Art or just words

2009-11-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

Download my Goodbye Provo music mix

2009-06-12T10:46:00.003-06:00

Making a mix CD is always an interesting way to communicate with people. We make mixes in hopes of making people feel a certain feeling. Or we try to make the listener think a certain way about the maker. For example, one message would be “Look at how good my taste in music is, I am a man of the world". "I am so eclectic and cosmopolitan.” Another popular message is “ Come on baby, you can trust me to be the person to make out with.”
As I look back at my Provo experience my memory could have a sound track to it. My first reaction was to do a greatest hits mix, a nostalgic trip of songs that remind me of this person or that moment living in Provo. While I have really strong beautiful feelings of my life here in Provo that mix would be too hard to make.
The music from this mix is music that I have been loving lately. This mix is schizophrenic. There are dance songs and slow songs. I have epic songs and poignant ones. This is because I am trying to represent the good emotions I remember about Provo. It is celebratory and weirdly nostalgic just as I want to remember Provo. There will be songs that you will like and other you wont. That’s mixes right!?
As I go away from my home I will miss all the lovely people I have met. We had some good laughs. As much as I like to tease those BYU alumni parents that come and tell us young wiper-snappers that The Brick Oven used to be called Heaps-a-Pizza, I fear I might do the same thing. “Hay kids there is The Dojo!” Kids rolling eyes.

Listener, you are awesome and I love you. I will miss you.

Peace!

Download mix HERE (Click on free and then wait 90 seconds then a blue download button will appear ... sorry)

Track listing

(mike e gave this song This song represents the death Of our first born) Siger Ros

Rebellion (Lies) The Arcade Fire
DREAM CITY FREE ENERGY
Two The Antlers (The song that feels like leaving Provo)
People Got a Lotta Nerve Neko Case
Raindrops Basement Jaxx
Now We Can See The Thermals
Pop Nonsense Dogs Die in Hot
Dull To Pause Junior Boys
The Hottchord Is Struck Still Flyin
The Wolf Miniature Tigers
All The World U.S.E
m79 Vampire weekend
nothing to worry about Peter bjorn and john
Evangeline Handsome Furs
So Human Lady Sovereign
Waiting for a War (benders cover) The Submarines
California Dreamer Wolf Parade

Make your own freash air!

2009-04-07T11:03:00.002-06:00

Go ahead make it why don't you? Don't know how? Oh well it is easy. You need a bit of a green thumb. You need four shoulder high Areca Palm per person. You need to wipe the leaves once a week. You need to take the plant outside every three to four months and grow it with hydroponics. (insert stupid drug ref.) there are two other plants that you need to make clean fresh air. To find out watch this. It is only 3 minutes.

There that wasn't so bad. Now breath! BREATH!!!

Big news in the lifes of the Pierotti's

2009-03-28T10:46:00.005-06:00

You recently may have had a long conversation with me about art, life, and growing up. I have been using my friends and family as a sounding board. I was having a small life crisis. Not that my life was small, but that the crisis was small. I sent out 9 grad school applications. I threw the bones into the air hoping that the fates would smile on me. But I kept getting rejection letters. After the 8th rejection I started looking at alternative routes. Architecture seemed interesting, I thought. Oh by the way, Ohio University sent me two rejection letters. Maybe because of my low GPA they thought I couldn't read. Okay, I get it! You are glad I applied but you can not accept me. I get it, geez. I didn't want to be a Bobcat anyway. What a wimpy mascot... Now the Ram, now that is a regal animal. That is an animal that can represent me on a shirt or at a sporting event. The Virginia Commonwealth University Ram Bucks offered me a place in their ceramics graduate school. After much prayer and fasting and thinking. Andrea and I feel strongly that we are to take our family to Richmond Virginia to go to graduate school. This is an exciting and a scary time for us. We have the most anxiety about finding Andrea a good teaching job.

VCU is a really good school.

Here is some information about VCU:

Grants and Awards
3 MacArthur Genius Awards ($500,000 each) in the last 5 years!

$75K Tremaine Foundation Grant

American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards (3)

3rd Simultaneous $120,000 US Dept. of Education Jacob Javits Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships (3)

Pollock-Krasner Awards (4)

Windgate Fellowships (2)

International Sculpture Center Outstanding Student Achievement Award

National Rankings

Sculpture, #1 overall

Graphic Design, #4 overall (#1 among public university programs)

Painting, #8 overall (#3 among public university programs)

Fiber Arts #4 overall (Dept. of Craft/Material Studies) (#1 among public university programs)

Glass #5 overall (Craft/Material Studies) (#1 among public university programs)

Multimedia/Visual Communications #9 overall (likely a combination of our departments of Communication Arts, Graphic Design, Photography and Film, and Kinetic Imaging) (#3 public university ranking)

Ceramics #12 overall (Craft/Material Studies) (#6 among public university programs)

Things I should have done. Eating my heart out.

2009-03-05T14:45:00.003-07:00

I spend time in the library looking at magazines. My favorite magazine has been "domus" (tag line) contemporary architecture interiors design art
This magazine makes my mouth drop offen. I am wowed over and over by the slick cool objects that are highlighted in this publication.
http://www.domusweb.it/

http://www.hidra.it/main.php?lang=EN

http://blog.bellostes.com/?p=2099

http://www.kvadratclouds.com/

While i am listing things i think are cool here is that cool BMW i like.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5015266/shape+shifting-bmw-concept-car-is-made-of-cloth?autoplay=true

Haruki Murakami's "The Seventh Man"

2009-02-22T09:38:00.005-07:00

I think sharing what you like with others can be a powerful way of expressing yourself. I think what the person sharing, hopes for, is that the sharer and the sharee can experience something together. It is more than just having something in common. It is experiencing similar thoughts and emotions as someone else. It is having an experience together. This might be where the true value of art lies. As my i-pod gives me experiences I wish there was someone else that was hearing the same thing I was hearing.

I must admit that I thought this was the "spirited away" guy. I was surprised because I don't really love Miyazaki movies. But I really loved this story. It makes sense that the stories have different sources. The first part of this link is the story i would like to highlight. The Seventh Man as read by John Shea. http://huffduffer.com/Clampants/2575

Telling people i am an artist fells like the beginning of a joke.

2009-02-11T08:28:00.005-07:00

It must shock the hearer when i say i am an artist, because the response seems to be overdone. "wow, that's great" or "what do you want to do with that?" maybe i get "(spit take) cough, sputter... what?"
i am seen as a magical retard by the general population. they see the artist as someone that can do things that no other mortal can do and at the same time they believe life will break the artist for his/her optimistic embrace of life. As my parents (general population) you want to protect me. "Gian, look fire, HOT!" you parents also want me to transform the fire to ice cream. enough with the metaphors.
i am writing this post because right now my life feels like it is on hold. Andrea and i are waiting for grad schools to respond to my application. this time has made me think about what it means to be an artist and how crazy it is. i found this talk on creativity. the writer Elizabeth Gilbert is good at explaining creativity and artists. you will know me a bit better after you see her explanation.

Art 21 Gabriel Orozco | "Mobile Matrix"

2009-02-02T13:04:00.004-07:00

Art 21 has given me a large part of my art knowledge. It might be uncool to admit that but thems the facts. Here is a clip were you get to see the construction of a public work of art. You also get to hear the artist speak about the art. I was surprised to find that a whale skeleton looks like a giant tadpole.

BFA final show at the Sego

2009-01-20T14:58:00.020-07:00

On 5 December 2008, the Sego Art Center will open What ought to be, an exhibit of new sculptures by local artist Gian Pierotti. The exhibit will feature an adjoining critical essay by writer and art historian Megan Whittaker.

In the Aristotelian tradition, art functions as an imitator, showing us what is, what ought to be and what might be. Though typically imitation in art is couched in the notion of representation, it is the imaginative process of imitation that is communicated tacitly, even instinctively, through the work in Gian Pierotti's new show at the Sego Art Center. Evolved from their earliest stages as formal variations on a Minimal theme, Pierotti's latest porcelain sculptures encase small polygonal shapes in architectural exoskeletons that may be disassembled and reassembled. The results are a playful advancement of an archaic process. The unique forms are deliberately accidental, artificially organic and defy any one direct referent.

Yet the work is both immediately familiar and immensely satisfying. Fitting together the pieces of one of Pierotti's works is as gratifying as locking together two Legos or snapping Construx into place. The toys of childhood are the tools of imaginative imitation, teaching us how to act as adults. Pierotti's works, fantastic constructed entities that call upon us as viewers to animate them, remind us to embrace childlike wonder in the gallery. In the aftermath of Postmodernism, the trend in art has been toward what ought to be – both formally and contextually. The reward of Pierotti's work at Sego Art Center this month is that it offers up what art might be. And what art might be is fun.

I have been listening to podcasts for more than a year now.

