I think it was then that I started to question being a Christian.

So where does a good "Christian" boy who once vilified "new age" as the work of Satan go to work after college?
As a missionary?
A health food store and a "new age" newspaper?

Find out in the next installment!

If you are wondering what school I went to, here is a link to site set up for gay alumni and students.

Strip Poker 6

2008-11-30T12:00:00.001-05:00

It's cold outside... think warm thoughts!

2008-11-24T19:39:00.004-05:00

Confessions of a Former Fundamentalist Christian: Part 1

2008-11-23T18:30:00.006-05:00

We went to lunch with some friends today and the issue of religion came up. My friend said when she was in college she went through a time where she stopped being a Christian, her parents split up and she became a bisexual. The question was, "so now what do you consider yourself?"

It got me thinking about where I was and where I am now. I guess you could say I'm a post-christian. Although I don't really know what that means, saying you are not something doesn't really define you. To really understand who I am now you have to know who I was before. I used to be a real wacko Christian. The whole nine yards, praying for sinners, speaking in tongues, singing praising Jesus, oh and loving dick. I was one mixed up bunch of conflicted sinner and saint.

I grow up going to church. I was part of the youth group, sang solos in front of the whole congregation that the old ladies still talk about when they see me (which has been very little in the past decade). I once played Judas in an Easter musical, (kind of fitting looking back), it was very moving. I was always the first go to alter calls.
To everyone I was the prefect Christian boy. But they didn’t know the real me. In youth group was where I had some of my earliest sexual experiences. At an all night “lock-in” I and another boy in the group had a bet to see whose dick was bigger. I one $5, and he was three years older than me. As an added bonus we traded blowjobs. So being a saint and a sinner seemed to be two sides of the same coin for me.

I did all kinds of things that should have gotten be struck down by God, like coming on the alter at the front of the church! Or having sex in the AV closet while church was going on. Strip poker and skinny-dipping at bible camp and so on. This double life was catching up with me though. The more things I did the more ashamed and guilty I felt later.

I went off to college, a big VA school with over 20,000 students. I joined the Campus Crusade, and hung around with the Christian groups. I even wrote “Epistles” to back to the youth group and friends I had left behind. At the same time I masturbated every day and got off on looking at the guys in the shower. The bathroom downstairs in one of the common buildings was a tearoom (not that I really knew what that was at the time.) People would leave messages on the walls to try to hook up. I would go there and write responses, but not to try to get sex (which I secretly wanted) but to try to “convert” these perverts. I started attending these groups run by a Pentecostal church. I read all of the Frank Peretti books, (books about spiritual warfare, which seem to center a great deal on how New Age was the work of the devil) it is therefore all of the more ironic that after college I ended up working at the new age paper. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I started attending a that church, everyone had like 8 kids and they always seemed a little too happy. They preached about the evils of society, abortion, homosexuality, etc. They had tracts (cartoon books) for every occasion (even homosexuality) I went “evangelizing”, sometimes door-to-door.

I had friends, a purpose, something to believe in, you think I would have been happy, but I was not. After two years there I needed to get away from it all. I needed a safe place to go and sort out my feelings. So where did I end up going?

A. A liberal arts college in a big city near gay nightlife.
B. A tiny bible college built in the middle of a field of cows.

Find out in my next exciting installment…

Octo - the master spy

2008-11-23T17:47:00.001-05:00

TMBG 2

2008-11-22T13:49:00.000-05:00

Shadow Government

I'm Impressed

Birdhouse in your soul (My favorite TMBG song of all time)

The Sky is Falling!

2008-11-22T09:33:00.000-05:00

Strip Poker 5

2008-11-22T08:38:00.004-05:00

Strip Poker 4

2008-11-22T05:40:00.000-05:00

Very Revealing look at Bill O'Reilly

2008-11-17T00:04:00.004-05:00

Notice at the end of this bit, he calls his teddy bear a panda bear, (which any 2 year old would know it is not) and refuses to admit he is wrong. This says so much about him, he is so wrong about so many things but thinks he's right and tries to convince everyone else that they must be wrong.

"Carma" is a bitch!

2008-11-16T23:27:00.005-05:00

"I had a random thought about the auto industry bailout being discussed. What if instead of bailing out the industry, the U.S. government decided to replace not only its entire fleet of roughly 400,000 cars, but also fund the replacement of most state and local government cars -- and gave the contract to U.S. automakers?"
From The Jed Report

I like the idea, but better yet why not invest in companies that really are innovating in the auto market, like Tesla Motors! Help them and other innovative companies working on electric cars scale up their efforts. The "Big Three" have too long stifled innovation, maybe it is time to let them die with their beloved internal combustion engine, and allow someone else take the lead.

Cute!

