The net is buzzing with news of two journalists being freed from North Korea, and politicians are jived up about health care "reform".

And yet it seems nobody really grasps the consequences of either of these events. The Obama administration is still under the illusion that North Korea has any notion of droping nuclear ambitions - it doesn't. And quite honestly, nothing short of war would deprive them of that desire. They look to their nuclear capability as its one trump card against its rivals, primarily the U.S., South Korea, and Japan. Where these countries can rely on strong economies and high standards of living, the backward NK state can only look to its nuclear capacity as any deterent in the case of war. They have no more intention of giving up that capacity than America does of giving up its own.

Again I say, nothing short of war with NK would deprive them of their nuclear capacity. No ammount of economic sanctions will change that fact. The regime has already demonstrated previously that it is more than willing to let its citizens starve if it means they dont have to sacrifice their nuclear ability.

Even if NK would agree for a second time to dismantle its nuclear reactors, it wouldn't change anything. NK has reneged already on the issue, and in the previous aggreement we gave them huge energy supplies in order to agree to dismantling. They lied to our faces and to the whole world about dismantling; why should we believe their promises to dismantle *even if they did agree to such a thing, which they aren't going to*? Its nonsense; they aren't agreeing to that, and even if they did they would bring the issue up again to try and get further concessions out of six party talks while maintaining their nuclear arsenal.

And the health care reform, what a crock. There are two reasons for this reform: the rising costs of health care, and supposed 40 million "Americans" wiithout health care.

This refomr isn't going to decrease the costs of healthcare, it is going to increase them. Even assuming that the costs are going to continue to increase without this reform, the reform is going to act as a catalyst to speed up the price increases, not decrease them. Further, of these 40 million Americans without health care, nobody seems to care that over half of those people (20 million right off the top) are illegal aliens in our country. And the rest of the number of uninsured, nobody cares to ask whether those people can afford private healthcare; most of those people of these legal 20 million people are more than capable of having private healthcare insurance, they simply dont want to pay for it.

Reasonable enough, I don't like paying my bills either. But thats life. And there is no reason for a few million out of a country of over 300 million people to cause huge tax increases on the rest of the population because they dont want to pay their premiums.

Of our remaining 10 million some odd people who cannot afford healthcare, my heart truely goes out to you. Really it does. But this simply isn't the way to fix the problem. The system that is being designed is fraught with inefficiencies and illogical decisions. The way it works is very simular to an HMO, but your primary doctor has a financial incentive to not give you high quality health care and to not send you to necessary specialist. He gets paid the less health care you need basically. This is supposed to give an incentive for doctors to help prevent health care problems, but all it is going to do is lead us into a brick wall of not recieving necessary care.

If you want more information, here's a very informative link.

It is all just stupid, stupid, stupid. And I wish that our leaders would pull their heads out of their you know what.

Update: The icing has just landed on the cake. Sonia Sotomayor was just confirmed as a Supreme Court Jutice. How pathetic...the vote went right along party lines.

If you have never taken a book recommendation from me, take this one. This book is nothing short of awesome.

Its called Reality Check: The unreported good news about America. Co-authored by two MBA graduates from UCLA, the book's premise is going around and examining several widely reported and widely believed myths about the USA, everything from the economy, to the wars in Afganistan and Iraq, to Hurricane Katrina, and weighs the facts against the near universal popular view of these issues.

Just one thing examined for example, is the widely believed thought that China is somehow getting ready to take over the global economy. Fact is, is that just the increase in the US economy over the past 6 years under President Bush, just the increase, is equal to the entire economy of China.

Another one that really caught my eye was the belief that Bush's tax cuts for the rich was unfair and that it contributed to an unbalanced budget. Fact is that tax revenue was up over $168 million, due in large part to economic growth of the middle class in America because of Bush's tax cuts. Bush isnt an MBA graduate for nothing; his economic policies helped bring about unprecidented economic prosperity in the US, and those of us who benefited most dare think he is one of the worst presidents? What ingrates we are!

Just two issues out of about a dozen examined in much greater detail than I could provide here which you should research. The book is really small considering everything it covers, less than 200 pages. This book is definately one of my favorite books I've ever read. If you havent read this book yet, I strongly recommend it.

"International relations today are in a kind of limbo. Few politicians and diplomats really believe that any power other than the United States can guarantee the peace or punish aggression. But neither is there sufficient cohesion in the west to give America the moral and material support she must have to fulfill that roll.

