Thar Chi Blows!

 So, I was pondering chi. Some of you are confused about chi, so thought I would write this up to help make things clear.

Now, I know that some of you believe that you understand chi. You think it's cool, it's a kung fu power, and you have it tattooed on your tailbone.  Nope. Your tramp stamp isn't Chinese. It's not even Kanji. It's Tagalog, and it translates to "egg drop soup". That's right... Somewhere out there a US-born Filipino tatooist is still laughing about the White lady who couldn't tell whether he was Chinese or Mexican.

But I digress.

So, chi. Basically, it's life energy. We use it for everything from moving to thinking. It flows through us and keeps us alive.

There are three major types of chi. We have plant chi, which is produced by plants. We have animal chi, which is produced by animals. We have pizza chi, which is produced by pizza.

Plant chi is slow and ponderous. Animal chi is active and vibrant. Pizza chi generally smells like a mixture of animal and plant chi.

Pizza chi is not proportional to the mass of the pizza. Chi is non-dairy, so it isn't contained in the cheese. Also, bread has no chi, so pizza crust is invisible to chi. Pizza chi is produced entirely in the toppings and tomato sauce.

As mentioned, we use chi to move. This includes skeletal-muscular movement, internal organs, and even breathing. All of these use chi as fuel.

We get chi from a few sources. We get it from eating. We get animal chi from meat, and when we eat plants our bodies use bile and pepsin to convert plant chi into animal chi. This is why pizza is so popular... Pizza chi is unique to pizza, and the body can easily convert it to animal chi. Also, the acidity in the tomato sauce aids in the digestion of pizza chi.

We also get chi from breathing. Yes, breathing requires chi, but it also generates chi. If we breathe properly, we'll generate more chi than we use. This is one of the many benefits of proper meditation. 

Aerobic exercise doesn't generate chi, but it does cause chi to circulate more quickly, which can cause bits of chi that get stuck to loosen and rejoin the body's chi flows.

Sex also generates chi, but in a delayed way. You have to use chi for the physical activity, but the afterglow generates more chi than you used. Some people try to make the chi generate more quickly by smoking after sex, but that doesn't speed chi generation, it only causes more chi to come to the surface of the skin, creating the illusion of increased chi production. In the long term, it actually can affect breathing, thus reducing normal chi production.

There. I was feeling somewhat scientific today, so I wanted to share a little science with my friends and family. I hope all of you feel a bit more informed on this important topic.

SCIENCE!!!

The Eye of the Beholder

The world is full of beauty. It comes in all kinds and all colours. Every region of the globe is covered in breathtaking glory that's constantly changing and growing. Even in areas populated by man, natural beauty finds its way through. If I ever die, I hope that my one regret will be that there was more beauty in the world that I had yet to see, not that I hadn't tried to see as much as I could.

 

We've all been there

 Hey, we've all been there.  You think, "Just a little.  It won't hurt."

But you're wrong.  It seems harmless.  You give in, just that little bit.  But it doesn't stop there, does it?  It feels good.  Just that little bit feels soooo good.  But then, you can't stop.  You think, "Just a little bit more will be alright."  But that's not the end.

Every little bit of ground you give weakens your resolve more.  The pleasure, the high, it's almost sexual.  You surrender more and more ground.

Pretty soon, you're avoiding the public eye, looking for ways to make it feel better, all the while, deep inside, just wishing you could stop.

Because you know that, at some point, it won't feel good.  You know that when you reach rock bottom, it's no longer about pursuing pleasure, but avoiding pain.  And you know that it's only going to get worse.

But there is hope.  Sometimes, you need medical intervention.  Sometimes, just some willpower is enough.

But sometimes, all you need is a friend.  A family member.  Someone who understands.  Someone who has been where you are now, and knows what it's like.  Someone who can give you the emotional support you need to make it through the night.

Someone to say, "Stop scratching!"

Let's Talk About Progress

 I hear some of you talking about the "good ol' days".  You want things to go back to the way they were, before they turned "bad".  You want to return to a simpler time, with ye olde values and morals

I hear you.  And I agree.  Let's do that.