2008-11-15T17:23:00.001-05:00

As seen on booxhy

TMBG

2008-11-15T13:18:00.001-05:00

The Mesopotamians

West Hollywood

Never Go to Work

Strip Poker 3

2008-11-14T20:35:00.003-05:00

festival verde

2008-11-09T19:57:00.001-05:00

We just got back from the Green Festival in DC. As with other years there was lots of hemp clothing, organic fair trade chocolate, and organizations for the protection of animals, green snake oil salesman, etc. The things that interest me most are the solar installers and green builders. The people that installed our solar panels were there. I spent some time learning more about geothermal heating and cooling, it would be cool to have but it is very expensive and might be hard to install in our location. We also went to a talk on vermiculture (Worm composting), something I've also been interesting in doing. The place was packed, so I guess that is a good thing, people are more interested in all things green these days.

So many Christians, so few lions

2008-11-09T08:08:00.002-05:00

76.5% of the US population is Christian, so how come they think they are an oppressed minority?!

Latter Days

2008-11-08T23:42:00.003-05:00

In light of how much of the support for anti-gay measures like prop 8 in California comes from the Mormon church it seems only fitting to post this movie we saw a while back. It was very powerful, if you have not seen it I recommend it.
If you are angry about how this cult gets away with not paying taxes and gets to influence state law with that money, check out http://www.mormonsstoleourrights.com.

Green Stimulus

2008-11-08T19:50:00.004-05:00

Not that kind of stimulus, but it did get your attention. I have an idea on how the government can provide a stimulus for states, that provides jobs in the short term, is good for the environment, and pays for itself in the long run. Sound impossible? It is very simple, invest stimulus money in doing energy efficiency retrofits to government buildings. The construction industry that has been most hit by the housing bust would get a much needed shot in the arm, and help put people back to work. It would also help kick start interest in these green collar jobs we hear about so much. By making government buildings more energy efficient it would save on energy cost which would lower the cost to tax payers to operate these buildings. In the long term these saving add up and pay for the upfront cost of the retrofit. Using less power means less emissions which helps the environment. Everyone wins. So instead of sending everyone a check that they will just go and spend at MegaLoMart on more crap they don't need, invest it in real solutions to long term problem, that can also give us short term benefits.

Colors

2008-11-05T20:56:00.000-05:00

"I am green today, I chirp with joy like a cricket song,
I am grey today, gloomy and damp like a morning fog,
I am orange today, loud and messy like finger paint on the wall
I am red today, hopping mad like a playground ball
I am black today, strong and tall a great big bear
I am purple today, bright and happy like a butterfly in the air

I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world
I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world are in me

I am yellow today, I shine my light out like the sun
I am White today, soft and quiet like new snow
I am Blue today, calm as glass and cool like the sea
I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world are in me."

The lyrics to Colors the happy little song from the Dell commercials and from the children's album Dance for the Sun by Kira Willey

Hello... Yes!

2008-11-05T20:55:00.000-05:00

I voted!

2008-11-04T08:11:00.000-05:00

The Communist Threat!!!

2008-11-03T18:09:00.002-05:00

What is so wrong with socialism anyway?

During this election the right wing has tried to suggest that Obama is a socialist or worse communist and so by association something bad or dangerous. While I’m not suggesting that he is one, I wonder whether this socialist boogieman is real. Is socialism a bad thing? How about communist, is that bad? Why are people so afraid of it?

“Socialism: Economic and social system under which essential industries and social services are publicly and cooperatively owned and democratically controlled with a view to equal opportunity and equal benefit for all.”
Encarta Encyclopedia online addition

Doesn’t sound so scary to me, maybe if you own one of those so called “essential industries and social services” and want to profit from it you might not be able to do so under socialism. That might scare some heath insurance companies that make a profit at the expense of the health of the people they are supposed to be taking care us. Groups like this want people to be afraid of this idea because it takes power and money from them and gives it to everyone.

When my Sister was on holiday in England right after high school she got sick and had to go to the hospital. She didn’t have insurance or money to cover the stay, and even though she was not a citizen of Great Britain all she had to pay for was some prescription medication. In countries like Great Britain where they have socialized medicine, the cost is lower per patient and the quality of care is higher. When people in this country are asked what concerns them the most, many point to the cost of healthcare and problems with insurance companies. Providing all people access to “Social Services” like heath care is a socialist philosophy but few would argue that it is a bad thing. Our private healthcare system is the most expensive in the world, yet we are less healthy then in countries where they pay far less for healthcare? So is capitalism in healthcare making us healthier? Clearly not! So what makes people who could benefit from socialism fear it?

