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Start at 3 minutes into it. 2;22 seconds if you are concerned about Social Security too.



Here's how competition and getting rid of insurance companies will improve health care.




Now,I know Stossel can be a bit one sided and had a few instances of being dishonest, but his ideas in this video are pretty good. I would like to add that preventative medicine is key. Most diseases are caused by lifestyle and lack of knowledge of how the body and health works- therefore they shouldn't be paid for by taxes because the individual should take care of their own health. In those rare cases of crisis or catastrophe I believe that the government should help out - but those things happen less often than how often people usually go to the doctor. Also, the REAL problem in the US health care system lies with the insurance companies, and those problems need to be addressed.

If you want to understand the economy, why the dollar is falling, why inflation is rising (why your money is getting worth less and less), how the fed cutting interest rates actually hurts the economy and how this all relates to the extremely rich elite people controlling the economy for their own selfish gain at the expense of the middle and lower classes- watch this.




another video on the economy




How THE WAR is costing us trillions and thousands of lives




and he supports the CONSTITUTION

"A musician must make music, a painter must paint a poet must write, if he is ever to be at peace with himself. "
Abram Maslow

Classroom learning is such a crappy way to learn. Sit down, shut up, let me tell you the facts (very slowly). I've learned more from Wikipedia and quicker than I ever have at school. I don't focus on the details, I get right to the point- like they teach in Europe.

Had to clean up my friend's list.  Nothing personal.

I know many of you use Pandora.com or many other types of internet radio. The government want to put a stop to it.

(Read more here) Internet radio helps the consumer get music  in a more direct, personal way and help the industry. Please sign this petition and let them know it actually HELPS the industry, not hurt it.

Please spread the word!

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at age 84

Wow. This has got to be the first famous person who has ever died who I actually care about and will miss and actually inspired an "OH MY GOD!" I wonder how  I will feel when certain others will pass.

Wow. And I was just on Amazon a few days ago reading reviews for Man Without a Country.

Ah damn. A wonderful cynical social commentator who will be missed.

I have yet to read his stuff, but from the looks of it, he has some amazing stuff. He will most likely be a favorite.

What I really want to do is be deep and do things that take all day to do. I like to write and read, but once I get engrossed in them I want the whole day to be influenced by it. Take a walk by a river, a conversation on a bench and let the day go with the flow. Ah how I hate the regular work week of 5 days on 2 days off, I really can't work that way. When I'm on, I'm on; when I'm on break, I'm on break and want to be on for at least 3 days in a row. People always ask me "What do you want to do after college?" and the simple answer is, "Whatever allows me to work 3-4 days a week and leaves the other time for me.  I have a slew of ideas, I just need the time to investigate them.

Humanity controls so much and because of this I believe we loose some of our humility. We take nature for granted and believe we as a species can do whatever we want with little repercussions. Science has virtually eliminated population control (disease, high infant mortality) and now our planet is reaching epic population levels of which it may not be able to support forever (especially with the way we use our resources now). Good things have come too... but in the end I think that our species greatest strength, our intelligence, is also it's greatest weakness. We very well may be the first species on the planet to cause our own demise- whether through WMDs, lack of resources, or some other way.

This is something I can write about for hours, so many sides to look at in this issue of which I have spent countless hours pondering over, but I may be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. Care to counter me?

...and it is. We have progressed tremendously in many areas (no so much in others) but just think about this fact. Science is uncovering new discoveries everyday, constantly putting our prior amount of knowledge to shame. Sometimes this restructures our whole concept of reality or previous knowledge and information paradigm. We humans think we are so smart and that we know everything. We don't. What we know is probably a spec of dust compared to what exists.  Fumbling in the dark, that is all we are doing on this planet. And, since the amount of what we don't know is so large, we cannot determine whether this is a good or bad thing.

You know what puzzles me? Who are these people who answer you within 5 minutes on Yahoo Answers?  The ones who answer your LJ community requests? Who friend 638 people on Myspace for the hell of it? Who read a random person's Myspace comments for fun (that is why bands comment on other's profiles right? For publicity) ? Who have 39 blogs on their 'blogroll'. It's starting to creep me out.

What are you doing with your time? Do you really keep up with all of that? Why?

When I sit individuals down and ask them "What is it that you really want to do with your life?" they rarely say "Keep up with Martha Stewarts blog (among other things)! So why do they do it?

Yeah, I know, procrastination, a little non-think time to get out of some work, but really, 38 blogs? Isn't there something better you can do with your precious break time? If you have read things like this countless times before, I apologize and you may continue on to your next journal. I will now speak to those who haven't.

Stop wasting your time on pointless net surfing or thinking your better than the suckers who watch TV. You're still wasting your time. Think of what you really want and love in life: friends, a better job, ect ect (check out 43 things if you need an idea for what to do, there are no shortage of ideas)  and anytime you feel the urge to break, do something constructive related to those things, especially in the evening when you have more unstructured time. You can read a few blogs here and there (what's wrong with a bit of light reading every once in a while?) but keep off the pointless Myspace comment reading. You might have a demanding job and kids in your future, use your youth now.

