Politics Today

In 18 months or so there is going to be a presidential election. The President will run again. The Republicans are busy flailing about without any clear nominee. Which makes a debate in May a bit problematic if only 3 people have declared a run.

The person getting huge amounts of press coverage is a real estate mogul with strange hair. But why is he getting press? He is saying all sorts of batshit crazy things because it gets him coverage. It sucks all the oxygen out of the air so no one is talking about anything of substance. The part I find funniest about this candidate is that he has reversed himself from the things he said just 10 years ago. Things about abortion, marriage, even the current President he praised just a year ago.

He is saying he is better at business than everyone else. Well, he did file for bankruptcy 3 times. But it was a business tactic to make it so he didn't have to pay the debts he owed. So he came out of bankruptcy without paying his bills. Brilliant.

He says he would get together with China, sit across the table from them and tell them, "Listen, you've had your fun..." Are you fucking kidding me? Does he have a few Chinese in mind or all 1.3 billion of them? (that would be a big room.) He thinks that tactic will work? They are going to stop manipulating their currency because you talked to them like some tough guy from New Jersey?

He was asked about the right to privacy in the Constitution by a reporter. He said it's in the Constitution. But he didn't know that right is what legalizing abortion was based upon. The Palin moments are not great for an election, but they do create great television.

Running for President has a lot of ego and bravado that goes with it. But if anyone is going to do it, be informed. If you've had 3 wives, don't try to hold yourself up as some moral compass. The last time he was in a church was probably been when he was buying a property to tear it down to build a casino.

Thumbs, Brains , and the Food Chain

Because of the development of thumbs, and the evolution of our brains, we sit atop the food chain. Though this is situational.

First, we have thumbs, but so do most ape species. But we have the larger brain to combine with thumbs and create things like tools, and Iphones. So one of the first things we created that put us at the top of the food chain was weapons. We made spears and arrows and axes with stone heads. Primitive man would hunt or trick lower animals for sustenance. This increased protein intake helped us to evolve even more. But the food chain is a tricky thing which is why it is situational.

Say, for example, a lone hunter were caught in the wild by a sabertooth cat. The cat has the advantage of speed and big pointy teeth. The hunter had few chances. So in this situation the hunter is lower on the food chain.

In modern times the advent of the gun makes the "death curve" very unfair. Hunters with guns have a much better chance to take out any critter out there, no matter how dangerous. (Unless it's something so big that shooting it would just piss it off. i.e. rhinos, hippos, elephants.) A leopard would have a hard time getting the drop on a dude with a gun. But put a man out in the wilderness without a gun, the leopard wins. Unless he happens to run into Tarzan. Tarzan can pretty much kick any animal's ass thus far.

In the ocean it's a bit of a different story. The effectiveness of a gun is greatly reduced. But there's fewer things out there that really are looking for people as a meal. Sharks mainly. But not all sharks look for people to eat. Most shark attacks are mistaken identity, a shark thinking the silhoutte above them is a slow moving seal. So many shark attacks are the shark taking a nibble to see if it is edible and spitting the person out. But that kind of sucks because they do so much damage that many people don't live... So in the ocean, humans are not on the top of the food chain.

You see, it depends on the circumstance. In my corner grocery store I am King of the food chain, and I don't even require a weapon of any kind. All I need is money. Which I can pull out of my wallet, held between a forefinger and my thumb.

Noodling Big Numbers

I was reading a science fiction book the other day. One of the characters mentioned they were going 97 times the speed of light. Something made me get a pen and paper and do some math. I got the pen and paper because a calculator only goes up to 8 digits and this was going to be a lot more than eight digits.

The speed of light is approximately 186,282 miles a second. It takes the light from the sun 8.3 minutes to get to the Earth, just to give you a frame of reference for how long things take to travel at such a speed. The average distance of the Earth to the sun is 93,000,000 miles.

Because of the distance of things in the universe, the measurements are in light years. The amount of distance it takes for light to travel in a year's time. How much distance does light travel in a year? 5,878,630,000,000 miles. That's 5 trillion 878 million 630 million miles in a year. The Milky Way galaxy (our galaxy) is 100,000 light years across. So the distance across is 5,878,630,000,000,000,000 miles. I don't know, what is 4 digits beyond trillion?

The closest start is Proxima Centauri at 4.24 light years from Earth. Alpha Centauri is 4.37 light years from Earth. So Proxima is 24,925,391,000,000 miles from Earth. Almost 25 trillion miles from Earth! Alpha Centauri is 25,689,613,000,000 miles from Earth. 25.7 trillion.

So where am I going with this? The spaceship in the book was traveling 18,042,000 miles a second. So, if I got the math right, and I don't know if I did, it gets a bit crazy with numbers that big, it would take 16.5 days to get to Alpha Centauri.

That's amazing, but no planets that have ever been detected there, so really there's no point in going...