Is there a religious reason to fear it? Since much of the fear comes form conservatives who often identify themselves as religious. But how could that be possible since even a cursory reading of the new testament shows Jesus giving to the poor, (redistribution of wealth), the early Christian churches were for all intents and purposes communes. They gave up all of their possessions and shared what they had with the group. Jesus saying, “whatever you do to the least of these you have done unto me” sounds communist to me. Maybe it is when the government does it, that is somehow wrong but when churches do it, it is ok?

But if we are a democracy and the government is by the people and for the people, then we are all doing it. So why is it moral for the individual to care for people’s needs but immoral if this aid comes from the government. If the government can do good in the world who should pay for it? The rich

Is cutting taxes for the middle class a form of socialism? If Bill has $100 dollars a week to, feed his family, pay the mortgage/rent, pay for his healthcare, etc. Then he needs every dollar to provide for himself and his family. And if the government takes 20% that means I only have $80 to do all that. Now if John has 10,000 a week to do the same things he would have plenty to cover all of his necessities. If the government takes 20% he still has 8,000 a week to cover his expenses and still have plenty left over to be comfortable. The $20 the government got from the Bill is very little to the government but it could be life of death to Bill and his family. Whereas the $2000 from John can do a lot more good and does not hurt John’s ability to provide for himself.

What does the $2000 provide. It pays for defense and police, which benefits both Bill and John. If pays for roads and transit which both use, it pays for a fair legal system which helps John keep his business safe. It pays for schools that helps Bills kids and helps John have a better-educated workforce. It pays for healthcare so that Bill can stay healthy and put his skills to work. It helps John because he doesn’t have to pay for healthcare for his employees and lose his competitiveness. It pays for protecting the environment and since both Bill and John need to breath air, eat safe food and drink clean water, this is a win for both as well. If John had to pay for all of these services himself he would be paying a lot more then $2000.

In some key areas socialism makes sense. In providing for people’s basic needs, like basic food, shelter, education, and a host of things the government does for the common good. When people’s basic needs are not met and they see others with great wealth they turn to extremism. As we have seen with terrorism, extreme poverty and lack of opportunity and inequality allows anger to turn into violence and extremism. It is not only our moral obligation to reduce inequality but it is in our best interest in the long run to do so as well. When we reduce inequality we helping to bring peace and stability to the world, we help ourselves by helping others.

So maybe the idea of socialism is not bad but somehow the word is? Could it be that for half a century something calling itself the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics caused fear around the world. Was this really socialism? Or was this totalitarianism in socialist clothing? Is it this deception, this distortion of communist philosophy by the likes of Mao and Lennon, the heart of this fear of the word socialism? The idea of socialism is a good one, but it has been used to justify great tyranny. The same can be said for many things, Christ’s teachings leading the Inquisition and the Crusades, Einstein’s theories leading to the destruction of Hiroshima. The idea was a good one but in the wrong hands used for evil.

If so maybe we need to let go of these fears or the idea and shift them to things to really be fearful of. Poverty leading to terrorism, religious percussion leading to fundamentalism, apathy leading to totalitarianism, deregulation leading to un-fettered capitalism and market colapse, nationalism leading to fascism, racism leading to hate crimes. These are some things we should be fearful of and be vigilant against, not an idea that is rooted in the principle that if all men are created equal, then all men deserve an equal opportunity, an equal chance, and an equal hope.

Do Easy

2008-11-03T18:07:00.000-05:00

The Manchurian Candidate

2008-10-29T20:51:00.012-05:00

Sergeant Raymond Shaw	John McCain

There are some odd parallels with McCain and Raymond Shaw from the original movie the Manchurian Candidate.
A Korean War Hero	A Vietnam War Hero
Held in a Communist POW camp.	Held in a Communist POW camp.
Brainwashed into doing whatever his Communist handlers want him to.	Brainwashed into doing whatever his Right Wing handlers want him to.
Has a weakness of the queen of hearts.	Has a weakness for the queen of the north.
Has a ruthless, politically calculating mother.	Has a ruthless, politically calculating running mate.
Involved in a plot to assassinate a candidate for President to propel a crazy communist puppet the Vice Presidential candidate into high office.	His death would propel a crazy right wing (Alaskan separatist) into power.
Is supported by mysterious Chinese Government operatives.	Is supported by Shi Sheng Hao a mysterious "Taiwanese Business Man" and possible front for the Chinese government

Spooky!

My favorite fruit company!

2008-10-25T20:27:00.002-05:00

"No on Prop 8
Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8."

Pie!

2008-10-19T22:26:00.002-05:00

One of our Sunday traditions is to go to the farmers market when it is open for the season. This time of year is great for apples and one stand has an amazing variety of apples. So we usually get one or two of each kind and I make a pie with the different types of apples. The pie turned out good, I decided to not use much sugar in it but the flavor of the apples is great.