And let's start with you.

How far back should we go?  To the 50's?  Native Americans weren't considered US citizens, still, but you "good ol' days" people don't care about that.  Why would you?  You weren't affected.  

How about the crime rate?  You complain about the increase in crime, so let's turn back the clock.  In the 50's, lead pipes were commonplace, and weren't properly treated.  Everyone's taps basically served lead dissolved in muddy water.  The result?  Mental deterioration leading to violence.  Diminished intellectual capacity.  Shortened life spans.  Forget that the violent crime rate has been steadily declining since the 70's, when the governments started taking environmental lead levels seriously.

Or maybe you want to go a bit further back.  Jim Crow isn't enough for you, you like the antebellum days.  Okay, let's see what we have...

Are you a woman?  You can't vote.  You can't have a bank account without your husband's permission.  No husband?  Then you can't have a bank account at all.  And don't you dare get caught wearing pants.

Are you a man?  Great!  You'll love the life you have, dominating the world because of an accident of birth.  Granted, you have no access to air conditioning, you smell like a wet dog, and you're going to die before you reach 40 (if you're lucky).  Sure, instead of taking your car to a mechanic four times a year, you have to spend two hours a day tending to your horse, but these are the "good ol' days", right?  Before modern medicine, before television, of course if you need to send an emergency message to family across the country, perhaps telling them that your child died of typhoid fever, since vaccines haven't been invented yet, you can always walk to the nearest town and pay to send a telegraph, assuming you're lucky enough to live where one is available.  Just be careful if you can't afford shoes, antibiotics haven't been discovered yet, so if you have to lose your leg to a bone saw while you're wide awake, you'll be using a peg leg.

Perhaps you just feel that we should keep the benefits of the very technology that the clergy forbade, and just return to the religious values.  After all, people knew right from wrong, because they all went to church and learned from a good, wholesome preacher (or to temple and learned from a rabbi, etc.).  Great!  Nothing could go wrong.  And it's a good thing that man is honest, right?  Because since so many people couldn't read, they had to take his word on what the book in question said.

Are you left handed?  Too bad, you must be possessed.  You will be burned at the stake.

Are you reading this post on a computer?  Communing with spirits.  You will be burned at the stake.

Epilepsy? Possessed.  Too dumb?  Possessed.  Too smart?  Possessed.  Eyes an unusual color?  Born with a club foot?  Your canine teeth came in before your others?  Lazy eye?

You get the picture.  But that's alright.  None of those apply to you.  Of course, when you're accused by the person who wants to marry your spouse and wants you out of the way, you'll need to prove your innocence.  Simple enough.  We can tie you up and toss you in the river.  If you sink to the bottom and die, you're innocent.  If you float, you're guilty and must be burned.

I hear some of you talking about the "good ol' days".  You want things to go back to the way they were, before they turned "bad".  You want to return to a simpler time, with ye olde values and morals.

You're wrong.  This year (2020) notwithstanding, we're living in the best time to be alive.  The poorest people in most countries have a higher standard of living than royalty did in the past.  We have longer lifespans, lower crime rates.  We can cure diseases, grow food crops in warehouses.  We've been to the moon.  We have robots exploring Mars.  More information is available to more people than ever before.

It's called "progress".  But progress includes racial justice.  It includes gender equality.  It includes gay people being allowed to marry, and trans people being allowed to use public restrooms.

Yes, we have a long way to go, but the way might not be in the direction you expect.  If you're one of the people I was talking about earlier, then you think the way to go is backward.  Back to the filth, the war, the ignorance.  But you're wrong.  The way to go is forward.

That's what progress is.

July the Fourth be with You

Today, large groups of humans are gathered together to celebrate... whatever. It doesn't matter. (I know what it is, it just isn't relevant to this point.)  Today, I was invited to join the writhing masses. I chose not to. I used my studies as an excuse, and it's a valid one, but still...

