For a candidate who's pushing for a change in congress, and for greater accountability on lobbying and spending, it does seem inappropriate for Obama to have earmarked $1,000,000 for a hospital that employs his wife. And when you consider that the same hospital awarded Michelle Obama with a promotion that came with 160% pay increase shortly after Barack Obama was elected to Senate, it further challenges Barack's credibility on the issue of lobbying.
I sent this message to the Obama campaign:
Hey folks -
I'm a strong Obama supporter, and I've felt very comfortable supporting Obama in spite of the reaction I've received from my more contentious conservative friends.
I have, however, come across an issue for which I cannot find a defense or excuse, and I'd like some clarity on the issue.
The $1-million earmark for the Chicago Hospital where Michelle Obama works and received the monstrous pay-raise and promotion to a VP position poses an ethical problem (or at the least, a conflict of interest) for a candidate who is fighting against corruption in the government. This screams of a you-scratch-my-back/I'll-scratch-yours scenario, does it not? How has Barack responded to criticisms of this situation?
This is a tremendous issue for me, because the only reason I went from being a staunch non-voter to an Obama supporter was because I was disgusted at the corruption that's built into the political system -- that our elected leaders should be influenced and corrupted by money is disheartening. I felt that Obama's campaign was built on fighting against such corruption. However, if this situation with Barack and Michelle is another example of that corruption, I will certainly not cast my vote.
I look forward to a response.
Regards
If/when the campaign gets back to me, I'll be sure to follow up.
On the advice of my mother, I decided that first batch of eggs that came from my new chickens were going to be given to God. Sort of a first-fruits offering, reminiscent of Old Testament offerings of thanksgiving.
I asked my pastor how he thought the eggs could be given to God, and he recommended whipping up a batch of deviled-eggs and bringing them to the next Sunday Service. Deviled eggs. At church. Oh, what a joker my pastor is.
But I did it anyway, and they turned out great.
Here's an interesting comparison of the difference between a "range-free organic" chicken from Safeway, and one from my chickens.
Mine is the one on the left. It's darker, denser, less crumbly, and better in every way.
AirJelly houses two lithium-ion polymer accumulator batteries rated at 8 V and 400 mA, which can be completely charged in half an hour and are AirJelly's sole source of power. A connected central electric drive unit transmits the force to a bevel gear wheel and then to eight spur gears in sequence. These gears power eight shafts, each of which activates a crank; these in turn move the jellyfish's eight tentacles. Each tentacle is designed as a structure with Fin Ray Effect(R)- a construction derived from the functional anatomy of a fish's fin. The actual structure consists of two alternating tension and pressure flanks movably connected by ribs. If a flank is subjected to pressure, the geometrical structure automatically bendsin the direction of the applied force. Together, the tentacles produce a peristaltic forward motion similar to that of their biological model.
I'd much rather fly in one of those than in a hot air balloon.
I currently work as an underwriter for a large insurance company. I never thought I'd be an underwriter -- it's one of those jobs that has no purpose outside the institution of managing money and risk. Apart from that institution, it's a rather purposeless profession, much like telephone sanitation.
I decided to go into underwriting because I'm interested in moving up in the company, and getting into the business of the business is the only way to go. The options were either underwriting or claims, and since the folks who I know in claims don't describe their jobs in a positive light, I figured that underwriting would at least be a better experience.
The thing about claims is that you really experience the whole range of human experience. A coworker described a situation where a policyholder was recently involved in a collision which killed a family member. Having to deal with the emotional ordeal of handling such a claim doesn't really sound like fun. Much worse is having the subsequent claim be from a man whose brand new BMW had been dinged, and to hear the guy act as though his world was falling apart over it. It's no wonder some of my friends in claims have come out jaded. People could use a dose of perspective.
Similarly, I wonder if people would spend less time being self-absorbed if our society wasn't so padded by the middle-class illusion. We'd worry less about trying to be comfortable and complaining about the guy in the fast lane driving too slowly if we had to deal with a serious crisis, like the cyclone catastrophe in Myanmar. Thirteen-thousand dead.
A little perspective would do people a lot of good.
Update again: I think I'm going to be ill. Now it's up to 120,000.
The Red Cross estimated Wednesday that the cyclone death toll in Myanmar could be as high as 128,000 - a much higher figure than the government tally. The U.N. warned a second wave of deaths will follow unless the military regime lets in more aid quickly.