That's what I love about the farmers market. You have a connection to the food. You know where if was grown and how, and you make something out of it. So support your local farmer and get out to the farmers market in these last days of the season and enjoy the local treasures you will find there.

Inspiring

2008-10-18T21:00:00.002-05:00

This was his vision from the start of the campaign and it still is.

Seen on The Jed Report

Strip Poker 2

2008-10-18T20:20:00.000-05:00

Maybe there is hope after all!

2008-10-18T17:19:00.004-05:00

Government lists Alaskan belugan whales as endangered species, despite Sarah Palin's objections

Via Daily News

Neo-Barbarian Sense of Style.

2008-10-16T20:47:00.003-05:00

I'm am not your friend, you have not earned that!

2008-10-15T21:38:00.003-05:00

So we have made it through another debate. Grumpy McBlinking was at his usual ridiculousnesses. I really liked how whenever McCain took the low road with an attack, Obama defused it by turning the conversation back to the issues. I also liked how he was calm and reasoned it was a great contrast. I was also glad that Obama finally took the opportunity to set the record straight on the attacks from the McCain camp. I was glad to see his attacks backfired on him.

I hope that people watching saw clearly what an Obama presidency would look like, someone thoughtful, who actually reads the bills he is signing. Who takes the time to understand complex issues and looks for common ground. An running mate who also embodies the same thoughfullness and dedication to people. A president that respects leaders around the world, and restoring our image in their eyes.

By contract I hope they saw what a McCain Presidency would look like (goddess forbid). A man who jumps into the fray without knowing the facts. A running mate who clearly doesn't know anything and is not willing to learn either. A leader that jumps to rash decisions that further anger other nations leading to more conflict.

I hope, "hope" wins the day in the end.

Black Silicon

2008-10-14T22:30:00.000-05:00

A new breakthrough in solar technology could yield more efficient solar panels as well as better digital cameras.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/black-silicon-sionyx-solar-power-technology-breakthrough.php

Fascist Republican Bitch!

2008-10-13T22:37:00.004-05:00

From the title I you might be thinking I'm talking about Palin, but it was actually a dream I has last night.

We were trying to get into the city (not sure what city, kind of a cross between NYC and San Francisco) and the only way to get there was across this bridge. We started to walk across but since my parents were with us it would have been to far to walk. Plus it was dangerous, walking up the shoulder. Then I saw there was a tram that we could take across the bridge. We starting into the station but there was a woman stopping people. She looked like a mixture or Barbra Bush and Newt Gingritch. She was trying to stop protesters from getting on the train. She wanted to know if you were a republican in order to go past. I got so pissed that I pushed past her, yelling that you was a Fascist!

I think the stress of this election is getting to me!

Liberal media bias my ass!!!

2008-10-13T20:58:00.009-05:00

I understand that the Obama campaign does not want to stoop to their level, but I think it is valid to bring to the attention of the American people the very real connection the woman calling Obama a terrorist has with a party that was founded by a real life "domestic terrorist".

So why is it ok for the media to spend hours of airtime on the supposed "relationship" of Obama to an ex 60s radical and hardly mention Palin's more substantial and more recent dealings with the Alaskan Independence Party, a group once supported by guess who, Iran!!! She was the keynote speaker for their 2006 convention for Christ sake!!! The major Networks don't seem to care. Just do a google news search for Obama + Ayers and you get loads of stories, FOX News (well you've got to expect that), the Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, ABC news, etc. (I've even seen it on our local news). Yet do a search for Palin and Alaskan Independence Party and you get mostly blogs, some editorials, at least the BBC gets it! WTF!!!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/alaskan-independence-part_b_133261.html

Sarah (Fembot) Palin

2008-10-12T19:51:00.003-05:00

I've seen the picture of Palin and McCain as Dr. Evil and Mini Me, but I think she is more like his fembot.

Electoral Map? Guess again!

2008-10-12T19:11:00.003-05:00

Cool Light

2008-10-11T17:27:00.003-05:00

"This sun is a mass of incandescent gas..."

2008-10-10T20:51:00.000-05:00

"Averaged over an entire year and the entire Earth, the Sun deposits 342 Watts of energy into every square meter of the Earth. This is a very large amount of heat—1.7 x 1017 watts of power that the Sun sends to the Earth/atmosphere system. For comparison, a large electric power plant would produce 100 million watts of power, or 108 watts. It would take 1.7 billion such power plants to equal the energy coming to the Earth from the Sun—roughly one for every three people on the Earth! "

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Oven/

That's a lot of power we could tap into, if everyone had a solar rooftop (like we do) we would not need another drop of oil or lump of coal!

Strip Poker

2008-10-10T20:30:00.000-05:00

I have a thing for Strip Poker so this is the start of a regular series, enjoy!!

