Lockheed + Defense Spending = WTF?!?

From Gizmodo- watch the video, it is worth it. This is seriously a crazy piece of technology. Imagine one of these in the nose cone of a warhead, take it up with an F22, carpet bomb with one missile...

Does this kinda remind anyone of that missile technology in Iron Man?

Good thing we have stuff like this around. I mean gosh, if they had spent that $800 billion in Defense spending on something like education, healthcare, technology, energy, or welfare we'd be in some serious trouble with the econo-wait nevermind. 

Blackwater Goes to Court- and so it begins...

I see this lawsuit as the first of a long string of prosecutions relating to what has been happening in Iraq. I think that over the next 10 years we are going to see more of this information coming to the surface. There will be movies, and expose's- documentaries, dramas, and demigods. This is really the dirtiest, nastiest, most fool-hearty things that America has done since Vietnam. Couple of things I found particuarly interesting, one is that they want to be tried on Utah to get a better jury, the second is the comments that this is a politically motivated trial.

From the NYTimes:

"Based in Moyock, N.C., Blackwater is the largest security contractor in Iraq and provides heavily armed guards for diplomats. Since last year's shooting, the company has been aflash point in the debate over how heavily the U.S. relies on contractors in war zones
The company itself was not charged in the case." (Link)

One thing I also think people should keep in mind is that in many ways these guys were taken advantage of by our government. Most of these mercaneries were sent to Iraq in the military. They get all fucked up in the head and then come back to the US. They can't deal with "normal" life anymore, so they get hooked up with these outfits for crazy money (~$15,000/week), but have about a 4 month life expectancy. And what did they do while there? They protected our own military as a sort of undocumented shield (b/c their deaths didn't get put into the troop death tolls which made things seem less bad). What happens? A fuse blows in their brains one day in Nisoor and go on a killing spree. Is that a valid excuse? No of course not, these men must answer for their own actions, and killing innocent people with their hands up is no way for anyone to behave in any situation. Reguardless, why isn't the Bush administration going on trial instead of these six men? Why isn't Blackwater Inc. going on trail for what they have help facilitate? Why are we still allowing lackies to take the fall for the big kitty cats eating their baluga and crackers? 

JMG et al

People often ask me if I’m a Junior, being that I have the same first name as my Dad. I have always felt a certain sense of identity in having my father’s father’s name, Agustin as my middle name, rather than being a Junior with Mark. Not that I have anything against Mark, it is a fine middle name, I’m just happy that I have my own.

This is my Dad, Jesse Mark Guzman. He and his family (as I said before) came out to visit me. It was really great to have them all here. I hope they have a better sense of the kind of life I lead, and that I’m not too unbearable of a hippy.  The two in the back are Donnellan, age 9, on the left, and Lonigan, age 7, on the right. In the lower picture Alicia, age 10, is the young lady on the left. Meg was also here, but I couldn’t get her picture without being sneaky, and I like to respect people’s photo wishes. I’m not in the business in capturing souls that don’t wish to be caught.

The Guzman clan got to hang out for most of the week. During the work week we met up most evenings for dinner at some places in San Francisco. The trip culminated with everyone coming over for Thanksgiving at the Dembski’s place. I hope that they all had a good time being out here, and feel like they could return anytime. It is always interesting being around kin. 

 

Rising Cost of Education

The NYTimes wrote a nice article here on the increasing cost of higher education in America. There is a rather startling graph here that I wanted to share.  I think that a key way to look at this is relative % change from ‘82-‘84 to ‘07 specifically with respect to class. Tuition increased twice as fast as health care, and FOUR times as fast as median income. Furthermore, for a four year public institute (so for a BA/BS at a relatively cost effective university) has changed by 16%, 10%, 7%, 4%, and 2% for the Lowest to Highest income categories respectively. This clearly means that the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer. There are many signs pointing to this. The thing that keeps surprising me is that rich people still haven’t learned that the backs of the poor are their foundation. The rich won’t be able to reach those delicious money fruits if the backs of the poor break due to their own unbearable weight.