2008-11-28T19:16:00.002-07:00

My top three are:
1. Radio Lab... The two hosts have a great sense of humor and are able to present science in a way that helps you understand how you fit into this world. It is an artful approach to science. They give new wonder to the world around us. Here is one of my favorites. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/08/05 click on "listen to the whole show"

2. My next favorite podcast is 606 5 live call in show with Danny Baker. It has got to be the one with Danny Baker because Alan Green and Tim Lovejoy are both pratts, Spoony is alright, I guess. Okay, now stay with me. Usually this is your regular English football call in show where people windge about the refs. But on Tuesday night Mr. Baker turns it into story time. People call in to tell stories about topics like "what crazy object have you been hit with while attending a football match." or "where have you seen people wearing English football jerseys outside of England?" This link has an American calling in this is not the norm http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/606withdannyb/audio.shtml

3. The classic Tales podcast With BJ Harrison. This guy was in my old ward. He reads scripture very well. He can really project. The classic tails podcast is Bj reading from classic literature. I put this in as my third place pick because this podcast really lets me get taken away with the story. Just today I heard the story Rikki Tikki Tavi. I had forgotten how good that story is. Maybe I am a sucker for "a boy and his mongoose" stories. I couldn't find the rikki tikki tavi story but you can't go wrong with an O Henry story. http://cdn1.libsyn.com/classictales/CT_83_Thanksgiving_in_NY.mp3?nvb=20081129035054&nva=20081130040054&t=01d8acd5da7d0800d173d

My winter 09 mix

2008-11-14T13:15:00.004-07:00

1 Red Yellow And Blue (White Williams Mix) ...Born Ruffians

2 Kettle Drum (I Left A Note) ... Pale Young Gentlemen

3 Undo... Björk

4 Voice in Headphones ... Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron and Fred Squire

5 Vänerhavet ...Detektivbyrån

6 Compass ... Absolutely Kosher Records

7 Royal Blood ...The Witchies

8 The Hundredth Time ...Gigi

9 All the Way Down ...Nik Freitas

10 Bloody Sunrise ...Neil Gaiman

11 Phantom Anthills Chad ...VanGaalen

12 Tonight ...Lykke Li

13 Track 01 ...Okay ??????????????

14 Diamond Rings 2007 ... Deer Tick

15 Be Kind To Me ... Michael Hurley

16 Rolling Sea ...Eliza Carthy

17 Blood Red Roses ...Sting

18 Bully In The Alley ...Three Pruned Men

19 Hog-Eye Man ...Martin Carthy & Family

Bjork's "Undo"

2008-11-13T07:50:00.004-07:00

I know because of my infrequent posting you hardly come to my blog. Its okay i don't blame you. I guess what i want to share with you is my re-admiration for Bjork. I really think she is great. For my english class i had to do a analysis of a work of art. i chose "Undo" of of the Vespertine album.
Andrea and I were just talking about how brilliant a thing can become if we invest time and focus to it. Undo was a pretty song. Now to me it is a masterpiece. Here is my analysis of Bjork's "Undo". And a live performance at the Royal Opera house in London.
This is an analysis of the song “Undo” by Bjork.

Bjork and I go way back to 1992. In high school I thought you pronounced the “j”, like an English “j”. Boy was I wrong. Now in college I know that foreign words with “j’s” have a “yu” sound.
This song has very simple lyrics. The arrangement of the music feels simple but when looked at closely one finds the progression of the song is unpredictable. It has many subtle layers. Sonically, the song matches perfectly with the lyrics and its total concept.
The main theme of the lyrics cover the fact that life is not supposed to be hard. “It’s not meant to be a struggle”, sings a chorus of angels. Bjork then gives you a soft loving pep talk. She wants you to see that life is good. “It’s warmer now”, as she kind of whispers to the listener. The lyrics are simple and profound. But the music of the song is the moving force. The message of the music is one of reality. What is real, and is reality all that great? The song answers these questions in combination with both the music and the lyrics. Its answer is, "It’s all real and yes, reality is so great."
The music has an otherworld feeling to it. But the lyrics let you know darn well she is talking about earth. The instrument that best gives an otherworld sound is the synthesizer. The synthesizer at once has a feeling of alienation and familiarity. The sound is generated with perfection yet we know it is not real some how. The title of the song “Undo” is linked closely to the synthesizer or the computer. Undo is familiar to us in this computer age as a “do over”. To “undo” is to right a wrong. There is a strong duality of technology and biology in this song and I find it clever that both are used to create this song. The first sounds you her are a sort of piano sound but maybe you are using ears that have water in them. Bjorks voice comes right in at the beginning but it has all sorts of vocal effects like an echoing delay, her inhales seem exaggerated, and there are two vocal tracks running at different times, this makes an echoing refrain in the beginning. A rich life filled texture is created with her inhales and exhales. These sounds are so familiar to us. We breathe all our lives. Sonically different sounds are weaving into and around each other. The music moves slightly closer to earth with a recognizable instrument. The sound of the harp flutters into the song letting you know it is not outer space you are hearing but heaven. Then comes the biology technology. Sound effects are creaking, shaking, there are biggish sounds, and rustling. A count or two later the beat comes in. The beat gives an important toehold to the listener who is used to the Pop music aesthetic. It should also be mentioned that at the time this song was made, beat driven music had a strong presence in America that had recently come across the Atlantic. The beat is not straightforward, but it gives the listener something familiar. Maybe it is a recording of a heartbeat of someone with three hearts, a mother with twins or maybe a celestial being from another galaxy. As the beat begins there is a floating feeling to the song. The chorus and all the sounds float with us for a few minutes, there is a calm euphoria, and then one by one the layers of sounds go away. The volume of the chorus comes down. The stringed instruments begin to fade away. Our ears are left with a lower toned harp sound and Bjork’s soft positive affirmations. The beat stops and the song winds' down. The sound becomes distorted and fuzzy, not in an analog way but in a digital way. The sounds are not dissonant. They are strangely comfortable. And then you are left with silence that sounds good not because you are glad the song is over but because everything is magic and everything is more real even the silence.

Hi ho friends, here is a post about my art show at the CUAC

2008-09-15T22:27:00.003-06:00

I have an art show up at the Central Utah Arts Center. I have the opportunity to share the space with the painter Sunny Belliston. The opening has already come and gone. I am grateful for the friends and family that made the long journey. There will be a lecture given on Thurs. @ 7:00pm by Jeff Lambson of the BYU MOA. He is the current Contemporary Curator and has already made an amazing impact.
I did a short interview for the local public access TV guy. You can see it on YouTube here.

Okay, i wonder if you will like this.

2008-05-13T23:13:00.003-06:00

I found a funny little phone prank. you can hear it here: http://www.fluxblog.org/2008/05/strobe-light-was-my-mind.html
click on the link that says this:
Andrew Earles & Jeff Jensen "My Friends Call Me Ditchweed. Don't Ask. Okay, Go Ahead and Ask."

The weekend of Sept. 22 and 23

2007-09-02T19:23:00.000-06:00

on Saturday night by the state mental hospital, Midwife Crisis will perform another last final show for the last time... again. Matt has decided he wants to come back to utah to play the songs we used to play. we will be the last act of the sago arts festival. I approach this date with great excitement and trepidation. I get nervous just thinking about it. NOT! It is cancelled. Not the sago fest but the midwife show.

Sunday on PBS there will be the first part of the the Ken Burns documentary "The War". I saw Mr. Burns (ha) speak when he came to BYU. he is a great speaker and i like his approach to history. He doesn't see life as ordinary and he finds many extraordinary stories. as he spoke in the marriott center, i found myself feeling like i was proud to be an american. i think i had this feeling because the true stories told of the people of the second world war, were stories of selfless sacrifice told with humility. i hope you will check out the clips found on this site. http://stripesandvelour.blogspot.com/

My scooter has been stolen.

2007-08-07T00:06:00.000-06:00

As i went out to the garage i pulled open the door and my heart dropped. there was no cute green scooter in there. after some light cursing i called the police. i am sick just writing about it. as sad as this is deep down i accuse the Hispanic family next door. i don't think they had anything to do with it but i think it helps me feel like i have some control.

Proun History Bright Future

2007-07-20T11:05:00.000-06:00

The Pierotti family has decided to follow an English football club. After lots of research i have decided that the team for our family is Aston Villa. they are a mid-table team that is poised to be a more successful side. They have an american owner (Randy Lerner) and a highly rated manager (Martin O'neil). Nike is the new kit sponsor and they have a brand new training fasility.
I do admit i am a bit jelious of the bigger clubs like man u and liverpool they get most of the top players. but i like an underdog... but not too much of an underdog.

It has been a while

2007-07-17T19:04:00.000-06:00

what can i say? i haven't been so busy i couldn't write. it is not like there hasn't been anything to write about. i mean come on, Paris Hilton went to jail. i could have given my speculations for the up coming lost season. i have been on two vacations. i got andrea pregnant. i know that you all have stopped checking this blog. but i will try to get things going again.

Rickey's laugh

2007-02-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

Remember The Office? The one in Great Brittin.
I found some XM radio clips of Karl Pillkinton, Stven Merchent and Rickey Gervais on YouTube. I thought they where great fun to listen to. I can't help but giggle along with Rick.

2007-02-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

rick steve karl

2007-02-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

The Beaver Rich Little. The rich little beaver.