"Rage... taking over... "

2008-10-10T09:02:00.001-05:00

Unsustainable Economy

2008-10-10T08:04:00.004-05:00

In all of this market turmoil I have not heard anyone talking about the real issue with our market system. This issue is with the very assumption on which our whole economy is built upon. The assumption is that of unlimited growth. Everything is built on growing the economy. If we don't grow fast enough it is called a recession, if we stop growing it is called a depression. But can we sustain unlimited growth over the long run?

We live on a tiny blue-green planet with finite resources. To grow we must use resources, (pump oil out of the ground, rip down mountians, cut down forests etc) resources that are finite. But the idea of growth is built on the idea that resources are infinite, or worker efficiency can be increased infinitely. But we have to realize that people and the planet have limits. We can't keep growing beyond the ability for the planet to support us. And increased worker efficiency is usually at the expense of quality of life. These "bubbles" that we have in the economy are because of the short term gains in the present that are paid for in the future.

Our growth has been subsidized in the past hundred years by oil. We use oil to create and move things, grow food, etc. It is the basis of our growth. But oil is a finite resource. It is at its heart the energy of the sun hitting the earth for millions of years the stored in a liquid form. Which gets us to what our economy should be built on.

The amount of sun hitting the earth in a day. That should create our food, heat our homes, and sustain our economy. We need to start living within those means and build an economy that provides a good quality of life for all but knows that everything must be sustainable over the long term. Maybe this meltdown will be the start of the change that is needed to fundamentally shift how we think about our economy of the world we live in. Until we move to a sustainable model we will never have real long term prosperity.

The New McCarthy

2008-10-08T22:22:00.002-05:00

"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, [Madame], at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

Joseph Welch, June 9 1954

My response to Palin's baseless and downright evil hate mongering, calling Obama a terrorist (communist).

I'm back

2008-10-08T22:21:00.001-05:00

I started blogging a while back and then it just kind of fizzled. But this election has really got me so riled up so I felt like I needed to get back into it if just so I could have some place to vent. So here goes.

Not a nice clown (Dream)

2008-10-08T21:57:00.005-05:00

We were at a lodge somewhere in the country. I had to pee but there were no bathrooms so i found a place behind a screen. just before i could pee, this guy dressed as ronald McDonald came in with a little girl. He wanted to go to the bathroom as well but the little girl would not leave us. Then a whole bus load of college jocks people came in through the porch window. I'm not sure where ronald and the girl went, but then my dad came in an asked if i was going to help look for the missing girl. They were forming parties to search the woods. (I later realized that maybe the missing girl was the one with ronald, and that maybe he was not a nice clown)

Snakes in a car (Dream)

2008-10-08T21:56:00.004-05:00

Snakes in the car, falling from sky, someone is sending the snakes to attack us. We are driving in the car, there are kids in the car, trying to escape for something, driving snakes fall in through the sun roof . I’m bitten, have to find emergency room, look at map, I start to go to the closest one but greg gets mad and says we shouldn’t go to that one but some other one by the campus of towson university. I drive up to a nurse’s station in the middle of the road. I ask nurse at drive up info booth if this is that one and she says yes she thought so, like they just changes the name and noone really knew about it, Greg is satisfied with that answer . I start getting shaky and cold try to get nurse to help but she says I’ll have to wait. I go outside to go back to the car to wait with greg. I start feeling better as I walk outside, as if I was just faking it to get sympathy from the nurse.

In the parking lot I realize that there are stil snakes in the car. I start getting the snakes out, they keep striking at me. My sister, like Ms. Coulter, with a snake starts to circle me with her snake daemon. I get them to follow me up a hill to a college campus, we climb a fence. There are tutor style buildings. I convince her that I saw this in a vision and that we should fight I one of them.

In one of the buildings there is a tour going on, some people from work on the tour. The house belonged to Teddy Roosevelt.

I’m talking to someone about how some places are destined to be great places, like for some reason great events throughout history seem to happen at these places. History coalesces at these places. Like there is a rock and a tree at this place and someone sits there then there is a trail by that rock then a town is build around that place, which is paved with cobblestone. And on this street is the home of someone like George Washington.

Spiral staircase very narrow leads to upstairs have to wait for tour ot come down before going up, give up and instead looking at exhibits around a room. I look closer to find that in one there is a movie playing, like an old grainy black and white movie. Feels clinical, in the movie are children, teen boys playing with each other, masturbating each other. But there being punish for doing it by nurses with electroshocks, ice water torture. The exhibit seems to be about how homosexuality was ‘cured’ back then using aversion therapy.

My parents are there, looking at the exhibits I try to get them to skip the exhibit but they want to stay. In one of the exhibits there is a movie of a boy waving around his penis and you can reach our and touch it somehow. My Dad reaches out to grab it but it gives off an electric shock. I wake up.

