Just wondering….

UAE (Dubai) just made the list of places I would never want to be near:

British tourist Keith Brown was sentenced to four years in prison after Dubai customs officers found a 0.003g trace of cannabis stuck to his shoe.

“If they find any amount - no matter how minute - it will be enough to attract a mandatory four-year prison sentence.

“What many travellers may not realise is that they can be deemed to be in possession of such banned substances if they can be detected in their urine or bloodstream, or even in tiny, trace amounts on their person.”

British resident Cat Le-Huy was arrested in Dubai for carrying Melatonin jet-lag tablets, which are sold over the counter in the US and Dubai.

Mr Le-Huy told BBC News he was forced to sign a document in Arabic and was refused a translator.

He said once the tablets were proved to be Melatonin, police took what he described as dirt from his bag and said they were now testing it to see if it was cannabis.

Tracy Wilkinson was held in custody for eight weeks before customs officers accepted the codeine she was carrying had been prescribed by her doctor for back pains.

Meanwhile, a Swiss national is serving a four-year jail term after three poppy seeds from a bread roll he ate at Heathrow airport were found on his clothes.

Apparently, people go to Dubai for the “golden” beaches. Me? I would want to stay away from any place that is going to send me to jail for poppy seeds.

Some places just are not worth visiting. What sucks is that some of these people were caught up in this were just transiting at Dubai. So this undoubtedly means that there are other places I will not visit as a result.

I understand the very real moral dilemmas around abortion. But if you want to deny abortions, then this is the ugly life sentence you are condemning a young girl to. A young girl who has not committed a crime. Who is not guilty of anything other than doing what she sees others doing openingly, freely. The only difference between her and the others… her body’s biological timing was wrong.

For that should she be condemned to a life of poverty and no dreams?

Read this please:

The average teen girl would be led to believe that teen pregnancy doesn’t ruin adolescence, but instead brings lavish amounts of attention, an adoring and adorable teen father, and an endless supply of parental support. The reality for most teen moms could not be more different. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, eight in 10 teen fathers do not marry the mother of their first child. Kids without involved fathers are twice as likely to drop out of school, twice as likely to abuse alcohol or drugs, twice as likely to end up in jail, and two to three times more likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems. Children who live apart from their fathers are also five times more likely to be poor than children with both parents at home.

Teen mothers, typically left to go it alone, are less likely to complete the education necessary to qualify for a well-paying job — in fact, parenthood is the leading cause of school drop out among teen girls. College then becomes the remotest of possibilities. Less than two percent of mothers who have children before age 18 complete college by the age of 30.

Too often heartbreaking sacrifices are also foisted on the child of a teenage mom. The children of teen mothers are more likely to be born prematurely at low birthweight compared to children of older mothers, which raises the probability of infant death and disease, mental retardation, and mental illness. Children of teen mothers are 50 percent more likely to repeat a grade and are less likely to complete high school. The children of teen parents also suffer higher rates of abuse and neglect (two times higher).

Teen girls and their children are not the only ones paying dearly. Teen childbearing in the United States costs taxpayers (federal, state, and local) approximately $9.1 billion each year. Most of the costs are associated with services to address the negative consequences detailed above.

My sister is just such a victim. As a result of her teen pregnancy, she was kicked out of the private school she was attending (the father was not) - she never completed high school except for years later in the form of a GED. And has suffered economically for years as a result. And this is for a pregnancy that ended in a stillborn birth.

My mother for years had worked a hot line for Problem Pregnancy Help in Michigan. She took many calls from girls who did not know the basic biology behind how pregnancy happens. Some examples that I remember from her conversations with me:

• A girl who considered herself a virgin because her boyfriend always pulled out before orgasm. (Newsflash: a guy leaks sperm long before orgasm)
• A girl who had thought she was only fertile when her period was happening (the opposite of the reality)

If you don’t want abortions, then you must accept a life-long punishment for teen mothers OR you must be willing to talk about sex and pregnancy prevention in school. Because right now, girls are getting their (mis)information from each other and from Cosmo / Ms teen magazines and from older guys who want to have sex with them.

