Now I will be able to blog /rant via my phone and share the pictures I take. Bwaha ha ha!
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Due to new provisions going into effect the company that I was working underwent a lay off. This was to reduce employee numbers to below 50 because of Obama Care. I was one of the people laid off, with a 4 month old, and no way to pay bills. Obama is destroying our country. Worker by worker, we are falling apart.
 
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The space shuttle Endeavor is being slowly maneuvered through the streets of LA. This is causing quite the ruckus needless to say for the inhabitants of the City of Angels. Lets just hope that it makes it without being spray painted by some random latino thug. I wonder what those rims would bring down in Mexico? (I kid I kid!)

On a much more positive note, at least the residents of LA have something worth while to look at for a bit. Sure beats the pants off of Paris Hilton. (Wait! Put those back on! No one wants to see that! I haven't even had my coffee! aiyeeee!!!)

 
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Well, as if Florida doesn't have enough strange things happening these days, a wandering beach-comber has discovered a softball sized eyeball washed up in the sand. The intrepid individual turned the socketless seer over to the Florida Wildlife Commision on Wednesday, who have been trying to identify what species of swimmer this thing belongs to since. 

          The story found its way into the archives of the National Geographic, who has opened up the mystery to the public. ("Seeing" as how the Squid experts were busy doing more important things...) Guesses range from Squid to Swordfish to Tuna to Aliens. DNA testing will answer many of these questions as results come in. 

          Seriously though... what the hell could be so much more important for a Giant Squid Expert?! That seems to me to be the real mystery/conspiracy here. Silly Squid experts...

 
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     When Dan and I first began to work on this blog together, we sat down and discussed what topics would be considered "taboo". We agreed to keep humor clean from isolating any one group, no matter how funny. (To much of our chagrin, I must admit) We agreed to steer clear of religion, on all parts aside from factual news. Lastly, and I feel possibly most importantly, we agreed to keep our posts outside of politics.


     Now both Dan and myself (If you have not figured it out by now, myself being that Aaron guy...) are both intensely political. In fact, we do not agree on all aspects of the political spectrum and often find ourselves in debate over most issues. We keep it civil and can usually reach some sort of middle ground on things, only occasionally leaving it to an agree to disagree draw. I won't come right out and say what political side of the fence he or I am on with this piece, and I am not intending to endorse any political party or candidate. Still, editor's note here, this is not the normal topic on this site.

     I would like to take some time to step back from day to day living (if you can call it that these days) and reach out to the small (but growing! THANX!) and worldly readership that we have gathered. (You stupid adbots with your stupid auto posting can go suck on a porcupine. I give up trying to delete your damned comments... a pox upon your    servers!) I was taught as a child that when I felt an apology was not only due, but necessary, then it was in order. So here goes. (Oh and one goes to Dan as well because I certainly did not discuss this with him, nor did I allow him a chance to proofread and edit. Sorry Dan, but you have been busy it seems.) Please keep in mind that I do not speak for or about every single person here in the West. Only a large majority, and in times like today where one is too many, it is a heartbreaking truth. 

     Dear world, to include all countries and nations that inhabit this planet earth. On behalf of the United States of America as a citizen of this once great country that was full of promise and hope, I sincerely apologize for the actions of those in power and position to create such clamour, chaos, confusion, corruption, and calamity within your homelands, houses, harbors, and hearts. There was once a time when we the people of this nation were at the driving wheel. We held the reins steady and guided our leaders of the past to do good things both at home and around the globe. We once as citizens voted for what was right instead of what was profitable. Today, I of all people must admit, that we as citizens have lost touch with our morality, our religion, our values, our foresight, and worst of all, our control.

