This is a video of a man with tree parts growing out of him on his hands and feet. He is known to many as the, Tree Man. He also has many warts on his body. He underwent surgery and vitamin A treatments so he is doing a little better now. This man lost his wife and his job because of his disease. It is some kind of virus.
June 28, 2010
June 27, 2010
What we experience during life is electric impusles translated into information
The movie the Matrix and other films talk about how the world we experience is merely electric impulses translated into information by our brains. I’m watching these two videos on Youtube called the Holographic Universe that are embedded here so you can check them out.
Video 1
Video 2
I ate a lot of snacks today
Today was my birthday, a big one. Actually yesterday was my birthday because it is 12:37 AM right now. I ate meat even though I am vegetarian. The reason why, was because it was my birthday. I went to two different parties today. And neither of them were planned because it was my birthday. But this year I made a point of telling everyone who I saw in the neighborhood while walking my dog, that it was my birthday Saturday. So when we had this huge Summer Solstice neighborhood block party, lots of people knew it was my birthday. This was especially so because I wrote that it was my birthday on my nametag. The name tag read: “Hello, my name is Tyler *It’s my Birthday.” So at the block party I ate meatballs that my parents made, sushi that my brother brought (especially the eel sushi, that was really good), I had a couple pot stickers, and a fried dumpling that had some kind of interesting peanut sauce, and a small amount of macaroni and cheese. But for desert I ate this thing called a “Texas Sheet Cake” it even had the state flag for Texas drawn on it in icing. This was the most delicious brownie-like thing that I have ever eaten. It was amazingly moist and sweet, but not overwhelmingly sweet. And I usually don’t like icing, but this cake had the perfect layer of thin icing. It was so good. So I was at this block party and I felt happy to see everyone. A lot of people brought their dogs and there was live music also. My dog got tired so I had to take her home early. But that was good because if I didn’t do that I would have eaten too much of that Texas Sheet Cake. This was important because I knew that I had another party to go to at 6:30PM.
So at about 6PM a friend and I left and went to Pavilions market where I bought some marinated carne asada for $5.99 per pound if you had a Pavilions club card. I also bought some root beer. So we got to the party and I said hi to everybody and pretty much everyone already knew that it was my birthday. This was interesting because I was no longer wearing the name tag. So I bought 2 pounds worth of carne asada and I knew that I was going to share it with everyone and that was a good idea because it tasted great. The host of the party made sandwiches out of thoroughly marinated steak pieces and I tried one of the steak pieces and it was really good. All the snacks were really good but I drank 3 and a half root beers (IBC Brand) and during the final root beer I felt like my molars were going to fall out because of all the sugar so I stopped myself cold.
The evening took an intriguing turn when we went outside and started talking about psychology. We talked about how the brain works. But then after a while we talked about aliens and spirits and sensory deprivation. I love talking about that kind of stuff. I said that I think there are aliens that are out of phase with our current reality but they live among us, and they seem kind of like spirits. I think spirits and aliens can be pretty much interchangeable. I told my friend about the experience I had when I was young when I think I was contacted by one of those pairs of entities when they were outside my window. I also told the story of when I saw a shadow figure moving like a person in my hallway. That one was really freaky, I remember feeling like people were dancing on my grave when that happened. It was like, “I wasn’t supposed” to see what I did. We talked about 2012 and how that the Mayans didn’t actually predict that there would be a disaster in 2012, but that that year would be the end of the astrological era that we are currently in. But I think people are going to take advantage of this astrological phenomenon to synchronize some kind of event that will either scare people or change how people think or act.
Then when I got home I saw that I had a lot of great messages on Facebook wishing me a happy birthday! That really made me feel great and I thank everyone for that. This feels like a great birthday and I am going to definitely use the time I have on Earth to do some good.