2007-01-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

If you have spent a good amount of time in Utah, you might know the film maker Trent Harris. His most famous movie is "Rubin and Ed". I guess his movies are best described as strange. Finally his movie "The Beaver Kid Trilogy" is on youtube. You can watch the whole thing in ten parts. http://youtube.com/watch?v=L18CSMd93BU
There is a good interview and explanation the "This American Life" people did.
http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/02/226.html

oldish art new photos

2007-01-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

thanks Mo Fritz

you are probably thinking jeez Gian lighten up

2006-12-01T11:49:00.000-07:00

I can read your mind. I read you loud and clear. I realize I have tried my hand at trying to talk about things that really matter to me. At first thought I thought that might be political issues. What is more important than the power struggle that has been going on for like a googolplex of years? It is obvious when the question is put, "What really matters to you?", to answer something along the lines of family and friends, oh we can throw God in there too. I know He reads this. I've got Kolob coming up on my google analytics.
Honestly speaking Andrea really matters to me. She is my greatest cheerleader. I mean that literally. there is a lot of cheering going on at the Pierotti home. She is so cute! Just look at her holding my nephew.
In future I will let you know what is going on around me. In short less politics more human interest. put even shorter, less p more hi.

The Christian Right Jean Bethke Elshtain

2006-11-14T15:39:00.000-07:00

I have been taking advantage of the Forums at BYU. I think it is a wonderful way to hear different points of view. I realize BYU will not bring anyone too outrageous, but they have brought some very brilliant and accomplished scholars. On most Tuesdays I walk to the Marriot Center to hear an academic speak about their focus of study.

Sometime in October I listened to Jean Bethke Elshtain address her take on stem cell research and abortion. It was fascinating to hear her defend her pro-life and anti-stem cell research position in a logical way. This was the first time a conservative person didn't only focus on the fact that "babies are dying! Don't you care?!" She, with the help of Elder C. S. Lewis, made it a philosophical question. For example "what is the value of a life?" and "what is human?" This stuff is right up my alley. Before you start wondering about my possible conversion, I must let you know that I did disagree with her on some points. She conveniently only brought up anecdotes that supported her position. This may have been because of time. But, it made her presentation seem like she was over simplifying the issues.
You can hear her speech: http://speeches.byu.edu/index.php?act=browsespecialized&mediatype=&year=.5

You can also read about her theories about justifiable war and Iraq.

Jean Bethke Elshtain Responds
By Jean Bethke Elshtain
Summer 2006
Whether in agreement or demurral, one reads Michael Walzer with interest and respect. His work is a welcome contrast to the vicious rhetoric of accusation and denunciation that is so much a part of our public life. The basics of Walzer’s argument are straightforward: is regime change a just cause for war? (Presumably this means can regime change as such ever be a just cause.) My answer to this question is, No, not in and of itself as an abstract proposition. However, in a given case and in light of other factors and additional information, regime change may well be one feature of the deployment of justifiable force. This is not equivocation but a recognition that the just war tradition does not present a series of boxes to check, and, should you get more than a given number, then war it is. Just war doesn’t function like that, as Walzer points out in his classic work, Just and Unjust Wars, a text that has played a central role in the revival of just war thinking in our time. The just war tradition is thick with the soot of history and cannot be wrenched free from particular cases, as Walzer insists. It is true that regime change was not a stipulated goal at the onset of World War II. As the war went forward, regime change came into focus as a compelling and legitimate war aim. (Even as bringing an end to chattel slavery gained momentum as a war aim during the Civil War, although it wasn’t the casus belli at the outset.) It would be odd for someone to claim that “just cause” in the Second World War was besmirched because regime change wasn’t articulated from the get-go as a sine qua non for the use of force. The fact that regime change is not articulated as overriding at the outset does not invalidate an otherwise strong case. Whatever one thinks of regime change in Iraq, the argument that the use of force in such matters is always illegitimate unless it is undertaken collectively is false, as the UN charter demonstrates. Any argument against a nation’s use of force, including pushing for regime change, must proceed on other grounds if it is to be compelling. Walzer recognizes this in a way many of the loudest voices do not.I dissent somewhat from Walzer’s claim that in the classical formulation of just war “aggression is regarded as the criminal policy of a government, not as the policy of a criminal government.” This gets tricky. It may not be a rule, but there is a very strong probability that a criminal regime—whether Fascist, communist, or Baathist—will engage in criminal policies externally and internally. Such regimes “bear watching.” This leads us to ask what criteria are deployed to determine whether the internal abuses of a regime are of an egregious and systematic sort that may—if other factors are present—trigger intervention. Here we arrive at “humanitarian intervention.” But under whose auspices, given what criteria, and to what end or ends? This is deeply contested, as is the norm of a “responsibility to protect” (RTP) now proffered routinely as an international duty of a sort. RTP derives from a hard-hitting document issued under the auspices of the United Nations that declares that a UN member state or group of states may be justified in intervening in the internal affairs of a criminal or rogue state engaged in systematic and egregious crimes against its own people or an identifiable portion of its people. For some of us, RTP was important in evaluating Iraq and the use of force.Walzer’s overall position in these matters might be described as “minimalist universalism.” For example, a nation or group of nations may have just cause to deploy force to stop genocide, but the same cannot be said for the practice of genital sexual mutilation. That disturbing custom, and how to modify or end it, is best left in the hands of a given country and open to pressure from international human rights groups. This is Walzer’s position as I understand it. There is no “bright line” here. Each case must be evaluated along the entire menu of just war considerations. Additionally, cultural transformation is not so easily severed from political change—as Walzer appears to suggest. The cultural transformations attendant upon regime change in post–World War II Japan demonstrate the legitimacy that enforced cultural transformation may acquire over time. The character of the Iraqi state told us a lot about the nature of the Saddam regime and the culture out of which it emerged. These political-cultural factors were not irrelevant to the negative assessments of that regime by several American administrations. To be sure, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) featured foremost in the denunciations by then-President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who declared that Saddam’s Iraq possessed sufficient WMD to “destroy all of humanity.” Given that the nature of the Iraqi state was such that effective internal transformation could not be anticipated, such statements played into fears about WMD and assessments of Saddam’s willingness to use them, given his horrific attack on the Kurds. The culture of a “republic of fear” is surely relevant to how one makes determinations about the use of force.THIS MEANS THAT the Iraq case is something very different from the possession of WMD as a stand-alone fact. Here, the empirical record—I’ve mentioned the Kurds, but one must include the brutal suppression of the Shiite uprising, the destruction of the way of life of the Marsh Arabs, the horror of Saddam’s children’s prisons, systematic torture as a policy, arbitrary arrest, and on and on—all figure into how one weighs concerns about possession of WMD. Significant as well, and adding additional heft to the WMD issue, was Iraq’s defiance of the terms of the truce ending the Persian Gulf War of 1991. Any state in breach of peace terms and believed to possess WMD will trigger a more negative assessment than a relatively transparent democratic state not similarly in breach and in defiance. Or, for that matter, a very nasty regime that has, up to this point, stood down from terrorizing its own population systematically or actually using WMD. Regime change in Iraq cannot be severed from these, and other, considerations. Walzer throws down the gauntlet to those of us who supported intervention by claiming that the “post–Persian Gulf War containment system” prevented both WMD development and mass murder. But who knew for sure? Unless Clinton, Gore, Albright, and Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as President Bush, were, or are, all “lying,” there was sufficient compelling evidence of WMD to raise the level of concern and enhance the case for intervention.I am not convinced that the mass murder question is settled by observing that the gassing of the Kurds and the slaughter of Shiites, together with other egregious abuses, were all in the past. There are other forms of culpable killing; for example, the fact that by UN figures as many as eighty thousand Iraqi children per year were dying as a direct result of Saddam’s “gaming” of the oil for food and medicine program—a shameful episode in the history of a shameful regime. As well, embargo and sanction policies, although they may be justifiable in specific cases, are not necessarily ethically preferable to the use of force. The burdens of these policies fall disproportionately on a society’s most defenseless members: that is another debate for another day. For now, the upshot of my remarks is that a regime’s continuing policies, should they lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent victims as a matter of policy, not unavoidable happenstance, must be taken into account as one fleshes out a case for—or against—intervention. Walzer’s claim that containment was a better option in the Iraq case than war is a prudential judgment flowing from the factors he takes into account and how he evaluates each. If one values sovereignty highly, as Walzer does, preventive war is very difficult to justify, but not impossible. Walzer is correct that there are occasions when “preventive force” can be justified. I believe that, on balance, the 2003 war against Saddam’s Iraq was one of these; Walzer does not. This is a “family quarrel.” I suspect that I am giving heavier consideration to the earliest formulations of the just war tradition (for example, St. Augustine’s), which argued that an outside party may be justified in intervening in a state in order to prevent certain harm to the innocent. Fascinatingly, these early formulations connect directly to the current norms of humanitarian intervention and RTP.TWO FINAL POINTS: it is annoying, as Walzer points out, that many of the Western European leaders calling vociferously for maintenance of the containment regime were unwilling to put their shoulders to the wheel by way of personnel, equipment, and treasure in order to ensure its enforcement. The elites and leaders in Western Europe present a troubling picture. Much of the time they seem not to be at their posts. It is vexing, to put it mildly, when the (alleged) moral high ground is seized by those prepared for the United States to provide for the defense of the West generally as well as its own security, even as anti-Americanism is rampant and American culture is treated with burning contempt.The hard fact of the matter is that many alternatives to the use of force cannot be implemented or even initiated until coercive force is deployed to stabilize a situation. You cannot use “soft power” effectively in the thick of a situation akin to Hobbes’s war of all against all. Although I do not share Walzer’s overall hopefulness where “indirection” is concerned, I join hands with him in a commitment to minimal justice for all beleaguered peoples, tormented by the brutal, that we too readily ignore or forget.