I'm already gardening, and even though nothing has come up out of the dirt yet, I'm getting excited. The idea of growing my own food just makes so much sense to me -- it feels like truly living, as opposed to paying (and relying on) somebody else to live for me.
In addition to growing plants to eat, I've decided to do something different. Something drastic. And it started like this:
Here's the frame.
It's starting to look like something.
Can you tell what it is yet?
That's right. It's a chicken coop! And I've got chickens!
I picked up a couple of 10-month old gold-laced wyandottes from a local breeder, and after stopping by the feed store to get the necessities (feed, bedding, a watering can, a feeding can), I brought the chickens home.
Aren't they cute? My cat seems to think so.
It looks like at least one of them is productive. She set it in the bedding on the floor of the coop instead of in the nesting box. Oh well. It's still an egg. Hooray!
I still have a bit more work to do on the coop to secure it from the local raccoons and possums. They apparently have a habit of grabbing chickens and biting their heads off. Creepy.
But yes - in addition to gardening, I now have a couple of egg-laying chickens. Woo hoo!
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I got the idea for the design online, and in addition to posting my own, I'm posting the a link to the design that I followed:
Since good spring weather is so late this year, I decided that I needed some gardening inspiration.
2006 was a good year for my garden - I had a great crop of potatoes, romaine lettuce, cherries, blueberries, carrots, etc., etc., NOM NOM NOM. I took tons of pictures that year, and since they're on my web server without being linked to any blog post (I accidentally deleted a ton of my gardening posts during a database reorgnization... boo), I decided to just post all of those pictures here as a reminder of what my garden might produce this year.
Remember the T-1000 from Terminator 2? The "liquid metal" robot? We're one step closer to realizing that vision.
Ok. So it's a slow step forward. However, the technology demonstrated in video can be miniaturized, allowing for the assembly of more complex structures. We'll be self-assembling nano-bots in no time at all. A little scary.
On the other hand, this kind of reminds me of the Iron Giant. I love the Iron Giant.
I've really been into organic gardening for a few years now, but I've been only half-committed to any of my previous gardening projects. In the past few years, I've failed to do a good job watering the plants regularly, and as a result, my crop results have been equal to my efforts. As they say, you reap what you sow.
This year, I've already doubled my efforts. I've built more raised beds, tended to the soil better before planting, and have checked on my plants every day... even though most of my seeds haven't even come through the dirt yet. The idea of self-reliance and being able to live off the land has become very important to me, partly because of the inspiration of my "I can survive in the wilderness" mother, and partly because I think it's just plain prudent. There's no reason why people shouldn't be able to feed themselves.
On top of my plans to have an awesome garden this year, I've committed myself to learning about edible wild plants in my area. It turns out that you can eat dandelions, clovers, stinging-nettles (after you rinse and steam them), and all sorts of other things that grow wild where I live. I want to put together a database that lists everything you can eat while hiking through the woods or wandering around in your own back yard.
So... I've added a WIKI to my site. In the side navigation under the "MY OTHER SITES" section, there's a link to the Wildfood WIKI. It's in its infancy right now, so there isn't a whole lot available yet. But with the contributions of other smart folks who know a thing or two about wild plants, hopefully it becomes a useful resource for people.
It's interesting to me that Hillary Clinton has aligned herself with the Republican game plan, as it relates to Iran. Between McCain's "bomb-bomb-Iran" joke and his relationship to John Hagee, Huckabee's statement about sending the Iranian boatmen to the gates of hell, and now Clinton's threat to totally obliterate Iran if they attacked Israel, I have to wonder if Clinton's foreign policy is any different than that of the Bush Administration.
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said.
"In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
Later, Clinton told reporters at a polling station in Conshohocken, outside Philadelphia, that Iran must be made aware of the "high price" it would have to pay for any nuclear strike.
If Iran were so "reckless to use them against the United States or an ally in a way that would destablize the world, they would have to take the consequences," she said.
Clinton's cozy relationship with corporate America -- corporations who have a tremendous amount to gain in the event of another war via the military industrial complex -- can't be ignored. Everything America hates about the Bush administration (who's managed to achieve the lowest approval rating on record) is embodied in Clinton's foreign policy on Iran.
We don't need another endless war on the books. And we certainly don't need a president who's going to rattle sabers in order to scare voters into the booths.