A guy from LifeHacker's or 43 Folders realized one day he was wasting way too much time with worthless internet crap and decided to cut back and replace it with the things he loves but "never has time to get around to". It's been months since the change and he said "I hadn't read a piece of literature for years and I I swear I won't THAT ever happen again!".

The information surge is here to stay, but you don't have to get caught up in it all. It's more important to know what your don't need to know and focus only on the most important things.

Could you be a Focusing effect ?— prediction bias occurring when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome

How about a Illusion of control? — the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes which they clearly cannot.


or Neglect of probability ?— the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.

I see these all the time, even in myself. Handy list to keep in mind :) Like when I first learned about Logical Fallacys. I NEVER forgot that day in school!


More  Cognitive Biases on Wikipedia

Gosh, to think in the past how mundane life really was. Life really was slow and monotonous and not very mentally stimulating. Churn butter, tend to the fields ect. It's amazing that the human mind is even capable of such abstract and higher level thinking when most of humanity has been hunting, sit around the fire and (for a very short time) farming. How the mind even has the capabilities to grasp such recent things such as biophysics and complex story lines is amazing. Makes you wonder what the human mind really can do. And why and how. How can the same mind both tolerate long years of monotony and drudgery and also be able to mentally sift through years human discoveries to formate new solutions on a routine basis as a college professor in a busy city with several outside interests to keep his mind busy all day.

There is so much we don't know about the human mind. Or, quite possible, there is so much I don't know and has already been explained.

1. experiments:
      When I say experiments, I mean may things. I'll stick to the self -experimentation, (which doesn't include drugs btw). Trying out for a play to just see if I get a part, messing with a paintbrush to see what I come up with, going down the road to see where it goes, seeing people interact; it's all one big experiment.
   2. individuality:
      Which btw doesn't forget about community and other people too. I'm quite individualistic and non-conformist.
   3. livejournal:
      Ah, when I first discovered LJ I knew it was for me. I have written in my journal my whole life and never really knew others had done the same.
      I could write and have people comment on it. Wow.
   4. mystery:
      Life is one big mystery. It keeps us on our toes, brings out that survivial instinct out of us, helps us escape the mundane.
   5. political activism:
      The state of the country can only survive if educated member of society pay attention to it and voice their opinions..
   6. relationships:
      I love friendships.
   7. small towns:
      Where people smile at you and mean it and it's quiet enough to think. I love it.
   8. writing:
      I'm always looking for a story.



.

It's the action, not the fruit
of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may
not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any
fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may
never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing,
there will be no result.

Mahatma Gandhi

I was reading this article and I was reminded for some reason about 7th grade at my middle school. We were outside reading a story in English class, I don't remember what, but it was a nice day (I think fall). It reminded me of reallly how stupid stuff gets in the way of real life. This day will remain perpetually beautiful in my mind. I wish I could get it back. Time keeps on rolling. How much potential I had at that time, I did not know.

The days of youth where it was still OK to just try stuff out and appreciate the beauty of many things without having to choose a favorite. The beauty of just being able to enjoy things and try things out without having to become attached or choose one and make money in that direction. I wish, as almost all do, sometime to return to the simplicity of youth. Ah, and it is possible, those are what interim years are for. Everyone should have one every few years, but I'm changing the subject.

Oh the things I could have learned, did, ect. If I had attended a Waldof school, had reasonably intelligent peers, not kept to myself all the time, saw things from a grander picture of more then just myself. Beautiful times looking back, mostly because of what could have been more then what actually happened. This makes me so excited about college and not wanting to mess it up. Finally people who are like me. I can be myself and do the things I have always wanted to do. Not all of it, but some, and that will make it so much better then any other school: high school or middle or elementary school.

This is one of my most fundamental beliefs. Life is all about growth, and when I do not grow, I feel stagnated and as if I am missing out. Even a dead time can bring growth if at the end of that you actively learn from the experience.

I feel as if in the past year or so I haven't been growing as much as I could have, even though life has changed and I have actively changed it. I feel as if my mind has not progressed as far it I would like it to have, as far as it should have, as much as it was ment to have. I should be in a different place mentally and physcialy then where I am now- I know it- but so many things had to be tackeled first. I had to build up a structure so I could make sence of incoming data as well as keep up with day to day life- have that secure before I could even hope to attempt to look back to figue out how I even got here. I was unorganized, as simple as that, which isn't good when your life gets in a bad spot, makes it a lot harder to get out.

Life is a whole lot more secure now and I'm looking back and am glad to be able to see the past in a more linear fashion as opposed to a bunch of events that just happened. Makes it a whole lot easier to understand. As some random wise sage once said, "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." (It feels like the end of a high school essay, does it not?)