     We as responsible voting persons who reside in this country have fallen asleep on watch as madmen, harlots, thieves, murderers, and bigots have taken a firm control of our country's heading and speed. Unfortunately we have become a country of "Me" instead of a country of "Us".  Our citizens have shortened their scope of the world to a small number of unreliable news sources that have become deeply seeded and masked from local station to local station. The very people we count on to inform our public abuse our system and our rights in order to protect themselves from liability for being untruthful in their portrayal of world events. This has lead to a vast gap in accurate information which has rippled into indiscriminate and uneducated vote casting, which has ultimately resulted in a sea of corruption, nay a vast ocean. Our country is ran by individuals who portray themselves to be one thing and then as soon as we entrust our very lives and the lives of those around the globe to them, they treat all of us like meaningless numbers and sources of revenue. They are wolves in the henhouse and we let them right in. 

     Our system which was once founded on strong moral ideals has been shredded and ripped apart. It has become dissected and so over analyzed that we have lost sight of the grand picture. That every human being on the planet has certain unalienable rights. Not just Americans, not just people of a certain race or creed, but every breathing living soul as well as all souls to come after us. 

      We allow our leaders to apply their personal visions to places where it best suits them and their pocketbook, instead of where it best serves to better our planet. We continue to occupy Middle Eastern Nations on the basis of fear and preemptive measures. There is certainly some merit to this tactic, but we are putting these occupied nations in the same state of static fear that is our basis while draining our people of all fundamental resources and opportunity. We stand idly by as American Citizens in a bread and circus regime that irresponsibly squanders the hard earned funds of its people. We are blissfully ignorant to what happens "behind the curtains". We are living in a bigger is better world. We are subject to a stronghold of unequaled measure by those that print money and the affliction is felt across the world.

     It was once said by a great people in this land: "We do not inherit this earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." We have lost sight of this wisdom here in America. We have also lost sight of the valuable lesson that comes with loss and failure. It has been failure that has brought us here. Through trial and error, disappointment and perseverance America has grown. Now we are a nation so afraid of being politically incorrect that we are afraid to tell our own children when they fail. A child who does not understand the consequence of failure or who remains oblivious to it will be less likely to look for new or different ways to accomplish things. Game over in a video game does not impact as deeply as an "F" on the report card that a child must answer up to. 

     Every day we see people who fail in many aspects of life readily giving up and reaching out their hand for the answer instead of finding it on their own when they are certainly capable. We are a nation dependant upon government who tells us "it will be alright" when it simply will not. This leads to those who truly need assistance being ridiculed and amassed amongst those who are basically thieves. Our welfare system is in danger because of so many who simply cannot understand the difference between want and need. This has lead to our government paying our elderly out of the pockets of our children. Even worse yet, Social Security was designed as a savings to be paid after a certain age. It has been raped and molested into a form of credit, after all we as a nation have removed ourselves from the days of saving for something and now live where it is standard to borrow for what we desire and pay tomorrow. I myself am certainly guilty of this and I am finding out just how stupid that idea can be.

     We have placed our country in a position of responsibility to the entire globe financially. By becoming a first order participant in world trade, we have literally whored our vital ports to foreign interests just for the sake of trading. There is no sincere pride of ownership left so it seems. If it is American, then it is available to anyone who has the cash or credit. We are a nation who is responsible for our own position but we have lived in a world where both buck and blame is passed along to protect people's feelings. Our Presidents blame their predecessors for the failures of our country instead of standing before our nation and accepting responsibility as a citizen, for we are ALL responsible for the state of our Nation today. 

      We are a two party nation. It has become a Republican vs. Democrat system. I doubt there are three in ten people who claim to be one or the other who could cite where their party stands on all the issues that we face. Instead our citizens remain lazy and simply trust whatever candidate that claims to be a member of their party. Our political news is the same way. They all claim to be unbiased and fair, but the truth is they are not. We see stagnation in our Congress as they worry more about the next election than the condition of the people. They work short hours and spend them arguing instead of brainstorming. They work harder to make other members of congress fail than they do to make America succeed. Even worse, they play favors for pennies by listening to a few lobbyists who represent a minute portion of our population. They sneak in subjective legislation at the last minute into bills that would be wonderful and help many and then openly blast those who would oppose them by claiming that they are against positive change. They are able to get away from this because again, our population is lazy and would rather spend an evening watching E! News than reading a bill that will not only impact their lives, but the lives of all would come after them. This back and forth has been the detriment of our people for far too long, to the point where it has become accepted as a natural way of doing things. No one is listening to truth anymore, and no one is questioning what is told to them.