I fouind a fun game to play online

2006-10-13T23:40:00.000-06:00

I know what you are thinking. And no it is not War Craft III. It is called line rider and it is really fun and simple. Maybe you have heard of it.
Check it out. http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/40255643/

I have a religion class

2006-10-02T22:08:00.000-06:00

My teacher is a nice guy. You know toughs well meaning good people that are doing there best. He is a huge cougar football fan. He loves God and his job. He is your regular blue blooded Mormon. He is different from me and I think he is an asset for the church.
Last Thursday I felt really uncomfortable sitting in his class. There was a power point presentation that didn't sit right. Before he showed us what he prepared he had a disclaimer. He said that he was not trying to say God let this terrible thing happen. He said it was a wake up call. So for 10 minutes in silence he showed us these images mingled with scripture.

(Slides have been removed)

I don't know what to do with this. I am trying hard to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. It seems to me that he is saying "nine one one", happened because God let it happen. Its like when people say "Now I'm not a racist but _______." Now I'm not one to gossip but ______." His implication is so strong in the text and images. He implies that we should fear God and do what is right before something like this happens again. The text by itself is good advice. But the choice of images seems random. There are problems with the USA. People should be better than they are. We would be a better nation if we came together and loved each other. Fear is a motivator but it only lasts so long. It doesn't promote true change. It happens on a personal level. It happens when a person chooses to change and is committed to that choice. Said person may have made the choice out of fear but it is the commitment and the choice to keep it is what keeps the change.

I think my teachers points are valid. But, they should have nothing to do with 911. I think he used it as a tool to appeal to emotion. I felt like he was trying to manipulate me. Maybe his plan worked. I think most of the people in the room were moved. I guess I might be stony ground. I am too old and jaded. I am past feeling. I wonder why he didn't use the katrina incident. I think you could make the same points. Maybe because last General conference our leaders said the recent natural disasters where not God punishing the wicked.

Steven Groo utah film maker

2006-09-21T08:31:00.000-06:00

Tribute to Utah

The next few posts are brought to you by Steven Groo. He is a local film maker with a passion for film and aqua type music. I dare say he is the Trent Harris of Provo. Steven is such a prolific film maker. I am impressed by his fearlessness to tackle tuff issues like braking up, sailing, and space travel. Unlike most local artists, Steven and his crew confront the ills of our socioty. They are willing to admit that there are people out there drinking and wearing short skirts.
I love that there is someone here in the area that has a real passion for something. I hope he has all the success in the world.
Here you are, a tour of Utah.

2006-09-21T08:30:00.000-06:00

Save Me-Nickleback

This one is my favorite. He sings both parts.

2006-09-21T08:29:00.000-06:00

Salior Song

I am not sure what to say.

2006-09-21T08:25:00.000-06:00

Major Tom

This one is kind of sweet. they come back to there wives in safty.

2006-09-21T08:24:00.000-06:00

Boys of Summer Music Video

I was a boy of summer once.

2006-09-21T08:23:00.000-06:00

Hypnotized

I'm in a trans as well.

Here is something right up my ally

2006-09-13T19:17:00.000-06:00

Jared, knowing my politicalness and interest in the difference between "The Right" and "The Left", sent me this image in an email. I wonder if it is an accurate portrayal of the two sides. Keeping in mind that this is speaking in generalities, I would be interested in peoples opinion about this diagram.
I wonder if it reads differently to both sides. My first reaction was that it was accurate. I kept thinking "Do conservatives think the world is basically hostile? I think the world is basically good". I think this image brings up some interesting points. Thanks Jared!

You can read about the artist and get a better look here. http://thediagram.com/5_1/mers.html

2006-09-08T16:01:00.000-06:00

Scared fat kid

I must let you see this one.

Just a quick one. More Soccer

2006-09-05T16:26:00.000-06:00

School is just starting so the posts might be minimal. I haven't had a math class for 12 years. I need to focus. Anyway, I found this really cool map of england yesterday. It has all the UK football teams and there location. So if you where wondering where Reading is, well now you can find out. You can just go here http://footballclubs.dyndns.org/?co=england&league=1

Mixing Latter-day saints with politics

2006-08-28T21:48:00.000-06:00

Today I took a cyber walk down memory lane. There was a site I used to frequent that is a Mormon myspace. I think we all know the site to which I refer. Within this site there are discussion forums. The one I would frequent was the political one. Because I haven't been there for months I was not ready for what I was about to read. Here is the beginning thread.

"Global Warming Unstoppable for up to 100 Years, even if humans disappeared.
Better hurry and pass some international laws, eh? Actually, many scientists say it looks unstoppable for about 300 years due to the lag time, meaning that it's too late to correct. Just for fun, let's assume this is true. Should we focus more on coping or fighting a lost cause in prevention?
Or.... do those urging global legislation have another motive entirely?"

"Rationalguy" links to a National Geographic page that explains there are some models that predicts polar ice caps melting for hundreds of years after today. That is if we stopped all emitions today. A gloomy picture to be sure. Near the end he makes an implication, by asking the question, "Should we focus more on coping or fighting a lost cause in prevention?". He implies that we shouldn't waist our time cutting down pollution because it is hopeless. Okay so my mind is half blown. I forgot people think like this.

Let me tell you how the other half was blown. This next post huffed and puffed and said, "I think the end of the world will come before then anyway so it might not be anything to worrry about." What I was about to say was "what about after toughs few hundred years?" But the young scholar "Banndor" pulled the rug right out from under my idealistic crocs, with me in them. Well check mate! All I could say was "this is a joke, right? ... You guys are joking."
Remember in the early years of the Internet when you could trust a person’s self-chosen title, you know the good old days. Well Rationalguy you really muffed this one. Maybe you ment Nationalguy.

Dear Nationalguy,
I can understand why you are resistant to change. It hurts. Change makes you do new things. New things cost time and money. But, arguing with progress could cost more time and money in the long run. Lets have some hope in humanity. Even after reading your post I still have hope. Well honestly I have a little less hope because I am reminded that there are people really short sighted.

P.S.
Dear Banndor,
Not even you know when the end of the world is. I know your level 12 Wizard "Banndor" scored high far-seeing points when playing Dungeons and Dragons. Banndor, you aren't a wizard you are a guy that wishes he were someone else.

my fired artworks

2006-08-25T10:13:00.000-06:00

This is what I did this summer. I spent a lot of time in the ceramics studio. My corner of the room is shown to yours and my left. Cassian and I would trade insults and make objects. Despite his claims, I actually made thies things. The pink vessle with a blue bird was the last piece cass ... I mean I made. By the way the bird comes off. There are before photos at Draw With Friends. The first ones I did are the big white ones. I think they are really simple and pritty.
The white rabbit object is a "Jack be nibble" character I changed a bit. I put mustashes above there lips and wepons in there mits.

2006-08-19T08:30:00.000-06:00

Midwife Crisis again

I know I have put the link to this up in the past. but I just learned how to imbed the youtube window in my blog. If you have seen this already disregard.

2006-08-16T08:50:00.000-06:00

This made me LOL all over myself

Cache showed this little clip to me two nights ago. Maybe you have seen this clip. I hope you like it. I present to you "grape lady falls".

Who killed the electric car?

2006-08-09T07:33:00.000-06:00

Ruel and I with Steve and Sarah stamps, car-pooled up to see the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" The movie as really interesting. It wasn't one of toughs balanced stories. It told one side of the story but I still think it is worth seeing. It was frustrating to see that right now we have the technology. In fact 1997 we had the technology. The fact is, we as a country do not want an electric car. a car that puts out no emotions is not a reason to by a car for most consumers.

Some people keep telling me "let the market dictate". I say we don't need a dictator. We need a balance of power. The market has many wonderful assets. But if it where not for some federal laws there would be no seat belts in cars, our cars would still get 12 miles to the gallon. this point was brought up in the movie. We have swung too far. it seems that there is no reigning in powerful corporations. In fact they get a tax break.

There is hope, but we need to make some long sighted desitions.
This is Jimmy Carter's 10 plinciples.

1. We can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices.

2. Healthy economic growth must continue. Only by saving energy can we maintain our standard of living and keep our people at work. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

3. We must protect the environment. Our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems —wasteful use of resources. Conservation helps us solve both at once.

4. We must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve.

5. We must be fair. Our solutions must ask equal sacrifices from every region, every class of people, every interest group. Industry will have to do its part to conserve, just as the consumers will. The energy producers deserve fair treatment, but we will not let the oil companies profiteer.

6. Reduce the demand through conservation. Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way we can buy a barrel of oil for a few dollars. It costs about $13 to waste it.
He called #6 the cornerstone of the policy

7. Prices should generally reflect the true replacement costs of energy. We are only cheating ourselves if we make energy artificially cheap and use more than we can really afford.

8. Government policies must be predictable and certain. Both consumers and producers need policies they can count on so they can plan ahead. This is one reason I am working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy, to replace more than 50 different agencies that now have some control over energy.

9. We must conserve the fuels that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful. We can't continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves. We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy.

10. We must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.

I thought I would shack the hive a bit

2006-08-07T08:35:00.000-06:00

C-SPAN aired this conference in LA. It is about the 911 Conspiracy. I call it a conspiracy because there is a relatively small group of people that believe 911 was a self-inflicted wound. But there is a very large group that thinks the 911-commition report has left some things out. They think there is something going on. I number myself with the latter group.
I will give you 2 clips. The first one is Prof. Jones of BYU speaking on his experience with the theory that the WTC was a demolition.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=F5kBkOX-qgg

The second clip is of an author that brings up some interesting points.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FxxpqsOP3SI

By the way I hate how the host sounds. He sounds like the radio political voices I hate. I think the BYU prof. has the strongest argument.