I’ll end with a quote from the article, “Last year, the net cost at a four-year public university amounted to 28 percent of the median family income, while a four-year private university cost 76 percent of the median family income.”

Thanksgiving – 2008!

I really like this picture set. I love eating turkey at Thanksgiving, and stuffing inside the bird, oh my! However, there really is something kind of gruesome about carving of flesh from bone. But what good flesh it is, yum!

Liz’s mom, Ann is a kick ass chef, and knows how to time it and everything. I watched in awe as she pulled the whole show off without even breaking a sweat. Here’s to you Ann. I made mashed potatoes, which I have now reworked into something I consider more reflective of my meager culinary skills. Katrina and Matt made the trip up from Santa Cruz, which was very fortunate or else we would have never gotten to enjoy her wonderful and amazing sweet potatoes (or yams I can' never remember). They really were the hit dish of the evening. Grandma recipes, you gotta love them.  We drank some good wines and even had some tequila during the cooking of everything.

There really is something about a day that could really be reduced to Thanks for Food Day! I love food, so I love Thanksgiving. I think it is way better than Christmas. Far less commercial (unless you count food, rather pay farmers though), far less obligatory, and far less religious.

Anyway, here’s to you turkey, I appreciate your sacrifice for our tradition.

What does government spending mean to you?

I was listening to this NPR-On Point podcast this morning. Krugman is a good speaker and very capable of clearly expressing his thoughts to an audience. I noticed something interesting in their discussion, when it comes to government spending, why does it seem that conservatives only balk at spending that helps the poor? Why don’t Republicans consider $700 billion for defense budget, government spending? Do they think that by allowing the gov’t to spend our money on death and destruction, oh wait, sorry I mean “National Defense”, that they are at the same time putting “Country First” while “Supporting Our Troops” as well? I believe the best way to support our troops is by elimination of a high probability of death/disfigurement, but that’s me. Why is this part of the budget left unscrutinized by our leaders? They talk about how the Dems are “socialists” and even the word “commie” gets thrown around from time to time. Obama got attacked for saying something along the lines of it being high time for a redistribution of wealth from the top 1/3 to the middle-bottom 1/3. You know, military spending is a redistribution from the middle-bottom 1/3 (majority of taxpayers) to the top 1/3 (majority of defense spending contractors) and it shouldn’t be given this free pass from the federal red pen…

UPDATE: Oh and here is a story about the kind of services you get for all those tax dollars.

Milan Kundera Quote

Well, I finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being today. I think this is a really good book with lots of excellent content. There is a good amount of quality thoughts, philosophy, and politics in this book. I’ve been a bit hard on it with respect to the entire lack of a story, but you get over it as you read more of the book. He does a good job of making the characters front and center, instead of having the plot be front and center. I will be peppering my posts with occasional quote from this book as there has been too many for me to post.

“And at the moment he felt pleasure suffusing his body, [he] himself disintegrated and dissolved into the infinity of his darkness, himself becoming infinite. But the larger a man grows in his own inner darkness, the more his outer form diminishes. A man with closed eyes is a wreck of a man.”

Windows Live Writer Beta = Sexy

Ok yes I am a geek. We have all established that by now. This new program is to blogging what the pen is to writing. SO much easier I cannot believe it. Feels similar to Word but more broken down as the blogging atmosphere is more broken down to begin with. 

 

Here are the links to help peoples with getting at this software. Here is the MShit download site. I recommend you pay attention because they try to get you to change your browser settings halfway through. Here is a way to load it up onto a portable drive and run it from there as to not upset the authorities in whatever way that applies to your personal life =)

So that’s kind of nice,  you will be seeing a bit more personalization from me.

Michel Gondry- Extreme Timelapse

Here is something for all of you timelapse lovers. Woah, that had to be so much work!

No Acorns

Read this article about how there have been NO (as in none, zip, ziltch) acorns produced by the oak trees in Virginia and surrounding regions. The scientists don't really understand what is going on but it is going to be a bad year to be a squirrel.