An Inconvenient Truth

2006-06-13T13:46:00.000-05:00

We went to see An Inconvenient Truthover the weekend and I have to admit I cried. I cry at a lot of movies but this was different. I was deeply hit by the message of the documentary. I think about my niece and wonder what she and her generation are going to have to face as a result of our myopia. I wonder what I will have to live through in my lifetime. I also think about my parents and how they must have felt during the war (WWII). What it meant for my Dad to join the service (before he was even of age) to help in a cause he believed in.

We can't sit by and let this happen and not try to do something. Al is right this is a moral imperative. In the Christian tradition it is called a sin of omission, knowing you should do something and not doing it. Now it the time take action. Tell everyone you know, if you don't understand or believe what is happening is real go see this movie. And if you do know what is happening then do whatever you can to change the way you live. It will take everyone doing there part to make it work. We are all part of the problem, so it is up to us to be the solution.

Global Warming II

2006-05-12T19:24:00.000-05:00

What if this is not the first time civilization has faced the threat of man made global climate disruption. What is in the distant past a civilization not unlike our own realized too late that there very existence was threatened by their own irresponsible actions. As a last ditch effort to save themselves they found a way to suck massive amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere and pumped it into the ground in the form of hydrocarbons. and those same reserves we are now burning are the failed attempt of these "ancients" to solve their climate problem. Just an interesting thought puzzle, maybe an alternate pre-history. Or who knows... there are anomalies in the historical record that suggest the presence of an advanced civilization, or technology that doesn't seem to fit our understanding of pre-history. maybe the great flood ( which appears in the folklore from around the world) was the result of global climate change. I'm sure most of my rambling did not happen but who knows. True or not the floods of the past marked periods of where civilization was torn apart, the same thing we are facing today if we cannot find ways to adapt to or reverse these trends then we too may become another the whispered legends of future civilizations, perhaps as a warning against displeasing the great goddess mother nature.

Fight terrorism by fixing the environment

2006-04-27T13:38:00.000-05:00

"The challenge is not to provide a high-tech military response to terrorism, but to build a global society that is environmentally sustainable and equitable—one that restores hope for everyone. Such an effort would more effectively undermine the support for terrorism than any increase in military expenditures, than any new weapons systems, however advanced."

Lester R. Brown
PLAN B 2.0:
Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble

The real price at the pump

2006-04-27T08:13:00.000-05:00

I was reading Plan B 2.0 by Lester R. Brown, which I recommend to everyone, It is available online in pdf form, but you can also buy it. In it he proposes many concrete policy shifts that can bring about real change (for the better) in the environment.

He points out that the price of gas (in the us) bares no relation to the real cost, when you factor in the medical costs of resperatory damage, the cost of securing and transporting oil, the ecological impact of extracting the crude, etc. These externalities add roughly $9 per gallon to the real price of gas. So on top of the $3 per gallon we are paying now that's $12 a gallon. The other $9 we pay in lost of life, destruction of natural assets, higher medical insurance, government spending (from our taxes) etc. If the government were to tax gas to cover the real cost of it and reduce income taxes to make up the difference. The revenue from the gas tax could go to building more public transit and change the market to incentivize alternatives to driving.

He makes the case that the same type of tax was used on cigarettes to both pay for the medicare costs of cigarettes and to get people to quit smoking.

This is not a dream it is happening in other countries, Germany, and many other EU counties are also is doing this very thing. So when you fill up think of how much you are not paying for when you pay $3 a gallon.

Green Brunch? Or Sustainable Supper?

2006-04-11T08:52:00.000-05:00

The Baltimore Green Festival is Saturday April 22 at Middle Branch Park, which also happens to be the day we were thinking of having everyone down to see our house and have dinner.

So why not make a day of it and join us for the festival and a meal. I was thinking we could either have bunch at our place and then anyone who wanted to go to the festival could go after bunch or anyone who wanted to go the the festival could come down early and go to the festival then come back to our place for dinner.

I will leave it up the you to decide, let me know if you can make it and which you would prefer. (Also is the date good for everyone? I couldn't remember what everyones schedule was like)

On religion

2006-03-29T11:55:00.000-05:00

Everything is magic until you understand how it works.