Here i go again, I am turning greener

2006-06-25T22:19:00.000-06:00

Here is a really cool show on the discovery channel. It is a really short clip. I think you will like it. It is about the energy crisis and foreign policy.
http://dsc.discovery.com/beyond/?bclid=82224665

The World Cup

2006-06-13T20:43:00.000-06:00

I want to joint the rest of the world. The craziness has taken me. I have seen every gave so far of the world cup. the USA look like clowns compaired to the rest of the world.
I saw this Vid. of Ronaldino
He plays for the Brazilians. They are favored to win it all. Just like they did in 2004.

England has a great reputation of beening crazy fans. They do not have a manopoly on craziness. They get Pop stars to make songs for the team. The likes of New Oreder and The lightning seeds have made songs for teams of the past.

Here is a Vid. of England Football. The song is by The Lightning Seeds. It is called "Footballs Coming Home"

2006-06-11T21:45:00.000-06:00

Ruel and I have made two characters. Passander and Mustashe are the names of the two friends. They are just trying to get byl ike you and I. Mustashe might be heard saying "I wish it was the 70's, I was handsome in the 70's".

Sorry it has been so long

2006-06-06T16:49:00.000-06:00

I was layed off at my job. When else am I supposed to blog?
Here is the BYU prof bringing up some interesting points about 911. I think you have heard of this guy by now. I don't know what I think about it. It is kind of exciting to think about.
physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060605100209990018&ncid=NW

Here is the Loose Change Doc. I don't think everything is true in this but it dose raise some questions about what we don't know about Sept 11 2001.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848&q=loose+change

The blogs are a buzz over Stephen Colbert!

2006-04-30T20:50:00.000-06:00

Why? Why was Stephen Colbert asked to speak at this dinner? Let's back up a bit. Washington DC, The White House Press Core Dinner, Stephen Colbert begins to take aim at everyone in the room. Pres. Bush is squirming in his seat while the audience is sort of laughing. The white house presses are sort of laughing because Stephen Colbert’s jokes are cutting too close to the bone. Being called a coward but using funnier words is funny and painful. If you know me you know I am interested in awkwardness. You guys have got to see this. Here it is.

How will you remember Bill Clinton?

2006-04-24T14:06:00.000-06:00

I will remember him for his intimate relationship with Monika. The cigars and the lies will be foremost in my mind. But I wonder, he must have done something else. He was in office for eight years. Will none of his policy decisions be remembered? What was he like as a president. Was he weak because he didn't preempt 9/11?
My second reaction to the question of "what do I remember about Bill Clinton?", is I remember Pres. Clinton being an engaging speaker. I also remember, he was a self made man. He came up from a lower class home.
Why am I wondering this, You might ask? Well I just heard him speak at an awards dinner. Bill Clinton speaks at the Louis E. Martin Great American Award His speech is basically about regular people doing good. He feels that one of the powers of Democracy is the freedom it allows people to organize and problem solve. He puts responsibility in our hands. Because of technology we can see a problem and do something about it. A huge percentage of donations for Katrina were donated through the internet.
The point is we can have problems with the Bush administration. We could have had problems with the Clinton administration, but we have the power to do good. We can do something. I don't mean this to sound us verses them, Red verses blue. I think we can agree on a problem and work together to fix it. Because we have this power we should demand of our self to be involved.

Republicans or Democrats, who is the happiest?

2006-04-20T10:00:00.000-06:00

The title is a bit miss leading. What I really meant was conservatives or Liberals not Republicans or Democrats. I just heard an interview with author, Jonathan Haidt. In December his book The Happiness Hypothesis. It is a historical look at happiness in the worlds cultures. The interviewer askes the question "Who is happier, conservatives or Liberals? Dr. Haidt responds quick and sure to the question. His research overwhelmingly reveals happiness to be on the side of right, the conservative side. This revelation comes in the early part of the interview. You can hear it here. He defines happiness and explains what it means to religious people and not religious people. His information is very scientific not self helpy.

More of the Band

2006-04-18T16:15:00.000-06:00

Okay, just a quick one. The band has a bit more footage on line now. If you want to waist your time go here.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xVCcvielzds&search=midwife%20crisis

Spring Mix 2006

2006-04-07T19:19:00.000-06:00

Some of you have received a mix CD from me. This is a mix to bring spring. Do a rain dance to this mix. Even better yet, do a sun dance while this mix is getting you ready for work.
The mix is a compilation of songs I have taken from MP3 blogs. I think the songs have a spring celebration feel to them. I have handed some out and I have a few left. Oh, and friends that already have the mix, feel free to share it with toughs you might be in contact with that might want this mix. Here is the track listing:

Song = Artist

1 The price of winter = The Amazing Pilots
2 Jen, Nothing Matters To Me = Irving
3 Oh Mandy = Spinto band
4 Conventional Lullabies = Young And Sexy
5 In Anticipation of Your Suicide = Bedroom Walls
6 Didn't I = Darondo
7 Don't Save Me = Marit Larsen
8 Push The Button = Sugababes
9 Dans Le Club = TTC
10 Que Onda Guero (Team Shi Latino 96.3 Remix) = The Mae-Shi
11 Chewing Gum = Hey Willpower
12 Hot Boyz = Dear Nora & Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
13 Woman - mstrkrft remix = Wolfmother
14 The_terrace = Linus Loves
15 Where else is there ? (thin white duke mix) = Royksopp
16 In My Arms = Mylo
17 Time to Pretend = MGMT

The origin of my last name

2006-04-06T09:05:00.000-06:00

Bagni di Lucca is the name of the town my family is from. Just looking at the picture, I feel myself starting to brim with oily pride. Andrea and I will be visiting there in July. Our trip will be one part getting back to my roots and one part Rick Steves. I have grown up with stories of Italy and the food. My father loved to cook many Italian dishes. Leon (my father) would tell us stories about the Italian deli his father owned in Pasadena CA. His description of the sandwiches he made for himself with the many options he had behind the deli glass made our mouth water. Leon would sneer at the subway commercials on TV and start into a tale of Fresh bread and imported meats and cheese. I remember all us kids identified so much with our Italian roots that my mother had to start her own PR campaign. She started reminding us we had the power of tartans and haggis on our side. I have visited Jolly ol' England three times. And it is truly wonderful. It is magical. Visiting my Welsh family could be one of my favorite moments in my life. I have never been to Italy. So things evened out. I am so looking forward to get to know my people on the other side. Here is a link to a government page in the little town of my family.

We are on the internet!

2006-03-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

If you are reading this i think by now you know that you and i are on the internet. When i said we i ment the band Midwife Crisis of which I am a memeber.
There is footage of Midwife Crisis at site called youtube.
Now you can see all the shock and awe. You can see the first two songs of our last show. Thank you to Julie form work for recording it on her digital camera.

The Science Of Sexual Orientation

2006-03-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

Sexual orientation, way do you like boys? Why do you like girls? Science has some really interesting things to say about this topic. I have been listening to Pod casts as I walk to and from work. The majority of it is political talk shows. I heard this really cool segment on sexual orientation. The report was done by Lesley Stahl of 60 minutes. The story starts with two twin boys. One is into guns and camo, the other is into horses and nail polish. You can see a short video here.
Another interesting part is what science is finding with statistics.
scientists are looking for patterns in statistics. And hard as this is to believe, they have found something they call "the older brother effect."

"The more older brothers a man has, the greater that man's chance of being gay," says Bailey.

Asked if that's true, Bailey says, "That is absolutely true."

If this comes as a shock to you, you’re not alone. But it turns out; it’s one of the most solid findings in this field, demonstrated in study after study.

And the numbers are significant: for every older brother a man has his chances of being gay increase by one third. Older sisters make no difference, and there's no corresponding effect for lesbians. A first-born son has about a 2 percent chance of being gay, and the numbers rise from there. The theory is it happens in the womb.

"Somehow, the mother's body is remembering how many boys she's carried before," says Breedlove. "The favorite hypothesis is that the mother may be making antibodies when she sees a boy the first time, and then affect subsequent boys when she carries them in utero."

"You mean, like she's carrying a foreign substance?" Stahl asked.

"And if you think about it, a woman who's carrying a son for the first time, she is carrying a foreign substance," Breedlove replied. "There are some proteins encoded on his Y chromosome that her body has never seen before and that her immune system would be expected to regard as 'invaders,'" he added.

It’s still not a proven theory.

But if the boy is left handed then the theory is out the window.

We will always wonder why we are the way we are. It is the combination of things that make us the way we are. I don't think they will find "the one thing" that makes us straight or gay. Man will always try to answer the whys. What a species!

This might be fun

2006-03-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

I saw this on myspace. My friend Mary LeSuer posted this idea and I thought it would be fun for toughs of you who don't know Mary and are not connected to her on myspace. In this picture there are 75 bands represented. I would like people to post their guess. I would ask you to keep your guesses under five. Just so's we can spread around the fun. I was able to see 23.