When I'm surrounded by large groups of humans, I feel as though I don't belong. I feel like an intruder. An impostor, if you will. I feel that they can all relate to each other, and I shouldn't be there, and if anyone noticed me, things would turn nasty. So I avoid such events. I could stand being surrounded by those closest to me, those with whom I feel that I belong, but those days are gone. So alone on the holidays is what's best.

Now, if those kids would stop pounding on my window, life would get better.

Lots about Parking

AND another thing....

When you see a handicapped parking space, do you have the urge to park there, just because no one is pointing a gun at your head, telling you not to? Is it like the urge to pee? Like, you know you don't want too, but you can't stop yourself?

Are you the guy in this first photo? Parking in the only handicapped parking spot with nary a placard to be found?

Or are you the guy in the second photo? You think to yourself, "That crosshatch looks so pretty. It's next to a handicapped spot, but it's not marked as a handicapped spot, so it must be alright to park there."

Wrong, Dumb*ss. The crosshatch is there to mark an area to be left clear for the purpose of loading and unloading mobility devices, or persons in wheelchairs who require loading ramps or lifts. When you park in the crosshatch, you're impeding a disabled person from doing about his, her, or their daily business the same that anyone else would.

To the other guy... I don't care if you ARE just making a delivery (although this time you were there for hours). Those spots are sometimes closer to the relevant buildings. Other times they provide the extra space for the aforementioned loading and unloading.

Handicapped spaces aren't just handed out willy-nilly. A doctor determines the need of the patient and writes a letter to the DMV, and the DMV (or tax office) provides placards and/or license plates. The world is built to allow able-bodied people to get around and do stuff. Accommodations such as special parking are something we do to balance the scales a bit and make life easier for people who basically start off with a significant disadvantage. No one is asking you to smile or be polite or even show the same courtesy you show the teenagers you're creeping on at the mall (you know who you are). All I'm asking is that you KEEP YOUR SORRY *SS OUT OF THE PARKING SPOT TO WHICH YOU AREN'T ENTITLED. It's that simple. And it's the law.

And, for the record, from now on, I'll be doing what I should have been doing all along. From now on, I WILL contact the police when I see this. That is the correct/recommended response, and I'm tired of just sitting idly by.

Putting the TV in LGBT

So, I know someone who's having trouble finding shows to watch. Every time he comes to the part where someone kisses someone of the same sex, he turns off the show and says he's "tired of them shoving [homosexuality] in [his] face". He then has to find a different movie or television show.

So far, I've been polite enough not to speak up, for my own reasons, but I keep wanting to grab him by his big ears and shout, "Shove it in your face? By that, do you mean, existing? This show's not about them, they just happen to be there. Can they exist without you having kittens?"

I think this attitude is part of the overall problem. Someone sees that someone in the LGBTQIA community exists (or, for that matter, someone Autistic or even just a nerd) and they flip their sh*t about it. Look, Just because someone exists within your awareness doesn't mean they're imposing on you. If they're in your house, stealing your cat, yes, they must suffer your righteous wrath, but if they're in a side plot, donning hybrid ballistic armor and preparing for battle against overwhelming odds, even if they take that moment to express physical affection toward a team mate who shares a similar genital alignment, don't worry about it. Just grab your extra armor cartridges and make sure your radio works. If someone who's female-presenting walks into a women's restroom and you have doubts about that person's chromosomal configuration, consider the fact that there are at least five known configurations of the common sex chromosomes, plus conditions that make those not work properly, plus other things, plus even if none of that is the case and you ask for the woman's birth certificate she's well within her rights beat you until you like it, no matter what that birth certificate says.

And if all of this is happening on television, get over yourself. Remember the old Amos and Andy show? White actors. African Americans had to go through decades of struggle (and about three different group names) to get proper representation. Remember The Lone Ranger? From 2013? Johnny Depp as Tonto? Native Americans still have to fight for representation, sometimes. So, if LGBTQIA persons constitute (I think) between 10 and 11 percent of the population, why can't they occasionally appear in movies without someone having to go punch a llama?