This has to change. America's duty is to lead. The other Western countries' duty is to support its leadership. Provided western countries unite under American leadership, the west will remain the dominant global influence' if we do not, the opportunity for rogue states and new tyranical powers to exploit our division will increase, and so will the danger to all." Margeret Thatcher, British Prime Minister

Words spoken just over one decade ago ring true as prophetic. After the collapse of the USSR, America and our western allies was almost completely unchallenged the world over. On key issues however, there have been rifts in this western alliance. As Thatcher spoke in 1998, this has caused rogue states which endanger the lives of millions to grow in the power vacuum at the end of the Cold War.

Just one nation, North Korea, is currently threatening our ally of South Korea and potentially Japan, both of which are key allies in Asia. Complicating issues further is surrging nationalism in Korea and large agitation for war between the north and the south.

Probably more disturbing than these developments though, is the general lack of sympathy or interest in many of our European allies. It is one thing to sing praises of American support, it is a very different thing to put forth effort to help. I think on the whole, Europe sees itself rather disconnected from these potential flashpoints and battlegrounds.

Dont misunderstand me though, I think that there is support for us on the global stage, but not nearly strong enough as the former British PM requested of the European allies.

So, what is America's way forward? To a large degree, I support Obama's foreign policy of trying to reintegrate Europe into our military responces world wide. France has recently reintegrated its military into the NATO command structure. Eastern Europe has moved to support a planned missle shield on their territory. And while Russia vehemently opposes the proposed shield, it has done nothing to offer possible alternatives, such as assisting in disarming potential rogue states that the shield is designed to protect against.

In Asia, tensions over Taiwan and China have subsided very substantially with the installation of the KMT party, which has gone to considerable lengths to strengthen ties with the mainland while maintaining independence. Nations in Indochina have, for the most part, democratic governments, with the exception of Vietnam and Laos. The Philipenes and Australia continue to be strong allies, with Australia recently asigning a large budget to revamp its military, especially the navy, to be a stronger deterent to any aggression in the Pacific.

The primary concerns of the world in foreign politics is the recent events and threats from North Korea, and the potential nuclearization of Iran in the near future. Thousands of military men and women are deployed in Afganistan to fight counter insurgency operations, with a great deal of success I might add.

So then, what is the point of this blog post? To help inform my fellow Americans that solidarity with our friends the world over is key to maintaining this Pax Americana that was born from the ashes of the Pax Atomica of the Cold War. Solidarity especially with our Asian allies is key; failure to support them in any area would erode western support throughout the entire region. If you are one of our allies, or you have close contact with our allies, tell them that America thanks them for their support. We need you and your support more than ever in these trying times; not in order to spread American dominance or influence, but in order to build a stronger world and a more secure future for all people on Earth.

Ah, summer. Public school is out, and was out on the plaza with some buds friday night and boy, everybody was out in force. You would think it was the after party for prom. Why was I taking it easy?

Prepairing for the summer semester of college, which starts tomorrow morning. I dont want to brag, but I have had very high scores in all areas, except one...mathmatics. So bad in fact, I cant stand it. So, instead of enjoying the summer, I signed up for some math courses for the next 8 weeks I think, Monday through Thursday. Since its a summer semester its going to be pretty compact, but its something I need to do.

Still though, I'm dreading it. I've been gifted enough to take like a fish to water in most my classes but man, algebra mops the floor with me and that needs to change, so I'm taking the plung in what is going to be my single most dreaded college class since I joined up.

I could use some prayers, not just so I do good, but so that I dont loose my mind with anxiety over this class.

In other news, I started 3 days ago training my right hand to write (I'm left handed) and I think i can safely declare myself ambidextrous. Cant write quite as fast with my right hand yet, but I'm improving, so three cheers for me!

Hope you guys enjoy your summer. I imagine I will too after the first few classes get over with and my emotions realize this is not, in fact, the end of the world as I know it. Thanks for any prayers and support!

Apparently Firefox/GS got the problem fixed that prevented us FF users from seeing userpages. I had alot of thoughts about the next blog post but couldnt do anything for the past week or two. And now that I finally can post something, I'm haivng to run out the door for a doc appointment. :lol:

In my all consuming desire for moar knowledge of history, I've been reading about the Cold War. And the more I read, the more I see that I have some sympathies for the former USSR. Don't get me wrong, though, I love my country, America the beautiful. But still, I can't help but see some facets of Communism that appeals to me. Alongside the Cold War, economics is another thing I've been researching, and it struck me when I learned about the distribution of wealth in the USA.

The top 1% of the population approximately 40% of our GDP, the top 10% control over 85% of our GDP. The bottom 40% of our nation controls less than 1%. I think the disparity in the distribution of wealth here speaks for itself. What I found even more troubling though, is that the gap is growing, not receding. Meaning, in essence, that the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.