Most teen girls who end up having sex are having sex with older guys. A 19-, 20-year-old can easily manipulate a 14-, 15-year-old girl who is entering a period of her life when looks, social acceptance, and identity are all being questioned and reevaluated. A guy with money telling a vulnerable girl that she is the hottest chick in her class, can easily get her to sleep with him.

For that should she be condemned to poverty?

She was a victim here.

Ronald Mirman = Completely missing the point.

What a complete m*r*n!

“Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”
–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Dreaming of going to Mars, focuses and inspires humans. We need big dreams to accomplish anything! Everything you listed is not an inspirational dream that will inspire and motivate people to greatness.

Maybe Mars, isn’t the thing to inspire us to greatness… but maybe it is!

But lets think about what the inspiration to greatness that Mars could result in:

• A multinational effort
• Work on bio-manipulation so that astronauts could withstand radiation exposure
• Work on determining how bears hibernate and apply that to humans.
• Determine how salamanders regenerate limbs so that any space accidents suffered by the astronauts can be self-repairing.
• Work on increasing the ability of astronauts to function in a low O2 atmosphere
• Determine how to prevent muscular and skeletal degeneration in a low-g environment.
• Work on cellular regeneration to avoid possibility of a severe injury destroying the mission.
• Enable humans to digest and process more food.
• Enable humans to create a lichen-like symbiotic relationship with algae so that humans can create some of their own food directly from grow lamps and their own CO2.

Freaking dream big!

In short — reaching for Mars may be the inspiration that results in humans bioengineering their own evolution.

…. because this is what happens when unregulated financial institutions can destroy the community:

From Clusterf*ck

Limits on executive pay at companies who accept government money. This makes sense in theory, but in practice it would be a nightmare (how much is enough? Who gets to decide? For how long?). Paulson also believes it would deter companies from taking the money. He’s certainly got that right.

Sounds good to me … the part about the banks not taking the money. We should make the terms so onerous that only the truly desperate will take the money.

From findlaw:

filers with higher incomes won’t be allowed to use Chapter 7, but will instead have to repay at least some of their debt under Chapter 13. All debtors will have to get credit counseling before they can file a bankruptcy case — and additional counseling on budgeting and debt management before their debts can be wiped out.

The first step in figuring out whether you can file for Chapter 7 is to measure your “current monthly income” against the median income for a household of your size in your state. If your income is less than or equal to the median, you can file for Chapter 7. If it is more than the median, however, you must pass “the means test” — another requirement of the new law — in order to file for Chapter 7.

[The banks must] complete credit counseling with an agency approved by the United States Trustee’s office. (To find an approved agency in your area, go to the Trustee’s website, www.usdoj.gov/ust, and click “Credit Counseling and Debtor Education.”) The purpose of this counseling is to give you an idea of whether you really need to file for bankruptcy or whether an informal repayment plan would get you back on your economic feet.

Counseling is required even if it’s obvious that a repayment plan isn’t feasible or you are facing debts that you find unfair and don’t want to pay. You are required only to participate, not to go along with any repayment plan the agency proposes. However, if the agency does come up with a repayment plan, you will have to submit it to the court, along with a certificate showing that you completed the counseling, before you can file for bankruptcy.

The Means Test

The purpose of the means test is to figure out whether you have enough disposable income, after subtracting certain allowed expenses and required debt payments, to make payments on a Chapter 13 plan. To find out whether you pass the means test, you subtract certain allowed expenses and debt payments from your current monthly income. If the income that’s left over after these calculations is below a certain amount, you can file for Chapter 7.

If the change in the bankruptcy law was so great for consumers (and forced so many into bankruptcy) It should be just fine for the banks and everyone of Paulson’s friends.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Chris Anderson is on such the wrong track about energy security.

He does get the idea of reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled. Anything we can do to reduce the miles that need to be traveled to accomplish a task will lead to energy security and independence.

Man, oh, man …but…everything else…. thumbs down…..