Veteranary Tolerance

I received a notification from the VA that I have an appointment Thursday morning.  I thought I was finished missing work (after today).  I tried to check online, but the website has been down all day.

So, since I was here, at the VA, missing work, I asked the information desk.  The guy there said, "I don't know about Thursday.  All I see is something for the 20th."

I was about to walk away, when I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him across the desk, and asked very pointedly, "The 20th?"

"Y-yes."  He sounded frightened for some reason.

"Thursday, the 20th?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"That's the day I'm looking for.  What is it about?  Where is it?"

"All I can see is it's in The Clinic."

"Just, 'The Clinic'?"

" Yes, Ma'am."

I let him go so he could change pants and proceeded to travel to every clinic in this gosh-awful place until I found one that could look it up.  "It's in the Women's Clinic."

"Are they still open?"

"Yes, until 4:30."

I walked 12 miles to the women's clinic, and found the doors locked.  It was 1615 (4:15 PM, for those of you who neither served nor learned to fake it while telling time).  So I walked outside and traveled 8 miles to the outside doors.  Also locked.

I tried the phone number, which has never worked as long as I've been able to dial a phone.  I called the main number, chose the option for "Primary Care" and was routed back to the main number, as always.  I selected the option to speak with a humanoid, and was routed to the main number, as always.

I briefly considered setting myself on fire in the lobby as a warning to others, but decided that would hurt.  Also, I didn't have any matches.  Now, I have to decide... do I come in Thursday morning and miss work and not even know why I'm coming in?  Or do I ignore it and pretend that I care as much about them as they do about veterans?

If it's actually important, they'll call me to reschedule, right?

Mission: Incredulous

My mission: Infiltrate a government office. Connect an encrypted laptop to the network. Print my travel form. Egress without being seen.

First, I would don black pants, black boots, a black turtleneck, and a balaclava. Then, I would procede to the government building on Polk Street. I would park in the back parking lot, start playing the Mission Impossible theme song on my phone, and climb the stairs to the third floor. From there, I would take a freight elevator to the basement, sneak into the IT office, connect to the network, print and sign my paperwork, place it in the manager's inbox, and be gone without a trace, obtaining a milkshake on the way home.

At midnight, I started donning the clothes to be used for the mission.
OK, so I realized I don't own boots. Nor a black turtleneck. Nor black pants. Nor a balaclava. OK, so I just went with the clothes I already had on.
Then, I drove to the office. Well, I ran into some difficulty, as the road was closed for construction. I took a detour, but the detour was closed for construction. So I took a back route not on the maps.

I arrived at the office and placed the encrypted laptop into an innocuous messenger bag. I put on my headphones and started playing the Mission Impossible theme song.

I found the back stairwell locked, and it would not respond to my key card. I tried the back elevator, but it would not respond to my key card. I went around to the side entrance, but it would not respond to my key card. Giving up on stealth, I walked to the front entrance. The doors were locked and the security guards were absent, so no one could let me in.

Hanging my head in shame, I stopped the music. I had not earned the Mission Impossible theme song this night. I walked back to my car and headed home.

On the way home, I forgot to stop for a milkshake. It's just as well... I had not earned a milkshake this night.

State of Affairs

Well, it's official.  I am now a government employee.  I have just started my job as a Regional Network Specialist for the Texas Health and Human Services Committee.

It's not as fancy as it sounds.

I can't say much about my job.  It's not a federal job, so I would't have to kill you if I told you anything, but it's a state job, so I could be fined and go to prison, depending on what I said, so I'll be careful until I get a feel for this place.

In the mean time, I know I promised more LifeHacker articles, and yes, they will come.  The next one will be on overcoming procrastination.  I know it seems ironic, but this time I honestly haven't been procrastinating.  I've gone back to school, working on my next degree, and that's a full-time "job", but I've also desperately been searching for work, which is also a full-time "job", so I've been genuinely busy.  And now, I have a fur-realz full-time job, so that plus being a full-time college student means that I'm geunuinely busy, so I'm not really procrastinating.

BUT... I shall, nevertheless, publish an article soon regarding overcoming procrastination.  And yes, there's more to it than just "do it now".