I was sick today

2006-03-18T22:23:00.000-07:00

It was a good day to be sick. I have college basketball going most of the day. The USA network shows SVU for like six hours. What can I say; TV is what I do when I am sick. To be honest the TV hasn’t really given me much. It is mainly a time killer. Today was rare. Fox was playing the movie "The Straight Story". I haven't seen this movie for years. It is such a quiet little movie. I think for that reason I forgot it. The movie stood out so much compaired to the loud flashings of sports, pedophiles, MTV people dating other peoples mothers, and on the minute news updates. On TV I caught a glimpse of humanity in its purest state. I saw a real story. The story wasn't meant or made for TV. The story is beautiful in its simplicity. It is about two brothers that haven't spoken for ten years. They are both old. The main character, Richard Farnsworth,(you know Mathew from Anne of Green Gables) wants to make amends with his brother.
Cyber space, hear me! Rent this movie. Go home watch it by yourself. Or watch it with someone that gets it. I think you know what I mean. This movie is what America is. You will see what is so great about our culture. The story is not news. It is not outrageous. But I think you will find its value much more.

Our word of wisdom

2006-03-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

I just heard a really cool radio show about americas history relating to food and spirituality. They talk about the inventer of the gram cracker. the culteral effect of the word of wisdom on mormonism. i think it is fasinating for all religions and races. "I say come one come all. yeah, so, there is your racist."

go to this link

They just don't make them like they used to

2006-03-05T19:10:00.000-07:00

I ran acorss this artical about higher learning now compaired to ten years ago. I think it is human nature to pine for the old days. The auther gives us his recomendations to suppliment our collage education. Here is the first part of it.

I've got great news! You're young and you're smart and next year you're beginning college. Unfortunately, I've also got bad news. The only school you got into is Harvard, where, as Peter Beinart of The New Republic notes, students often graduate "without the kind of core knowledge that you'd expect from a good high school student," and required courses can be "a hodgepodge of arbitrary, esoteric classes that cohere into nothing at all."

But don't despair. I've consulted with a bevy of sages, and I've come up with a list. If you do everything on this list, you'll get a great education, no matter what college you attend:

Read Reinhold Niebuhr. Religion is a crucial driving force of this century, and Niebuhr is the wisest guide. As Alan Wolfe of Boston College notes, if everyone read Niebuhr, "The devout would learn that public piety corrupts private faith and that faith must play a prophetic role in society. The atheists would learn that some people who believe in God are really, really smart. All of them would learn that good and evil really do exist — and that it is never as easy as it seems to know which is which. And none of them, so long as they absorbed what they were reading, could believe that the best way to divide opinion is between liberals on the one hand and conservatives on the other." http://paulipema.blogspot.com/2006/03/harvard-bound-chin-up-by-david-brooks.html

From Russia with love.

2006-02-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

I got this message in my friendster mail. i wanted to share the comady with the rest of you. what can i say, she loves my structure. i wish this was real so i could get more yoda speak.

hi
Message:
HI from Russia! My name is Liliya. I loved your structure. You very good the man. I want to learn you better. Probably we can find the general future and go on a footpath of the general future. I never was in USA and I shall like to learn a lot of interesting to me. Also I to you shall tell a lot of interesting about Russia. Now at us to become coldly and the temperature of air has decreased to-3 degrees. I know that in USA to be approximately at the same breadth as well as Russia and you test the same climatic cold. You love heat? I have still more many questions for you and I want to learn you better. Write to me on e-mail:lonelyliliya1976@mail.ru
PS:
Please forgive me for imperfect English language. My English the second, which I studied at university. I shall be improved so we can understand each other better. My colloquial English on much better, I can well speak

Mormons and politics

2006-02-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

This is in responce to an isolated mormon/liberal. i posted this here. As i was writing this I thought it would be a good statment about myself and mt view on polatics.

Frankly, I am surprised when Mormons are surprised to find politically like minded members of "the faith". Maybe I have been lucky, I experience members of the church that lean left in school, at work, and in my ward. Of course we don't agree exactly, but I think there are more of us out there than it might seem. I do admit we are an obvious minority. We, the liberal Mormon, find ourselves aligned politically with the “uncircumcised of heart”. Many members of the church conceder our politicking to be an act of rebellion.
Personally, the difference I see between liberal and conservative philosophy seems to be economic verses social issues. People that are passionate about feeding their family and controlling their money seem to fall on the conservative side. They seem to be practical and a bit pessimistic. The people that seem to be globally minded and interested in human rights fall on the liberal side. Liberals are idealistic and hopeful but they can be naive. One might read this and say “Wait a minute; I care about all of these things”. I would say “I should hope you care about those issues.” But it is all about priorities. What is most important? What can you live with? What will get you off your butt and stand up and say “these floors are dirty as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”? Stanley Spudousky UHF
The trouble with the local Mormon is we are not challenged. We are not challenged about what we think. We are always asked how we feel about something. We are rarely asked what we think. Rarer still is the query "why". Why do we believe something? Members of the church use a word like feel. We do use the word know but it is based on a feeling. This is not wrong. Faith is important. But I think it is a mistake to approach politics the same way.
No form of government is The Truth. Unless Christ has come and we are now living the law of consecration. Our government was founded by enlightened men. Though the source of light is God the actual light is Science. I think we as Americans should use logic as we choose our political opinions. Our system is not perfect. Until it is we have to make our best guess. I am keeping in mind this guess could be backed up by the Holy Ghost. What I want to say is not so novel. We need to come to our decision with the tools God gave like our brain science and logic and then get a confirmation from God. I am not sure how this turned religious. But there you go.
Here is an example that illistrates the problems with Mormons and politics. Personally I think members of the church are not really pro life. I think most members of the church could find a scenario where abortion would be the right choice. I don't think they have really considered the issue. Like all issues it is not a simple yes or no answer. I will change my mind when someone will argue with some knowledge on the topic. But until then I will continue to think that someone that is pro choice is that way because they simply think abortion is bad.
I am still thinking about this idea. It is not set in stone. I am open to what everyone is thinking.

Have you all heard of Tom Friedman?

2006-02-22T14:58:00.000-07:00

Globalization technology and mulit-culture if this isn't post-modern i don't know what is.

Empty Pockets, Angry Minds
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
MUMBAI, India
I have no doubt that the Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad have caused real offense to many Muslims. I'm glad my newspaper didn't publish them. But there is something in the worldwide Muslim reaction to these cartoons that is excessive, and suggests that something else is at work in this story. It's time we talked about it.
To understand this Danish affair, you can't just read Samuel Huntington's classic, "The Clash of Civilizations." You also need to read Karl Marx, because this explosion of Muslim rage is not just about some Western insult. It's also about an Eastern failure. It is about the failure of many Muslim countries to build economies that prepare young people for modernity — and all the insult, humiliation and frustration that has produced.
Today's world has become so wired together, so flattened, that you can't avoid seeing just where you stand on the planet — just where the caravan is and just how far ahead or behind you are. In this flat world you get your humiliation fiber-optically, at 56K or via broadband, whether you're in the Muslim suburbs of Paris or Kabul. Today, Muslim youth are enraged by cartoons in Denmark. Earlier, it was a Newsweek story about a desecrated Koran. Why? When you're already feeling left behind, even the tiniest insult from afar goes to the very core of your being — because your skin is so thin.
India is the second-largest Muslim country in the world, but the cartoon protests here, unlike those in Pakistan, have been largely peaceful. One reason for the difference is surely that Indian Muslims are empowered and live in a flourishing democracy. India's richest man is a Muslim software entrepreneur. But so many young Arabs and Muslims live in nations that have deprived them of any chance to realize their full potential.
The Middle East Media Research Institute, called Memri, just published an analysis of the latest employment figures issued by the U.N.'s International Labor Office. The I.L.O. study, Memri reported, found that "the Middle East and North Africa stand out as the region with the highest rate of unemployment in the world": 13.2 percent. That is worse than in sub-Saharan Africa.
While G.D.P. in the Middle East-North Africa region registered an annual increase of 5.5 percent from 1993 to 2003, productivity, the measure of how efficiently these resources were used, increased by only about 0.1 percent annually — better than only one region, sub-Saharan Africa.
The Arab world is the only area in the world where productivity did not increase with G.D.P. growth. That's because so much of the G.D.P. growth in this region was driven by oil revenues, not by educating workers to do new things with new technologies.Nearly 60 percent of the Arab world is under the age of 25. With limited job growth to absorb them, the I.L.O. estimates, the region is spinning out about 500,000 more unemployed people each year. At a time when India and China are focused on getting their children to be more scientific, innovative thinkers, educational standards in much of the Muslim world — particularly when it comes to science and critical inquiry — are not keeping pace.
Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor of nuclear physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, bluntly wrote the following in Global Agenda 2006, the journal of the recent Davos World Economic Forum:"Pakistan's public (and all but a handful of private) universities are intellectual rubble, their degrees of little consequence. ... According to the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology, Pakistanis have succeeded in registering only eight patents internationally in 57 years. ..."[Today] you seldom encounter a Muslim name in scientific journals. Muslim contributions to pure and applied science — measured in terms of discoveries, publications, patents and processes — are marginal. ... The harsh truth is that science and Islam parted ways many centuries ago. In a nutshell, the Muslim experience consists of a golden age of science from the ninth to the 14th centuries, subsequent collapse, modest rebirth in the 19th century, and a profound reversal from science and modernity, beginning in the last decades of the 20th century. This reversal appears, if anything, to be gaining speed."No wonder so many young people in this part of the world are unprepared, and therefore easily enraged, as they encounter modernity. And no wonder backward religious leaders and dictators in places like Syria and Iran — who have miserably failed their youth — are so quick to turn their young people's anger against an insulting cartoon and away from themselves and the rot they have wrought.