1. EU’s policy on GMO was driven by the choice of its *people* (as in a democracy lets its people decide). Or does Chris now believe that you should not be allowed to decide what kinds of food you eat?
2. Africa doesn’t want GMO because they don’t want to have to pay Monsanto to grow crops that African farmers have grown for centuries. African farmers like most indigenous farmers save seed from one crop to start the next. GMO seed from Monsanto means that those farmers have to pay for the privilege of what they have done for free for generations. In a case in Canada — a farmer was accused by Monsanto of ’stealing’ their corn seed because the GMO Monsanto corn had cross-pollinated with his corn stock. Whether or not you believe the defendant farmer is immaterial. Why would Africans be stupid enough to make let Monsanto, et.al. control their food supply?
3. Africa is the original source for barley (13 or so subspecies). Coming in with a GMO pollutes the seed stock. To see what I mean just google for “GMO Corn pollution”.
4. Blaming environmentalists for the lack of LNG terminals is just wrong. Most people don’t want to have an LNG terminal anywhere near them because if an LNG tanker is ever successfully attacked (and its already been attempted) everyone with waterside property will be crispy. There is a reason the Coast Guard establishes a 2 mile security zone in front, 1 mile behind, and 500 yards on either side of an LNG ship.
5. Natural Gas is another fossil fuel that is running out. Its prices are going up for the same reason that oil in general is going up … increased demand.
6. Corn prices have shot up because the US has decided that it would be a good idea to burn our food in our cars in the form of ethanol rather than eat it.
7. Our agriculture is a very fossil fuel intensive endeavor. Fertilizers are made from fossil fuels. Farmers use fossil fuel hungry tractors and equipment. The food is grown thousand of miles away from where it is consumed. And lastly, meat production is even more intensive as it takes all that fossil fuel in the form of corn and then feeds it to cattle. So we should not be surprised that fossil fuel prices sky-rocketing results in high food prices.
8. Nuclear — No nuclear power plants are being built because the economics simply are not there. Nuclear power plants come in only one size — extra large. Power companies are trying to adjust their production with the demand. A nuclear power plant is a decade-long bet on a huge increase in demand. This is a very dangerous bet that no sane energy executive will make. California has shown that it is possible to reduce per-capita energy consumption without severe noticeable economic issues. California has been doing this for decades (even before the Enron fiasco). So an energy executive has got to decide today that in 2018 electrical demand is going to be so high that any advances in solar, wind, geothermal + any advances in energy efficiency is going to justify an all-or-nothing bet on a nuclear power plant.
9. Nuclear — any nuclear power plant needs an enriched power source. More nuclear power plants means more incentive for other less stable nations to decide they want their own nuclear power plant — which of course makes it easier for nuclear fuel to fall into the wrong hands. Do you think it is a great idea for nuclear technology to be spread everywhere?
10. Nuclear — There really isn’t that much uranium in the world. And as this article explains most uranium comes from …. other countries. So once again our energy security would be out of our control!

Here is what the “Reason” Foundation says about High Speed Rail:

If you don’t want to read the whole thing:

• a Highway project in Massachusetts ended up cost more money than planned for — as we all know highway projects always cost way too much.
• the US can’t get off its ass and build anything faster than the Acela. (at a time when the French have tested a train that could beat a plane flying the JFK-LAX route)
• the California HSR route is longer than the Acela line and somehow that means the percentage market capture should be smaller — because as we all know people take High-Speed Rail to get to their neighbor’s house or their kitchen.
• Apparently the species of homo sapiens (homo sillius?) that lives in the US is different than the species living in Japan and Europe — so therefore anything that other species does does not apply to homo sillius.
• High-Speed Rail apparently is supposed to compete against Greyhound on a price basis and against planes based on time. I didn’t realize that the business bus traveler was such an important target market.
• All that stuff in the latest Star Trek movie — you know …. those cool transporters that instantly zap you from place to place … are already in place. Those transporters will be used to instantly zap you out of your house, past airport security to your airline seat. Travelers will not have to arrive at the airport 2 hours before their flight. At the other end, the transporters will get travelers from LAX to where they really want to be. This will keep that airline flight of 80 min time competitive with a 150min HSR trip. The bad news is that sometimes TSA regulations result in you arriving unclothed because TSA needs to send your clothes for “extra screening”. Hospital gowns will be provided while you are waiting for your clothes to catch up. Remember the adage to deal with stage fright “Imagine your audience is wearing no clothes?” well now you will not have to imagine…
• Businesses survive by satisfying the “homo consumius” species. politicians survive by satisfying the “homo votius” species. Once again, new subspecies that our high school textbooks sadly have failed to document.
• Bonds are a bad idea. investment is a bad idea.