A rather disturbing trend if you ask me. America has been great because of our all important middle class those people who operated independently of the then-equivalent of large corporation conglomerates, and still possessed the means to assert themselves. The middle class has been the bedrock of our nation for so long, anything that erodes that bedrock is essentially destabilizing.

I remember from an article in Newsweek a few weeks ago about the growing discontent recently displayed with the AIG executive bonus' from the taxpayer funded bailout package. In it, it stated that, while Europeans have shown discontent for decades and perhaps centuries, this is a relatively new phenomenon in North America, at least on the scale recently revealed.

The article went on to state that most Americans are relatively content with the general way things are run, that the AIG thing a few weeks ago was relatively uncommon here in the States; accepting a good deal of variation in wealth as normal and perhaps necessary incentive for competition, and a reward for success.

Never the less, the fact that a people who heavily contributed to the fall of authoritarian régimes the world over are taking to the streets to protest the growth of the rich and exploitation of the poor and middle class is rather indicative of just how far America has come as a society over the past few decades. Seeing the radical change over the past, I can't help but wonder where we are heading now in the present, and more importantly, how we U.S. citizens can contribute to guide the changes that are coming our way.

Please keep up the prayers for me, sleeping is becoming more of an exercise in futility the past few days.

In other news, my cousin had a baby, which unfortunately is a less than joyous occasion. He is 19, the mother is 16. Icing on the cake is that the baby has down syndrome, 2 holes in his heart, was 2 months premature, and was born with his intestines outside his abdomen.

He and the mother are having collective mental breakdowns right now, needless to say.

I thought to myself, what are you supposed to say in a situation like this? Congradulations you got a 16 year old girl pregnant on purpose? (this was a planned pregnancy, I'm sorry to say) I'm more inclined to say he should be ashamed of himself. Only reason that he isn't being prosecuted for statutory rape is because the girl's parents aparently dont care about it one way or the other.

What a mess. I feel like i'm walking through a fog, the right words just out of my grasp. Adding on top of this, well, a friend and I got into a long conversation about life, and it raised a big question mark over who I am, or at least how I percieve myself. I dont want to go into it honestly, but I feel like I have a flashing neon light over my head letting the whole world know how confused I'm feeling.

Argh. When it rains it pours. None of this would seem so bad if I would have gotten a decent night sleep in the past 2 weeks. Last night I got just over 3 hours of sleep. Rest of the night was spent tossing and turning in bed, praying for a restorative sleep that never came. Keep me and my family in your prayers people. About to try this sleeping game...again. If it keeps up much longer I'm going to have to go to a doctor or something, which is going to be a pain since I dont have medical insurance. Such is life....

Origins of life, that's today's subject. This isnt so much a complete evaluation of evolution (I've done enough of that in the past), but rather my take on it.

Evolution has a lot of issues with it, but I'm going to focus on just one are for the moment: the big bang.

There are essentially 2 different ways the world could come into being, barring supernatural intervention:

1. The universe has always existed
2. The universe came into being rapidly and spontaneously

Number 1 contradicts the second law of thermodynamics, which states that in a system, entropy is constantly increasing. This essentially means that any system will eventually progress to a point where this system cannot do work. If the universe always existed, total entropy in our universe would have reached such levels countless eons ago, thus making life impossible.

Number 2 relies on spontaneous generation, the generation of nothingness into matter, and living matter arising from non-living matter. Spontaneous generation defies the first law of thermodynamics, which states that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, but is interchangeable. This leaves us with one essential question...Where did matter come from? If it wasn't spontaneously created at some point in the distant past, that means it has always existed, which I have shown cannot be possible above.

So, how did the universe come into being? Always existed? Impossible. Spontaneously generated? Also impossible. In other words, there is no working model of how the universe began which does not circumvent already known laws of physics.

Now, my second problem with evolution: macro evolution.

Macro evolution postulates that one species will, after many generations of natural selection, make various small changes to a species, which will eventually result in it becoming so different from the original creature as to constitute a totally different species.

The core problem with this is that it defies the law of biogenesis, which states that one species reproduces after its own kind. Two dogs mating will create another dog; two lions mating will produce another lion, and so on.

Because of this law, it is impossible for one species to give rise to another. How then is macro evolution supposed to reconcile its basic premise with this law of nature?

These are my main two contentions with evolution. While evolution has some critical flaws, I think it would be misleading of me to say I completely reject it. I think that the theory of evolution has some interesting evidences; the biggest example off the top of my head would be evolutionary psychology. I'm not sold on evolution to any degree, but that is because of these two vital flaws. If evolution could provide for a working model of how matter and energy originally came into existence, and show reasonable evidence for macro evolution, I would say that evolution will have overcome my two biggest reasons to object to it.