     We now live in a time where change is improbable. I did not say Impossible, only improbable. This is because we have become more focused as a nation on the "bigger, faster, and more profitable" instead of the "Better, freer, and more peaceful." Our children, the future of this country, continue to fall further and further behind on a broad spectrum of essential and basic life tools. Things like family support, education, discipline, honor, courage, strength (both physical and mental), morality, respect (for the elderly and for authority), self worth, and pride in workmanship have all become blatantly less present in their lives. We as humans are responsible for instilling these things into our children as parents. Here in America, we have replaced time learning these things to our children with violence, immorality, infidelity, pleasure, bigotry, hatred, and narcissism. This is trend by any standard leads to an ultimate failure and downfall of our country from within. 

     There was once a time when we were known as a land of promise and opportunity. We are truly a nation of immigrants. It was immigration that fed the economic growth. But we are now at a point where our population continues to grow exponentially, by both birth and immigration, legal and illegal. This will certainly cause the negative impact that we see to grow exponentially as well. But our government cannot even catch a handle on the problems that we face today, let alone the much larger problems that are certain to come. We continue to burden our population with them and tax ourselves into shambles in a scrambling effort to keep up. 

     In less than a century, we have risen from poverty to great prosperity. We climbed the global economic ladder to the top. We felt like the seemingly never ending supply of financial gain would be just that, endless. But in that very same century, we have fallen back again to poverty. Oh sure we tell ourselves it will be O.K. We tell the world that we will all be alright. But just as the politician of today tells his or her constituency and voting body whatever he or she feels is necessary to remain in office, our leaders continue to tell the rest of the globe whatever it must to remain a global power. That is because America is afraid of losing its seat as a global leader. I am not talking about the ups and downs of the Stock Market. I am referring to the ever increasing National Debt that is owed by the American Government to nations across the globe, as well as to its very own population.

     There will be no end to the debt without a revaluation of American Currency which has no substantial foundation other than the promise of our leaders to repay what is borrowed and lent. We as a population have overturned the seeing of our monetary system to a private entity that has had no oversight for decades. We continue to and will forever continue to, address the debt as some sort of campaigning tool the way a knight would tell the townsfolk his plans to slay the giant dragon that is eating the livestock and children. The knight knows there is no real way to kill the dragon, just as our leaders know deep down that there is no real and viable end to our debt for the next half a century or more. 

     We continue to overtax and overregulate small business owners across the nation in favor of large corporations who have no interest in the health and welfare of the very communities that they prey upon. If you are going to be hunters, at least manage your herd. We have forgotten that family owned businesses and small enterprises built this country. The free market worked because we did not have multiple stock interests being held by one person or corporation. This is just another word for monopoly, which is inherently illegal in this country. But again, we as a people have failed to stand tall in the face of adversity against oppression upon the lower and middle class by the 1% who have obtained the vast majority of our nations wealth. 

     When money gets tight at the federal level, we simply print more, tightening the shackles of debt that drag us down. Or perhaps we find new things and ways to increase the tax burden on the lesser fortunate and the successful business owners as well. The practice of increasing taxes does not stop at the federal level, but trickles down at the state, county, and local city level as well. Our leaders stand before us on television and scold Americans for not being responsible with their credit and money. But if we spent like they did, we would certainly be more than doomed.

     As more and more find themselves in the unemployment line, the burden on the state increases. Raising taxes only increases this phenomenon, creating a cycle of debt very similar to what we see at the federal level, and as finances become shorter and shorter, more and more of the corporations are moving out to sea and taking advantage of the incredibly and insurmountably stupid import/export system. This unfair and irresponsible trading system we have established is much like the welfare system. We are trading for the sake of trading instead of saving our peoples tax dollars and appropriating the funds and or resources in a much more practical way. 