Green from your Roof

2006-03-27T10:33:00.000-05:00

I live in a rowhouse with a flat roof, I got interested in the idea of installing a green roof. A green roof is essentially plants growing on the roof. They could be anything from a field of sedums to elaborate whole rooftop gardens, including trees and plants. I love plants and especially this time of year i love to be out in the garden. It would be cool to extend that love to an area of unused space on top of the house. But more that that it could have some real benefits for the environment and my own bottom line. You see urban areas, with all their concrete and asphalt absorb a lot of heat during the summer creating what is called a heat island effect, making cities 6 to 10 degrees hotter then the surrounding area. Hotter summers mean more air conditioning more A/C means higher energy bills. That's where a green roof comes in, on a summer day the surface of a traditional rood can get up to 190 degrees while a green roof stays at an even 70-80 degrees. This keeps the inside of the house cooler since heat is not being gained by the roof. Also it helps with reducing runoff since rain is absorbed by the plants. It makes so much sense that Germany has made green roofs part of it building codes. So now the question should I invest in a solar roof or a green roof? Maybe both?

Frankin-meat?

2006-03-21T13:40:00.000-05:00

For you meat eaters and (non-meat eaters as well) out there, if you could eat meat that did not come from the killing or harm of any animal would you? What if that meat was grown in a lab? Scientists have for a couple of years new been working on growing meat in a test tube, sometimes called In-Vitro Meat or Cultured Meat. Think about the possibilities, no fears of mad cow or avian flu, or the environmental destruction from large scale agribusiness. The cruelty associated with raising animals for food would be eliminated. I know the idea might seem unsettling, but what is more unsettling, killing and dissecting animals to eat them or growing sheets of "meat" in a clean room free from disease, hormones, pesticides, cruelty?

Of course what will happen to farm animals if this catches on? Will the cow and the chicken go extinct?

Solar Dreaming

2006-03-15T20:32:00.000-05:00

Here's a idea i've been toying with for a while. Putting solar panels on the roof. With electrical rates going up this might be good time to reexamine this idea. One good thing to come out of the recent energy bill (in among the handouts for oil companies, but don't get me started) was tax incentives for installing solar and buying energy efficient appliances. In addition to federal incentives states also have programs if you can find them. In maryland there is a grant program although it has a long waiting list. Also maryland has net metering meaning that if my solar panels are generating more power than I am using then my meter will run backwards and credit my electrical bill. It's a cool concept, but is now a good time to go solar. There are some really cool advances in solar that are coming to market that could reduce the cost of installation and make them more efficient at collecting the energy of the sun.

There is a seminar in Jessup, MD on Saturday, April 8th on residential solar and wind power if you want to learn more.

Spring is here!

2006-03-09T09:02:00.000-05:00

It's almost here, my favorite time of the year. When it starts to get warmer and the flowers bloom and life seems a little better all around. There are signs all over, the crocus are coming up and i've seem plenty of robins (of course in our area i don't think the robins ever leave, but that's beside the point). For a jump start on spring we're going to the Philadelphia Flow show Interested in forming a caravan up there let me know.

Mutant Food

2006-03-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

I've been collecting what I classify as "Mutant M&Ms" which for whatever reason (perhaps a radiation source in our work lunch room) seem to be very prevalent in the packages of peanut M&Ms. For a while it was only orange ones which made me hypothesis that it was a genetic disorder associated with the genes for the orange pigmentation but then I found several blue ones with similar characteristics so I can only assume it is must be an environmental cause. I've read about mutant frogs being a sign of an environmental contaminant so this is likely the cause, but why just M&M why not Skittles or even regular M&Ms. I thought maybe it was because M&Ms are bioindicators but then I found this site with other effected species. MoFA

As i side note my collection has been slowly disappearing. Could it be someone is stealing them as part of an elaborate coverup of a worldwide epidemic of food mutation? I should say any more.

Jefferson Revolution

2006-03-04T00:44:00.000-05:00

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
Thomas Jefferson

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny”
Thomas Jefferson

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”
Thomas Jefferson

New old look

2006-03-02T19:17:00.000-05:00

I got right down into the guts of this blog and modified it to be more like my previous incarnation. Let me know what you think.

Fictional Future

2006-03-01T00:22:00.000-05:00

The following is an except from a history of the future

...

After the flu pandemic of 2023 and the jihad wars that followed, humanity was finally ready for a change. When faced with great peril and the very real consequences of human alteration of the climate people begin to wake up and see if things didn’t change and didn’t change quickly humanity might not make it through the rest of the century. With the success of Meta states people were no longer tied to the whims of classical geographical nation states. The Contract had eliminated the need for top down leadership driven by power, it was replaced with local, regional and global cyber Contract based confederations. The Contract provided the framework for real free trade and commerce to all cosigners of the contract. Under this new framework of interconnected e-society the collective good and personal freedoms were both provided for. Everyone growing up in this new world learned that when they were ready they could choice the Contract that wished to join. Once part of a Contract they had the rights to submit modifications to the contract as they felt were needed. Or leave the Contract to find one that better met their needs. The largest Contracts were the EnlightenedCommercialist, theGreens, and the FreeUrbanites, but there were many others, the neoChristains the postZionists where but a hand full of groups still clinging to the idea of the theocratic state and in a sense they finally achieved it. But fewer and fewer people still followed the old world religions given that most of the holy places were now great radioactive valleys of glass and ash and yet God never lifted a finger to stop the destruction.