I'm not going to be going on about creationism in this post. Creationism, specifically young earth creationism, has its own share of flaws, which I will not mention here which, while not nearly as crippling as those of evolution (in my opinion anyway), still raise some very big questions. Old earth creationism on the other hand does away with the problems that YEC suffers, as well as giving adequate explanation for biogenesis which suffers neither of the problems suffered by evolution.

I must say that theistic evolution is an interesting thought because it provides for the creation of matter and energy, but still suffers scrutiny under the law of biogenesis. Over all, in my opinion, old earth creationism has the strongest footing of any theory concerning the origin of life.

All that being said, where do I stand on the issue personally? I honestly don't maintain much of a position at all. Something I learned a long time ago is that nobody knows what happened because none of the possibilities can fit into true science. In order to be part of true science, a process must be observable, measurable, and repeatable; our universe's origins do not fit into a single one of these, much less all three. As such, nobody will ever know what truly happened, though that won't stop people from pontificating about it. Draw up all the evidence in the world, but the issue will never be decided either way because the origin of life, by definition, cannot fit into true science.

That's all I have to say about it. The short of it, both sides of the debate will never reach a conclusion, the issue will never be decided as part of true science, and my official policy toward the origin of life is that I acknowledge our human ignorance as to what really happened. As such, the origin of life is pretty far down on my list of things to argue about.

Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing. Feel free to share your own thoughts of course. Hope someone learned something new. :)

Crushmaster tagged me in his last blog post. Looks kind of fun, lets see what off the wall information I can gather up for y'all.

1. I'm a night owl, I love roaving around after the sun has hit the hay for the night.

2. I'm a very physical guy. 6'1, go to the gym 3 times each week, and each time I move just under 20 tons of weight - yea, I'm a bit of a power house, if I say so myself. :D

3. I'm a big dog lover. I've had 4 dogs over my life, and each one has been an awesome dog. Current dog is named Buddy, mixed with German Shepherd, Rottweiler, and a little Britney Spaniel. He is basically a giant teddy bear, love him to bits and pieces. :D

4. I'm going to college for a nursing degree. I will probably go for a MD in a few years if I think I want to stay in the medical community. I just dont have the patience right now for a long stay in college, thats going to be a little ways down the road. I want to get out there and get working.

5. I'm a penny pincher. Really badly. Its just unconscious, cant help myself. I hate throwing a way money when I could have saved it. But when I want to treat someone for like a bday or date or whatever, I manage to turn it off...somehow. :|

6. I'm something of a charmer when it comes to people. People always like me; guys, girls, young, old, whatever. I like to put out an aura of confidence, intelligence, and strength, and people always respect me for it.

7. I'm probably the last human in the civilized world without a cell phone. I dont like talking on the phone as is, why would I want to make it easier for people to get me on the phone?

8. I'm a strong believer in abstinence. Not to say I havent been tempted to turn away, I've tiptoed the breaking point and walked away with my conscience intact, and I like to think it has made me a stronger person.

9. I was exposed to death young in life, with my father dying when I was 5 years old. I think because of this, I put up mental barriers toward sadness. It takes alot for me to feel genuine sorrow. Emotions of sadness simply do not come to me, even in cases where family members have died; I just feel numb in that area.

10. I'm divided on the issue of evolution vs creationism. Both have strong points and weakpoints, and I dont quite know where I stand on the issue. I'm more inclined to creationism, but a few things I've seen for evolution makes it hard to discount it completely so... yea, I'm kind of stuck.

That was different. Not often I take inventory of who I am, but it feels pretty cool to look inside and put those thoughts on paper. Anyway, hope you had as much fun reading as I did typing. :D

I'm tagging ShowStoper102, Curlyfrii87, Draconis, luckypool04, and CptJSparrow.

This Tuesday, I was listening to the radio, and a song from Metallica called Creeping Death came on. I was listening to the lyrics, and it is basically a retelling of the plagues God sent on Egypt, from the point of view of the angel of death. Think what you will of the music, but it made me realize something: God is a mover and a shaker, always up to something to further his plans and undermine his opposition. In short, God is rather ambitious, to put it bluntly.

Same day, I got a book about the background of WW2, the first hundred or so pages devoted to Hitler's rise to power, and he too shows that common trait, ambition. He was active in every facet of his life. Even though he was largely incompitent in many areas, his raw energy and will to push forward with his goals put him into a position of incredible power, power he abused. But never the less, it cannot be denied that he was one ambitious man.

This post is more intended for me to remember these thoughts. I feel like I've been drifting along, on autopilot for years. This is my renouncing a life lived half asleep, a pledge to myself in writting for the whole world to see. I'm going to change the world, change my world.