     These problems and more that America is facing not only impact us here. They have become a global disease. We are allowing our failing government to play puppeteer across the globe, placing like minded corrupt yes men in places of strategic power all over. When a country refuses to play the game, we find reason and cause to occupy that country, strip it of its resources, embargo it into an economic desolation and isolation, and when the crying starving people finally beg for the sakes of their future and agree to bend to our will, we swoop in spreading "democracy" and "aid" to people who want neither at a price we cannot afford. Aren't we just the nicest little nation this side of Mexico?

     People of the world: I am sorry for what I and we have done to you. I am sorry that we cannot produce a president that will stand against congress and entrust themselves to the people. I am sorry that we are not a people who have the backbone and resolve to oust these harlots. I am sorry that we are a nation that feels our false sense of security is more valuable than our freedoms and our childrens' freedoms. I apologize to you for the bloodshed that has taken or will take place in your home lands because we as a nation are not willing to shed our own (metaphorically speaking, because in this country when you say words like the ones I am speaking, you go on a list and you are labeled extremist and a possible domestic terrorist because you do not think the way they want you too...) to stand for what is right. I am sorry that our leaders continue to make war and scare our people with stories of the boogey man, when we have lost more lives in combat than we have in terrorist attacks. I am sorry that our leaders are so hungry for your oil and your real estate that they do not see you as equals and humans. 

     I, on behalf of this once great and possibly great again nation, wish to extend my deepest apologies to the children of the world. We as the generation of now have failed you, and we do not know how to fail. It is you children whom are too big to fail. You are our future and our hope. It will soon be your responsibility to learn from the mistakes that we are making now and make the changes that are necessary. The burden of such a great responsibility is not something that you deserve, it is something that is. And for that... well, there are simply no words in any language that dictate the apologies due to you. 

-A 



 
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Spray-on lithium batteries. This substance is rechargeable and ready to be applied anytime and anywhere.

"We can convert almost any object to a battery," Neelam Singh, a materials scientist at Rice University in Houston, told InnovationNewsDaily. "Spray painting is already an industrial process, so it would be very easy to incorporate this into industry,"

 
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This leaves me to believe that Terminator was more than a movie, but perhaps a glimpse into the not so far future! I suppose its a good thing this machine is much more cuddly and has developed an affinity for felines.

That's right, they let the machine loose on the internet to see what happened, and it taught itself how to recognize and search for, CATS!

The Scientists expressed more amusement and bewilderment at this fact than anything else.


According to a New York Times story, the team said the neural computer nearly doubled the accuracy with which it drew the cat face.

“We never told it during the training, ‘This is a cat,’ ” said Dr. Dean, the developer of the software used by this learning computer brain.

“It basically invented the concept of a cat. We probably have other ones that are side views of cats.”

Source: redOrbit (http://s.tt/1ge9g)


“A loose and frankly awful analogy is that our numerical parameters correspond to synapses,” said Dr. Ng, saying despite having 16,000 processors interconnected, a brain has many many more processing connections.

“It is worth noting that our network is still tiny compared to the human visual cortex, which is a million times larger in terms of the number of neurons and synapses.”

What happens when it stops looking for Cats, and begins learning about guns?

 
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Ex-NASA Scientists have decided that they are not happy with the anti-asteroid efforts of the scientific community and have joined forces to save the world themselves! I am thinking perhaps they have watched one too many "Avenger" Movies...




But hey, more power to you Mr. Astronaut. You go save the world, you overachiever you. :)

 
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32000 residents are forced to evacuate from Colorado Springs area as dozens of homes are consumed by the massive raging wildfire there.

The blaze is more than 24 square miles and growing. Seeing as how we have been posting lots of "Hot" things today, it seemed appropriate.

My thoughts go out to those who are suffering from this tragedy. California thanks you for "Taking the heart off of them"... OK, I am done. Could not resist that last one!

 
Today is the date that Marty McFly was sent to in that Epic 1985 film, Back to the Future.
Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.