-Tyler
June 25, 2010
Unemployment and economic downturn may yield unexpected benefits
I’ve been examining how the economy has been going for a while now. And it looks like even though the economy hasn’t “double dipped” quite yet, people are saying there is a 20% chance that it could still happen. Double Dipping is when the economy is in a recession and then there is a period of growth or stabilization for a short while, and then the economy dips into a recession again. This term is interesting and catchy, but it primarily focuses on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics. Although GDP is an important statistic for determining wealth, we need to remember that GDP doesn’t really factor in the distribution of wealth in a country. So even though it may seem like the USA is seeing stabilization in GDP, that doesn’t mean that the average person is feeling that growth or stability. What people are actually seeing on the street level is a continuing recession. The interesting thing is that even though many people are having bad economic times right now, there are some companies and individuals that are making barrel loads of profit. What are these companies and individuals doing with most of their money? They are for the most part sitting on it. It may be confusing why people would sit on their money in tough economic times. Wouldn’t companies want to spend in order to jump start the economy? Wouldn’t people want to purchase properties on a massive scale? What I think is really going on is that since entities that have massive amounts of money are basically hoarding, the economic downturn will continue and eventually prices will drop to such a point that those who have money to spare will be able to purchase land, the means of production such as factories, natural resources, water rights, energy, and important companies and utilities at clearance, bottom-of-the-barrel prices. We are already starting to see massive consolidation of ownership in utilities and media providers. So basically the companies and individuals that have money and investments can really mop up and buy the whole enchilada for just pennies if they hold on and are patient. Another dip in the economy would actually benefit those who have huge amounts of money and investments. This may seem counter-intuitive because these very individuals and companies would be loosing money, but the real issue is that if prices drop, their purchasing power would increase and so even though they would be losing money, they will be able to buy much more with it.
Consolidation of wealth and an increased income gap may seem worrisome to many of us, but there is a good chance we will see unexpected benefits because of this. One thing that may seem negative and even scary at first, is the idea of huge amounts of government cutbacks of important programs and services. But if the government can’t afford its many programs, it will have to pick and choose what programs and services they want to support and fund. One such program is Medicaid. There is a good chance that states will have to cut back how much they spend of Medicaid. This can really negatively effect a lot of people, especially people of low income. But if governments begin to cut back on many programs, they will eventually anger people and there will be increased government scrutiny. You see, when things are going well, people tend to let governments initiate programs and hire people that cost a great deal of money. And this can create inefficiency. But in order for there to be reforms there has to be real problems in the budget. Governments don’t usually try and trim down and become more efficient on their own, they like being fat and employ a lot of people. So what is going to happen is that State governments aren’t going to be able to afford all of their programs. And they are going to have to cut funding for things like education, Medicaid, among other things. These cut-backs will eventually get the attention of the people they most closely effect. It may take a long time for people to catch on, but after a decade or so the citizens who need government programs will become more interested in the political decisions of their region and will either become more involved or else will be exploited or ignored.
I think what is going to happen is a trend of government program cannibalization. Funds from programs that people need but aren’t totally vital to the functioning of a government will be limited or cut all-together. The end result is that we may have leaner, more efficient government spending after years and years of economic downturn. This being said, I don’t foresee the Unemployment Extension decisions being debated in congress to happen. This is going to hurt a lot of people who are relying on unemployment insurance to pay the bills. But the reality is that the American People need to become more efficient. And the future holds that we need to learn to adapt to living our daily lives with less money. If the Federal Government decides to extend the unemployment insurance issue I will be really surprised. The reason why I say this is because there aren’t as many high paying jobs available anymore. And the ones that are out there you need to fight for them. If there aren’t as many jobs then what is increasing the time that people will be able to get unemployment insurance do? I think it will just delay the inevitable. I feel for the many people out there who are going to be effected by this, but I think there are going to be a lot more people competing for jobs like retail sales and food service.
I was at Starbucks the other day and I looked at a poster that promoted working at Starbucks. And I remember seeing the poster a couple months ago and it had a young woman as the iconic employee. But when I saw the poster recently it had a man who was in his late 50’s early 60’s and he was bald and the caption read something like, “(name of dude) has been a barista for 3 years.” Really? People working at Starbucks in their 60’s? Does this worry anyone else except me?