Here i go again, I am turning greener

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

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"

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

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!

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?

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?

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

more

i found this on the myspace site.