Offered without comment (but lots of laughter!) (comment 55) :

Most Esteemed Santa Clara County Voter,

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mbaike Ngorongoro Guardino IV. I am an agent acting on behalf of my patrons, a group comprised of many esteemed personages including Mr. Matumbo McEnery who descends from a glorious line dating back to the great Mnorman Nmineta.

I am most humbly and respectfully requesting your assistance in a matter that may be of some mutual fiduciary beneficience. Please indulge me in your kind patients as I explain to you the situation.

We are eager to show to the rest of the world that our kingdom is a world class kingdom comparable in importance to the great kingdoms of LALand and SFLand.

Several years ago my benefactors, through some very clever dealings called Measure A, were able to begin acquiring a considerable stream of revenue with which it was their desire to provide the people with a transportation system that would be the envy of the world. These funds have now grown to a generous amount (USD $8,000,000,000) and a prosperous community called VTA has grown and flourished.

Due to a temporary problem of liquidity, the magnificent transportation system has not yet lived up to it’s promise but there is at present, a new opportunity for my patrons’ dreams to be realized. All that is required is access to your bank account.

Please sir, or madam, whichever the case may be. It is essencial that you take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Please try to persuade your friends and neighbors too unless they know anything about math or history. Avoid these people. They are often what my people call “mnaysayers”.

Please respond with your bank account number by voting YES.

Humbly and Respectfully,
Mr. Mbaike Ngorongoro Guardino IV

Normally I report this kind of stuff as spam but I think this time it’s different. This guy sounds so nice. He seems so genuine. He really does sound as though he has MY best interest at heart. I think I WILL vote for that sales tax increase.
Posted by John Galt in San Jose

Its a little late. but its about time that the “professional” media got their facts right about what Al Gore said about the Internet:

Ms. Pelosi was asked whether Congress would accept Mr. Gore’s energy challenge. “It is absolutely possible to do so,” she said.

She added that without Mr. Gore, “there would be no Netroots Nation; we would simply not have the technology.”

As a reminder of the flap caused years ago — when he got tagged with having said he “invented” the Internet, although he had not used that word and had, in fact, helped legislatively to create it — he smiled at Ms. Pelosi’s comments and said, “I think I’ll refrain from saying it.”

Video clips at Ustream

I want to quote practically the entire article it is just so funny!

Bryan Carisone, a heating and air-conditioning contractor in Raritan, N.J., “absolutely loves” his new GMC Denali XL. But in June, one week after he bought it, he pulled into a station on a near-empty tank and watched the total climb higher and higher — to $109.

“It just about killed me,” Mr. Carisone said.

Well that’s love for you … a fickle beast!

For decades, the $100 barrel stood as a hypothetical outlier in doom-and-gloom conversations about future oil prices. And nobody could even imagine an American family paying $100 to fill the tank.

“Nobody”? Oh, I guess you just meant people like DEMOCRAT Rep. John “Denial” Dingell (D-MI) and Former Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). But who knows maybe the automobile industry will accept reality?

But the future is here. Oil passed $100 a barrel in January and now seems headed toward $150 a barrel. Gasoline prices surpassed $4 a gallon on June 8, stalled for a while, and have been rising again in recent days, setting a record Saturday.

Well that’s what happens with the dollar in the toilet. China and India becoming economic powerhouses with lots of cars. Living the American dream!

By late spring, owners of pickups and sport utility vehicles with 30-gallon tanks, like the Cadillac Escalade ESV and Chevrolet Suburban, started paying $100 or more to fill a near-empty tank. As gas prices continue to rise — the national average stood at about $4.10 a gallon Saturday — membership in the triple-digit club is growing. Now, even not-so-gargantuan Toyota Land Cruisers and GMC Yukons can cost $100 to fill up.

But still incredibly oversized.

During the first five months of 2008, about 11 percent of American drivers said they bought 24 gallons or more at their last fill-up, according to a survey of 81,000 drivers by the NPD Group, a market research firm — which at today’s prices would place many of them at or around $100.

Just think what it is going to look like with case at $7/gallon. Oh By the way — In England drivers pay $12-$15/gallon.