Tara-forming once the dream of off world colonies is now a necessity on earth to reverse the effects of centuries of mans excesses. Most people born in the early part of the century who had lived through the great cataclysms of the 20’s and 30’s were stunned at just how quickly the world came together to face these growing problems. Once the old centers of power fell apart net communities filled the gap. These communities became real communities in the form of the Contract and opens-source lightweight framework for net enabled democracy. The more connected and involved in the process people became the more effective the new framework became. These new communities formed around common interests rather then the arbitrary accident of birth.

Pod Polution

2006-02-28T00:11:00.000-05:00

I listen to public radio a lot. In our area public radio is on 88.1 which is the first station on the dial. This also happens to be the default channel for those FM transmitters that people use to broadcast stuff from their iPods to their car stereos. So I often get treated to what other drivers are listening too while sitting at traffic lights. I’ve heard all kinds of things, religious music, hip hop, books on tape, etc. The best was a self help seminar. So the next time you use your iTrip remember that someone else might be listening.

Kill Your Television

2006-02-28T00:07:00.000-05:00

We watched Fahrenheit 451recently. It has always been one of my favorite books. If you have not read or seen the movie, it takes place in a future where all books are banned and fireman burn books instead of put out fires. It is thought that books cause people distress and people need to be placated and happy so they don’t question their leaders. Though we have not reached that point it is alarming how true it is becoming. You don’t need to ban books to achieve the same effect. TV is having a similar effect, we sit in front of the tube for hours letting it entertain us and keep us from doing other things. We watch TV instead of reading or interacting with others (or protesting the way things are going). People wonder why in this country people aren’t rioting in the streets about what our leaders are doing like in other countries recently. I think to a large extent it is because of the prevalence of television in our lifestyle and the apathy it breeds. Check out http://www.turnoffyourtv.com for more.
I’m not saying all TV is bad, there are many things I like and I think are good on TV. It is bad when it becomes a replacement for human interaction. When all you do is come home and sit in front of the tube, and sink hours into watching then it is a problem. For my part I will try to cut down my television viewing and devote more time to other activities.

Power to the People

2006-02-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

With the growing threats of global warming, will we be able to meet our energy needs in the future without destroying our atmosphere? I read a book recently that offers some compelling alternatives to the traditional alternative of Solar and wind power.“The Scientist, the Madman, the Thief and their Lightbulb”, talks about the unknown history of “fuel-less” energy, the strange worlds of cold fusion, magnetic energy, and zero-point energy. Was cold fusion really a scam or was it prematurely dismissed without enough investigation. Evidence suggest that maybe we should take a second look. Or what about zero-point energy, if you’ve ever seen an episode of Stargate you will be familiar with the ZPM (zero point module). The basic idea is that empty space is not really empty at all, it is a seething cauldron of energy and quantum particles that if tapped could offer an almost endless supply of energy. Is this science fiction or as the book claims, science fact. Have these possible new sources of cheep, clean energy been suppressed by “main-stream” science and other interests, what Arthur C. Clarke calls this “The biggest scandal in the history of science”. I’m pretty skeptical about these things, especially when they seem to violate the laws of conservation of energy and thermodynamics but it is an intriguing read and who knows, the answer to the energy crisis could be here. If you want to borrow the book let me know.

Government 2.0

2006-02-27T23:57:00.000-05:00

I’ve had this idea for a while, would it be possible to have a government that is really “by the people and for the people”. Would it be possible to structure government like an Open-Source software project? If you are not familiar with open source software it is software developed by a community of developers who make contributions to the project. The community uses the software and if they see an issue or a feature that they would like they write the code and give it back to the community. Is it possible to apply this to government? Instead of congress citizens would propose and debate legislation. I’m not really sure how it would all work but i think that is part of the process. you start with a core of principles and we all work to improve it, to make sure it provides the rights, service and freedoms required by all citizens. I did some searching and found someone else with the same idea I had, The minimal compact: An open-source constitution for post-national states. It is an interesting idea, one that might become the basis for the government of Utopia.

Life in Utopia

2006-02-27T23:50:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to take a moment and explain why i chose to call my blog “Life in Utopia”. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of utopia, from society of Atlantis to the communes of the 60’s I’ve always been interested in the perfection of society. Ok I know society can’t be perfect as long as humans are human but we can try. Many of my posting have to do with the components of this better world I dream of. I hope that this blog can be a place where we can all share our ideas on building a better world. I don’t want it to just be my voice so if you have ideas let me know by post a comment. Thanks for reading.