I am going to try something… hopefully it will spread through the six degrees of separation…

I want to see how the general public feels about an issue, without
resorting to the normal news outlets.  I feel that the majority of
news outlets throughout the world report on the same issues. 
There is little creativity except for how to rephrase what the other
news outlets are saying.  So if you read this and find it either
strikes a nerve or makes you curious, please link to it, reproduce it,
or do whatever it takes to reach a couple more people. 

I would like to get a general opinion on why people think the US is
still involved in Iraq.  and generally the middle east, for that matter…

Here are a couple reasons, off the top of my head:

1. Control over the majority of the world’s oil supply
2. Public relations with political officials in surrounding countries.
• If we’re nice to them maybe they’ll buy more weapons from us and fuel the war some more.
• This way, we can convince to the American public that someone wants our military over there.
3. To prove that we are the international bullies promoting “peace”
4. To use it as a pivot point for that part of the world.
5. An excuse not to address North Korea and/or China
6. A great reason to keep dumping money into the black hole that is the defense budget(s)
7. Something to keep our minds off the fact that Michael Jackson is a pedophile…
8. News stations are required to have something to show… God forbid they show something positive, for a change…

Here are some reasons that just don’t fit with why we’re still there:

1. Capture Saddam… uhm.. we did that
2. Capture Bin
   Laden… apparently that isn’t at the top of the agenda for the current
   administration.  – This priority was twisted into the mess that
   we’re in now.  Rather than go after the one responsible for the NY
   disaster, our “leader” chose to finish his daddy’s dirty work.
3. Spread the joy of capitalism…err democracy.  Think
   about it… does it really work for 90% of the population of the
   US?  Let the people who live there everyday come up with their own
   form of government.

Now, I’ve said this before and I want to say it now.  If we’re
keeping our presence over there to show how mighty we are, then it’s a
losing battle.  If we think people respect that kind of thing,
lets ask the locals how they feel.  I’m not saying that we go back
and play tapes of their response when we took Saddam from power. 
I say we get some true responses aired to the American public. 

So what can we do other than be at war?  I have a great
idea… one that can prove
to
other nations (and more importantly, future generations) that our
leaders can actually use that
glob of material between their ears.  I say we start a great
project or multiple projects.  Something grand in scale, like the
pyramids.  If war only exists to keep people working/productive,
then surely we can divert from that path and do something useful.

To completely show how ingenious we can be, I vote that
we build a giant sphere.  The government could dump billions of
dollars into research for how to develop a perfect sphere (materials,
design, possible uses, etc).  You know… all of that money they
spend trying to figure out how to make jets and weapons more
stealthy.  They could also employ thousands of
workers to work on the sphere.. figure at least a new town could be
started.  That would employ all of those serving overseas, if they
desire.  Consider this idea to be a modern
equivalent to the belief that Michelangelo drew a perfect circle as a
response to the request, made by Pope Julius II, to find someone worthy
to paint the Sistine Chapel.  Making a perfect sphere that can
last the test of time would not be an easy feat.

Now, any project would do… A new space race, for instance.  We
could actually challenge ourselves to establish a lunar colony within
5-10 years.  That is not far fetched, given the proper time and
resources.  Anyway, I just figured the sphere was a neat
idea.  Don’t you think that it would be nice to have something to
show for all of the hard work, rather than people who die before their
time, in a senseless war?  And yeah, I know that there is a
massive project, but honestly, it doesn’t get the attention or
resources it deserves. 

Am I dreaming?  Probably, but it has been proven that anyone can change the world, if they want to…

Via Miguel, this is a pretty interesting read about Robert Fisk’s fear of flying…

If some race (future or extraterrestrial) were to analyze a typical
conversation between two people or say a non-rehearsed radio show, they
would be pretty confused, I would think.  The fact that we insert
the useless “ah” or “uh” randomly, would throw them off…

Think if the Egyptians did that with their hieroglyphics… Maybe that’s why we have such a bitch of a time deciphering them.

The other thing that is on my mind this morning is about apple
juice.  I bought a 15.2 fl oz. bottle of Dole apple juice this
morning… I had heard that apple juice generally contains a lot of
sugars, but this one said “No Sugar Added” on the front.  Flipping
it over, I find that there are 24g of sugars helping to make up 9% of
my daily allowance, per serving.  There are two servings in the
bottle… To me, it seems like they should put “Lots of Sugar Added”
along the front.  But hey… I’ll give Dole the benefit of the
doubt.  I’ll accept that the sugars are natural sugars and apple
juice (squeezed from the apple, itself) contains them and would taste
like shit without them.  It just seems like tricky marketing
trying to tell the user that there is no sugar.

Now, to clear things up… I am not one to watch calories, sugars,
carbs, salts, fat, or whatever craze is popular for the moment.  I
generally eat what my body tells me it is hungry for.  Granted, I
use some intelligence with this… I abstain from eating a double
grande gyro with a side of nachos, at 3:00am cause I’m drunk.  I
realize that if I ate only fruit and veggies, I would be thinner, if
not “healthier.”  But that sucks… I like to live and enjoy what
the earth provides…

Yep, that’s right… I envisioned a nano machine last night.  By
drinking a glass of water (with a couple hundred nanobots), the nano
machines will enter the host’s body and alter the human brain in such a way that will fix
spelling errors.  I will guarantee that the process is safe and plan on introducing the nanobots into myself. 
I am thinking about other implications with these machines… I think I
can program them to give people excellent musical ability, too…
basically the applications are endless.

I’ll start creating these nanobots once I get home, tonight.  If
anyone would like to help fund the project, please donate some funds…
you won’t be forgotten when this hits the market!

I have been frustrated with this for some time now… I’m not a big fan
of standard time.  Currently, Wisconsin uses Central Standard Time (GMT +6)
and observes Daylight Saving Time during the summer months. 

If I could have a voice in the matter, I would switch Wisconsin time to
Eastern Standard Time (GMT +5) without DST.  That way, it would be
like CST w/ DST, with no clock changing.  Now, based off a handy table generated by the Naval
Observatory, the latest sunrise in the last year for Milwaukee, WI was 7:23am while the earliest sunset was 4:17pm.

Moving to EST w/o DST, the latest sunrise would be 8:23am. The
benefit is that the sunset would
be an hour later (during the winter months) making the earliest sunset
around 5:17pm.  To me, it’s not a huge deal, but I spend my
mornings sleeping and driving to work.  I do most of my activities
in the evening, rather than the morning.

Oh… totally unrelated to this, a new version (1.8.0.1677) of FlexWiki was released. I have to admit that it is a nice, welcomed upgrade.

The majority of the content for the site has been converted from the
old software.  It was less than enjoyable converting the gallery,
but now all seems to be happy.  I lost about 10 pictures between
upgrading the server OS and the site software… Ideally, I would have
liked to have not lost anything, but I can deal with 10… it’s better
than loosing them all 🙂

There are still a few things that bug me about this new setup, so I
hope to address those in the next few days.  To name a few:

All of the blog themes will contain the standard site header. 
Add the Google AdSense ads to the page, again.  (Hey, it’s beer money)
Add a tree control to the photo gallery.  The current category navigation sucks.

I’m not totally happy with the style that I chose to go with, so I
might change this at some point.  I just figured that it was
better to get the site upgraded and out there again.  Anyway, if
you run into any problems, let me know.