2006-02-22T11:23:00.000-07:00

i found this on the myspace site.

We had a great last show

2006-02-20T19:09:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for coming and being so supportive. I am a bit sad it is over. It is also a relief that it is done. Mixed feelings about the whole thing I guess. The beginning went really well. It was cool to have the sheets up for all of the first song. The beam of light trick worked without a hitch. I even got to tear down the sheets to revile the rest of the band. Chris, our stand in drummer, played very well. I remembered most of my lyrics. When the show was over the crowed asked for more, we where in the back thinking we don't have any more. It was a little bit embarrassing. We came back out and played a Gang of Four cover. We hadn't practiced it at all. We just sort of winged it. It turned out pretty good. I think we all surprised ourselves.

you can hear us if you clisk here.

I HAVE BEEN TAGGED!

2006-02-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

Thank you marsh for letting me in on your blog click.

4 jobs I have had:

1. Trench digger for sprinkler systems. I would swing a pick ax and develop clauses on my thin sixteen year old hands.
2. Flower delivery boy would be my next employ. I got to see many interesting reactions. Some women would squeal with glee, others would have a fear behind there eyes that read "why is he stalking me?" my favorite reaction would be the sike out. Sometimes if the person wasn’t home I would ask a neighbor to give them the flowers when the recipient would get home. The face on the person answering the door was so happy. I would promptly have to nip that feeling in the bud and explain that the flowers where for someone else.
3. A T-shirt printer is always asked to help someone with a t-shirt idea. Everyone has an idea for a t-shirt. My introduction in the persons life has given them a vehicle to achieve there t-shirt dreams. I say “hop on, lets ride.”
4. Drugstore liquor and lotto corner is where I worked in Michigan. My regulars where a guy that came in every other morning to buy a pint of Mohawk vodka. I also had a grey haired man that would buy fifty dollars worth of powerball tickets on his credit card. He came in twice a week.

Movies I could watch over and over

Kill Bill 1 and 2
Big Labouski
The Thin Red Line
the office (not a movie I realize. There is nothing else)

Four places I have lived

Provo Utah
Dillon Montana
Rochester Hills Michigan
Paso Robles California

Four TV shows

BBC’s The Office
Lost
24
Curb

Four highly regarded and recommended TV shows that I've never watched a single minute of

Gray’s Anatomy
Deadwood
American Idol
Gilmore Girls

Four Places I've Vacationed

San Francisco
Maryland
England
Catalina Island

Four of my favorite dishes

Tom Kagi
Sushi
Gnocchi
Pasta

Four sites I visit daily

C-SPAN.com
Blogger.com
Hotmail
Gmail.com

Four Places I'd rather be right now

Turino Italy
Chernobyl Russia
Wales
Split Croatia

Human rights, how far are we?

2006-02-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

This is a cool interview about where we are as a country. Kenji Yoshino brings out how we act and how we treat each other in his lates book Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights.

you can hear the interview here.
http://www.c-span.org/Search/basic.asp?ResultStart=1&ResultCount=10&BasicQueryText=Kenji+Yoshino+autobiography

Provo Pod Cast interview

2006-02-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

You can hear an interview with mike, Tim, Neil, grant and me. There are a few laughs. Not much insight to the band. I think it might be fun to listen to. I become an ego maniac when ever I get in this band situation. frontmans disease is rampant with me. Though I don't feel very contrite about my attitude. I guess I am a stereotype.

http://provopodcast.com/

The band is dead

2006-02-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

Let me lighten up a bit. So I have this band called Midwife Crisis. I know, I know, worst name ever. Maybe it is so bad it is good. I really doubt it though. So some friends and I did this dance rock thing. I was really into doing theatrics. I was just so board going to shows. I didn't want to be a band that demanded that people take us seriously. Lets face it, we are just a rock band we aren't going to change the world. We just want to entertain. I must admit this attitude afforded us and the crowd to have fun. This is why we go to shows.

We had some good times. The band is dead now. But, we will be doing a CD release final show. It will happen on Feb 18th at Velour in Provo Utah. Be there at 8:00... If you want to be there on time.

I can't deny my excitement to perform. I just get nervous just thinking about it.

Okay, now we are getting somewhere

2006-02-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

The State of this Union is addicted to oil. I must admit that Bushes speech is a step in the right direction. My first reaction was "hey, republicans don't say things like this, do they?" I got a little territorial. I think that reaction shows I am caught up in the Bi-partisan conflict. An interesting thing happened the day after the speech. My wife Andrea's class mates talked about our dependence on oil, like Bush came up with the idea. Republicans around me magically became aware of our responsibility to the environment. Maybe they where aware but didn't vocalize it. Interesting thing number two, was the local news. They started talking about fuel alternatives. They where exposing alternatives that would allow people to say close to there life styles. Maybe we as a country had to hear this from a conservative president. I hope this is something both sides can get behind. We can change. With that change, we can be better.

Dr. Hansen of the Goddard Institute "It's getting hot in here"

2006-01-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

This is a New York Times article that I found interesting. After my last post it seems that Republicans are not interested in the rest of the world unless it is economic. An environmental stand is not made by the party on the right. It is just not a priority. This issue is important to me. It is the reason why I lean left. This issue weighs the most. I feel validated when former president Clinton says this is his greatest concern. I want to say "right on" when Tom Friedman calls for a think tank of great minds to come together to try and solve our energy crisis. We Americans are great people. We have tremendous freedoms. With that freedom we have responsibility. What is truly important to you? What can you do for the counrty? Better yet, what can you do for the earth?

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: January 29, 2006

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.
Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. "That's not the way we operate here at NASA," Mr. Acosta said. "We promote openness and we speak with the facts."
He said the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel. He added that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen.
Mr. Acosta said other reasons for requiring press officers to review interview requests were to have an orderly flow of information out of a sprawling agency and to avoid surprises. "This is not about any individual or any issue like global warming," he said. "It's about coordination."
Dr. Hansen strongly disagreed with this characterization, saying such procedures had already prevented the public from fully grasping recent findings about climate change that point to risks ahead.
"Communicating with the public seems to be essential," he said, "because public concern is probably the only thing capable of overcoming the special interests that have obfuscated the topic."
Dr. Hansen, 63, a physicist who joined the space agency in 1967, directs efforts to simulate the global climate on computers at the Goddard Institute in Morningside Heights in Manhattan.
Since 1988, he has been issuing public warnings about the long-term threat from heat-trapping emissions, dominated by carbon dioxide, that are an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels. He has had run-ins with politicians or their appointees in various administrations, including budget watchers in the first Bush administration and Vice President Al Gore.
In 2001, Dr. Hansen was invited twice to brief Vice President Dick Cheney and other cabinet members on climate change. White House officials were interested in his findings showing that cleaning up soot, which also warms the atmosphere, was an effective and far easier first step than curbing carbon dioxide.
He fell out of favor with the White House in 2004 after giving a speech at the University of Iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled and said he planned to vote for Senator John Kerry.
But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide.
In several interviews with The New York Times in recent days, Dr. Hansen said it would be irresponsible not to speak out, particularly because NASA's mission statement includes the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet."
He said he was particularly incensed that the directives had come through telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents.
Dr. Hansen's supervisor, Franco Einaudi, said there had been no official "order or pressure to say shut Jim up." But Dr. Einaudi added, "That doesn't mean I like this kind of pressure being applied."
The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth "a different planet."
The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.
After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.
Among the restrictions, according to Dr. Hansen and an internal draft memorandum he provided to The Times, was that his supervisors could stand in for him in any news media interviews.
Mr. Acosta said the calls and meetings with Goddard press officers were not to introduce restrictions, but to review existing rules. He said Dr. Hansen had continued to speak frequently with the news media.
But Dr. Hansen and some of his colleagues said interviews were canceled as a result.
In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute.
Citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, Ms. McCarthy said Mr. Deutsch called N.P.R. "the most liberal" media outlet in the country. She said that in that call and others, Mr. Deutsch said his job was "to make the president look good" and that as a White House appointee that might be Mr. Deutsch's priority.
But she added: "I'm a career civil servant and Jim Hansen is a scientist. That's not our job. That's not our mission. The inference was that Hansen was disloyal."
Normally, Ms. McCarthy would not be free to describe such conversations to the news media, but she agreed to an interview after Mr. Acosta, at NASA headquarters, told The Times that she would not face any retribution for doing so.
Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch's supervisor, said that when Mr. Deutsch was asked about the conversations, he flatly denied saying anything of the sort. Mr. Deutsch referred all interview requests to Mr. Acosta.
Ms. McCarthy, when told of the response, said: "Why am I going to go out of my way to make this up and back up Jim Hansen? I don't have a dog in this race. And what does Hansen have to gain?"
Mr. Acosta said that for the moment he had no way of judging who was telling the truth. Several colleagues of both Ms. McCarthy and Dr. Hansen said Ms. McCarthy's statements were consistent with what she told them when the conversations occurred.
"He's not trying to create a war over this," said Larry D. Travis, an astronomer who is Dr. Hansen's deputy at Goddard, "but really feels very strongly that this is an obligation we have as federal scientists, to inform the public."
Dr. Travis said he walked into Ms. McCarthy's office in mid-December at the end of one of the calls from Mr. Deutsch demanding that Dr. Hansen be better controlled.
In an interview on Friday, Ralph J. Cicerone, an atmospheric chemist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's leading independent scientific body, praised Dr. Hansen's scientific contributions and said he had always seemed to describe his public statements clearly as his personal views.
"He really is one of the most productive and creative scientists in the world," Dr. Cicerone said. "I've heard Hansen speak many times and I've read many of his papers, starting in the late 70's. Every single time, in writing or when I've heard him speak, he's always clear that he's speaking for himself, not for NASA or the administration, whichever administration it's been."
The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.
Where scientists' points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing.
One example is Indur M. Goklany, assistant director of science and technology policy in the policy office of the Interior Department. For years, Dr. Goklany, an electrical engineer by training, has written in papers and books that it may be better not to force cuts in greenhouse gases because the added prosperity from unfettered economic activity would allow countries to exploit benefits of warming and adapt to problems.
In an e-mail exchange on Friday, Dr. Goklany said that in the Clinton administration he was shifted to nonclimate-related work, but added that he had never had to stop his outside writing, as long as he identified the views as his own.
"One reason why I still continue to do the extracurricular stuff," he wrote, "is because one doesn't have to get clearance for what I plan on saying or writing."