I hope someday there is a technology invented to make space travel possible. It would be really cool. In the meantime we have books and movies with spaceships with warp drive and hyper drive and atomic piles. Something has to change physics otherwise we are going to be Earth bound because of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. E=mc... Fuck you! I want a space ship!

Stupid Albert... (pout, pout, pout...)

SkyMall

When I was flying last week I looked at the SkyMall magazine in the seat pocket in front of me. I've looked at it when I fly, but never really noticed a few things.

There seem to be a lot of items that can be used to spy on people without them knowing. Cameras, alarm clocks with cameras or video, things that are activated by movements. GPS systems you can place to see where someone is going. A device to retrieve deleted text messages from a cell phone. Something to change your voice on a cell phone. (Kidnapping anyone?) This made me wonder who might buy such things? People that travel constantly who think their spouses are cheating on them. Now that is just kind of sad, and it plays upon a person's insecurity. But isn't that most of marketing?

There were a lot of items that are for the home. A shelving unit to put all your shoes on? Fucking brilliant. Things to organize a closet? Awesome. A claw footed bathtub? Got to have one of those. Funky chrome chairs? Need that now! Watch storage case? Ooohhh! But are any of them really needed? Not really. The prices are high and you could probably find something similar closer and cheaper.

There were a lot of massagers. Back, feet, head. Shoes with inserts, shoes with arches. Wraps for knees, ankles, shoulders with heat or cold. Foot alignment socks. Hand made Irish Shillelagh. A stick? Really? Hmm...

The pet products are amazing. An orthopedic couch for a dog to sleep on that looks like a normal couch, just smaller. Feeders, doors, toys. It's better than Christmas!

The clothes and jewelry and watches are incredible. The watches can tell you what time it is on the moon. Ok, maybe not. But India? Sure. The clothes are good for travel from the beaches to the arctic. Clothes that can hide money and credit cards in case you are robbed while traveling.

Anything you might want you will find. And some of them, while in the rarified air of an aluminum tube, seem like a brilliant idea! How could you have lived without these things? And the prices? Fucking expensive. But while flying and shopping, what the fuck...

But I thought about these things a bit. If they really were so great and made the world so much better, why don't they sell it at Target? Or Walmart? It's all about presentation. It's kinda cool buying things while whizzing around the world, but is it really needed?

Nope.

But, but , look...

Airport Bits and Pieces

I just travelled across the country for a wedding. The experience was interesting as usual. I like to travel and it's generally an adventure of some sort.

Security. I had to get scanned each time I went thru security by the big "see you naked" machine. I thought once was just random, but twice? Hmmm... Then I thought about what I was wearing. I had a loose t-shirt on with a denim shirt over it the first time thru and a dress shirt over a t-shirt the second time thru. So why me twice? Was it random? Did someone think I looked hot and wanted to see me naked? OR was my clothing so baggy that they couldn't tell if I had an explosive belt on underneath? I think it's the latter. I would need to travel again to test this hypothesis. To test it I'd wear a tight shirt thru security and see if I was selected to be scanned.

As I was in the machine I thought, "I wonder how my dick looks in the tight briefs?" I didn't think they'd let me adjust to be more flattering of an image.

Babies. The flight back had a baby in the aisle across from me. We were in the very back row, both on the aisle, and people had no idea that the baby was there because it was being quiet. It was almost a 5 hour flight on the way back, and half way thru some people who knew each other came to the back to hang out and chat. Excuse me, but there's a BABY that is asleep on the plane right next to where you noisy fuckers are yapping. I asked them to hold it down, there's a baby sleeping. They treated me like I asked them to do something distasteful.

A. If you are not using the toilet you are not supposed to make laps around the plane and shoot the shit. You just saw the people in the airport and for the 3 day volleyball tourney, shut the fuck up.

B. It's a baby that is asleep. If the child was screaming it's lungs out for 10 minutes or the whole flight, they would be the ones thinking, "someone should do something about the baby crying."

C. Don't be rude self centered assholes. You are not special despite what your mother told you.

Yeah, the kid wasn't mine, but someone asked the woman with the baby to move because the baby made her nervous. It's a baby not some alien brain sucker. It was cute and thankfully quiet which was amazing for a 7 month old.

Food. Something about the trapped nature of an airport makes it entirely reasonable to charge $9 for a burger from Burger King? You are a captive audience, but damn that is crazy. I brought food so I didn't get screwed at the food court. But since you are stuck with the prices, you agree to buy the food for those inflated prices.

SeatBelt Light. That is there for a reason. The flight had some turbulence and someone standing in the aisle didn't have the common sense to sit down in their fucking seat and fell on a passenger. If we unexpectedly fell 2000' those people might be dead. It's rare, but it has happened in the past.

Baggage Claim. To the man who picked up my bag and was examining it closely, please when I tell you it's my bag, but can't reach it, don't look at me like I'm lying to you, Put it back on the turn table and look for your bag. It's not like there are a lot of purple duffle bags out there. Mine's the only one I've ever seen.

I like travel. A lot. But the people I encounter when I travel make me wonder. How about using some common sense and courtesy?