For people who love their big vehicles, the pain is acute.

Good. Probably about as acute as the pain the rest of us feel when we get hit by these overstuffed monsters.

Members of the Chevy Avalanche Fan Club of North America prize the Avalanche, a large sport utility vehicle, for its versatility, including a rear cab wall that slides forward for a larger pickup bed or backward for more passenger room.

With the extra pollution option included at no additional charge!

But the Avalanche also has a 31-gallon tank, which would cost $127 to fill at Saturday’s national average price. Even the truck’s most dedicated fans find that galling. David H. Obelcz, who founded the club in 2002 and is still a member of the board, sold his Avalanche because he could not afford gasoline for it.

Reality sucks. Oh I am sorry - might those treehuggers have been right? Who hates CAFE now?
Oh the sweet, sweet, delicious irony!

Thirty members of the fan club’s Arizona chapter used to attend off-roading and other events three times a month. But now that Avalanche owners pay more than $100 per tank, the club is lucky to attract 10 members once every two months, said Eric Tolliver, a chapter leader.

So does that mean you are not going to be tearing up BLM lands as much — I got to love that!

Eric Laugen, a firefighter in Seattle, is administrator of the Chevy Avalanche Fan Club of North America. For a trip to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, he wanted to drive his truck because it has enough room for his fishing and camera gear, as well as space in the back to sleep. But he rode his motorcycle instead. That means pitching a tent every night, and no fishing.

“I looked at how much gas would cost in the Avalanche. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.”

Did it ever?

Hummer clubs are hurting, too. In Nebraska, Ric Hines of the Omaha Hummer Owner Group — known as Omahog — stopped doing off-road trips this summer and started riding his recumbent bicycle instead.

“Omahog” — what an appropriate name. “Hog” as in “hogging resource for yourself without caring about others”. But all the way to a bicycle — not bad!

Mark R. Price, founder of the Illiana Hummer Club in the Chicago area, owns three Hummer H1s, which get about eight miles per gallon. “A lot of our members won’t travel 70 miles just to support a parade anymore,” Mr. Price said. “People wait for something a little closer.”

Shit man - sell one of the H1-s. Bet the scrap metal value of those would get you at least 2-3 gallons of gas for the other 2 Hummers.

Families that were accustomed to the convenience of sport utility vehicles are having to cut back as well. Colleen Hammond of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, loves packing her three kids and all their soccer gear into her 2000 GMC Yukon XL. But she hates paying $160 to fill the 38.5-gallon tank.

Newsflash-lady. It doesn’t it is still over $100/tank. Why don’t you just get something reasonable with a roof rack?

Last month, she parked the Yukon in her driveway and borrowed her friend’s Toyota Land Cruiser.

Her friend should just make Colleen sell the Yukon XL and buy the Land Cruiser. Driving is more than just gas. Its tires, insurance, oil, and maintenance. Maybe Colleen could follow Angela Eversole or Kelli Stille’s fine example?

Steve Burtch bought a Dodge Ram truck last year, when gas cost $3.75, because he thought gas prices had peaked and would start coming down. Instead, he pumped his first $100 tank in June. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to keep this up,” said Mr. Burtch, 43, who lives in Marion, Ohio.

ROTFL. Tough it out. Be a man! Who’s the boss? You or the oil companies? Mano a mano in the ring, you can do it! Don’t quit now!

Edmunds.com compiled sales data showing that in the last seven model years, Americans have bought 25.4 million vehicles with tanks 24 gallons or larger — the point at which three figures is now a real possibility. A few big trucks and sport utility vehicles have tanks exceeding 30 gallons.

What is the scrap-metal value of those big boys?

But people who try to pump $100 worth of gas often find that they cannot, since most pumps that take credit cards shut off at $75 to prevent someone with insufficient funds or a stolen credit card from running off with gas. In addition, some older pumps still are not capable of registering triple-digit bills.

And just a few months ago we were talking about older pumps (or should we call them “wallet siphons”), not being able to handle gas priced above $3.99/gallon.

“The bill was $104.98, which was a real shock,” said Mr. Chamberlain, 71, of Marion, Ohio. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

Bet you vote Republican and thought the Iraq War would give you more of the sweet, sweet, light sweet crude-didn’t you?