What do the official parties think about the environment?

2006-01-26T15:43:00.000-07:00

I was wondering what the political parties think about the environment. I had some assumptions, I confess. But I wanted to know what the diffrent parties would say about it. What would be their official stance on the environment? I don't know what republicans think about the environment. Maybe they have it as a priority. Or if not maybe they mention it.

Here are links to four main party websites

Democrats
http://www.democrats.org/a/national/clean_environment/

Green party
http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/ecology.html#771441

Republican ... page 51
http://www.gop.com/media/2004platform.pdf

Libertarian
http://www.lp.org/issues/environment.shtml

music

2006-01-26T14:01:00.000-07:00

mp3 blogs
http://materialcultures.org/gifted/
http://leafandlime.hobix.com/
http://www.3hive.com/
http://www.fluxblog.org/
I like.

Wake up! we live on the same earth don't we!?

2006-01-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

Here is yet another Tom Friedman artical. I want to be a part of this revolution. We need to wake up! Is the easiest way the best way? Is the cheapest way the best way? It's like we got a large chunk of money and we are spending it all on fast food. We are gratfied with ease but it is gone and we are fat with heath problems. Okay, not the best analogy. We are not looking forward we are looking back. Mr Cheney said that conservation is a "personal virtue". Wake up! we live on the same earth don't we!? "I feel like I'm taking carzy pills" Mugatu. Someone please tell me why we living this way. Is there a good argument against this green idea? It seems the only defence to this is to imasculate the issue. If anyone reading disagrees with me, please respond with a reason i can understand.
Anyway the artical is a good read. I hope you like it.

The New York Times
The New 'Sputnik' Challenges: They All Run on Oil
January 20, 2006
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I came to Detroit looking for the hottest new American cars. Instead, I found Sputnik.
You remember Sputnik - the little satellite the Soviets launched in 1957. The Eisenhower administration was so stunned it put the U.S. into a crash program to train more scientists and engineers so America could catch up with the Russians in the space race.Well, for anyone paying attention, our generation's Sputnik showed up at the annual Detroit auto show this week. It's not a satellite. It's a car. It's called the Geely 7151 CK sedan. It seats a family of five, gets good mileage and will cost around $10,000 when it goes on sale in 2008.
It's made in China.
That doesn't get your attention? Well, there's another Sputnik that just went up: Iran. It's going to make a nuclear bomb, no matter what the U.N. or U.S. says, because at $60-a-barrel oil, Tehran's mullahs are rich enough to buy off or tell off the rest of the world. That doesn't worry you? Well, there's a quieter Sputnik orbiting Earth. It's called climate change - a k a Katrina and melting glaciers.What am I saying here? I am saying that our era doesn't have a single Sputnik to grab our attention and crystallize the threat to our security and way of life in one little steel ball - the way our parents' era did. But that doesn't mean such threats don't exist. They do, and they have a single common denominator: the way we use and consume energy today, particularly oil.
Friends, we are in the midst of an energy crisis - but this is not your grandfather's energy crisis. No, this is something so much bigger, for four reasons.
First, we are in a war against a radical, violent stream of Islam that is fueled and funded by our own energy purchases. We are financing both sides in the war on terrorism: the U.S. Army with our tax dollars, and Islamist charities, madrasas and terrorist organizations through our oil purchases.
Second, the world has gotten flat, and three billion new players from India, China and the former Soviet Union just walked onto the field with their version of the American dream: a house, a car, a toaster and a refrigerator. If we don't quickly move to renewable alternatives to fossil fuels, we will warm up, smoke up and choke up this planet far faster than at any time in the history of the world. Katrina will look like a day at the beach.
Third, because of the above, green energy-saving technologies and designs - for cars, planes, homes, appliances or office buildings - will be one of the biggest industries of the 21st century. Tell your kids. China is already rushing down this path because it can't breathe and can't grow if it doesn't reduce its energy consumption. Will we dominate the green industry, or will we all be driving cars from China, Japan and Europe?
Finally, if we continue to depend on oil, we are going to undermine the whole democratic trend that was unleashed by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because oil will remain at $60 a barrel and will fuel the worst regimes in the world - like Iran - to do the worst things for the world. Indeed, this $60-a-barrel boom in the hands of criminal regimes, and just plain criminals, will, if sustained, pose a bigger threat to democracies than communism or Islamism. It will be a black tide that turns back the democratic wave everywhere, including in Iraq.The one thing we can do now to cope with all four of these trends is to create a tax that fixes the pump price at $3.50 to $4 a gallon - no matter where the OPEC price goes. Because if consumers know that the price of oil is never coming down, they will change their behavior. And when consumers change their behavior in a big way, G.M., Ford and DaimlerChrysler will change their cars in a big way, and it is cars and trucks that consume a vast majority of the world's oil.
The more Detroit goes green, the faster it will be propelled down the innovation curve, making it more likely that Detroit - and not Toyota or Honda or the Chinese - will dominate the green technologies of the 21st century. A permanent gasoline tax will also make solar, wind and biofuels so competitive with oil that it will drive their innovations as well.
George Bush may think he is preserving the American way of life by rejecting a gasoline tax. But if he does not act now - starting with his State of the Union speech - he will be seen as the man who presided over the decline of our way of life. He will be the American president who ignored the Sputniks of our day.

More about this: http://copsandkids.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-will-show-to-you-my-greeness.html

C-SPAN I love C-SPAN

2006-01-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

There is a program(Washington Journal) that goes through the morning news papers and gives you a really thorough explanation on what is currently happening. This show could get boring but you have the Fast Forward option on the internet. Sometimes the real news is boring. Maybe that is a good way to gage your news source. If it is boring you are getting the facts. Of course I am over stating. There is a big problem with the way people get there information. Things seem to get over simplified.

http://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp?Cat=Series&Code=WJE&ShowVidNum=9&Rot_Cat_CD=WJ&amp;Rot_HT=206&Rot_WD=&ShowVidDays=100&ShowVidDesc=&ArchiveDays=30

2006-01-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

2006-01-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

Wood fired

Art

2006-01-23T08:36:00.000-07:00

Here, i have some art.
You are looking at Sagger fired ceramics. They are 6" x 3"

small stories together make America

2006-01-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

This American Life is really great. If you don't know, go to listen to a episode.
http://www.thislife.org/pages/archives/archivemain.html#06

More Tom Friedman

2006-01-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

I was looking for funny Dave chapelle clips on the internet, and I found this great interview with Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd. Why this came up, I have no idea. You can see Dave chapelle in the search menu. Most of the things tom says really resonates with me. We as a country and the community I live in, seem so short sighted. The beginning is kind of boring because of the introductions. Tom feels like a true moderate. Maureen claims she is but her words and demeanor contradict that. I just got that feeeling form the interview. Be that as it may, she has some important things to say.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2500886262659788792&q=chapelle+dave&amp;time=3700000

diabetes just one more thing to think about.

2006-01-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.c-span.org/search/basic.asp?ResultStart=1&ResultCount=10&BasicQueryText=diabetes&image1.x=21&image1.y=13

the link will look like this.

N.R. Kleinfield and Marc Santora, New York Times Metropolitan reporters, discuss diabetes and public health policy.

watch another interview from c-span. C-span feels like the only source where i can trust the information.

The cost of the war in iraq

2006-01-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

this was an interesting interview talking about the cost of the war. she thinks the war will cost 1 to 2 trillion dollars.
http://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp?Cat=Current_Event&Code=Iraq&ShowVidNum=30&Rot_Cat_CD=US_Iraq&Rot_HT=&Rot_WD=&ShowVidDays=365&ShowVidDesc=&ArchiveDays=30
the link has just come up. i don't know how long it will be there on the linked page. click on the link that looks like this:

Linda Bilmes,
Harvard University,
Kennedy School Of
Government, Professor

You should be able to watch the interview.

2006-01-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

I look just like the guy in this photo. Come to think of it, the girl looks just like my wife.

Just words

2006-01-16T15:53:00.000-07:00

this is gian. i have a blog that talks about my engagement. i just thought you should know. www.copsandkids.blogspot.com
this blog is ment for reading articals and listening to interviews. i would like to post art here to.