Oh, did I mention that I'm testing a mobile app for creating and editing blog entries?  Let's see how this works out.

That's So Meta

So, I was sitting at my computer, which was, at that time, temporarily located in a public space.  I was pondering the concept of metahumans.  My aforementioned friend Jean entered the public area to acquire a snack.  I turned to her and said, "So, I've been pondering the concept of metahumans."

She turned to me and said, "This is why we can't have adult conversations."  And she walked out.

Anyway... what Jean didn't understand, and still doesn't, is that I was being completely serious.

So we come to the crux of this particular article.  (Isn't that cute?  How I called my blog entry an "article", as if I'm a journalist?)  What I want to ask is this... Do metahumans exist?

The answer is... "Weeeellllll.... it's complicated."  I'll simplify this answer later, but first let me unsimplify the answer.

First, what is a metahuman?

The term "metahuman" originated in the D.C. Comics "Invasion" miniseries.  It has since been stolen by everyone else.  Simply put, it refers to someone who's human, but somehow more than human.

Superman doesn't qualify, because he's not human.  (Sorry, Lois.)

Iron Man doesn't qualify, because he doesn't really have superpowers.  Just a really cool suit.

Jimmy Olsen doesn't even begin to qualify... he's just a part-time crossdresser with a camera.

BUT... but... The Flash (in some versions), Spiderman, The Hulk, Barack Obama, Professor X - These have all been labeled as metahuman.  Whether they are, and what, exactly, are the criteria for being labeled a metahuman, are matters of debate amongst comics enthusiasts.

And believe me, you don't want to start a debate amongst comics enthusiasts.  Do you know how things get whenever a Los Angeles sports team wins, loses, or schedules a game, and suddenly half the city is on fire, cars and buildings are smashed, and the governor has to declare martial law?  Well, it's like that.  Only without all of the civil discourse.

But, again, I digress.  The point is... these are examples of metahumans in comics.  But my thoughts here aren't just about comics.  Or are they?  Do you see any pretty pictures of well-drawn characters?  No.  No, you don't.  Because this isn't about comics.  Not really.

This is about real life.  Do metahumans really exist?

Let's explore the word just a bit more.... The prefix "meta" means "more than" or "outside of".  Essentially, a "metahuman" is someone who is "more than human", or a human whose capabilities are outside the scope of what humans can do.

This is where it gets interesting.  Obviously, those people out there who can lift cars with their minds, and who can fly, and who can communicate telepathically with animals, those people are keeping well-hidden.  And who can blame them?  Between a government that's reputed to dissect curious specimens and religious groups that want to burn everything at the stake, exposing ones self can be dangerous.  But what about people who aren't so secret?

When I turned 30, I got my first-ever eye exam.  Don't judge me.  Anyway, the doctor was flabbergasted by the quality of my vision.  He said, "You know those people who get Lasik and then their vision is better than 20/20?  Well, your vision is way better than theirs."  Of course, it didn't last, and now I have two pairs of glasses, one for reading and one for driving.  But at one time, my vision wasn't just good, it was beyond exceptional.  And that's just plain ol' me.  What about better examples that we KNOW are genetic?  (Some purists will argue that to be a true metahuman, one has to actually have the genes for one's abilities, not just have the abilities themselves.)

In Germany, in 2000, a baby was born with a mutation that boosts his muscle growth.  At the age of 5, he had twice the muscle mass and half the fat of other children his age.  His mother was a professional athlete, and some other members of her family were found to be unusually strong, so this could be a dominant gene.

Some indigenous people in Siberia were found to have a gene that boosts their ability to handle cold temperatures.

Tibetans have a greater lung capacity than people from lower altitudes, allowing them to take in more oxygen from thinner air, and they have other adaptations that help them survive long-term.  Sherpas, similarly, have better blood flow to their brains, protecting them from problems with the thinner air.

There are people with resistance to HIV.  The gene which, when received from both parents, causes sickle-cell anemia will, when only received from one parent, confer immunity to malaria.  People with mutant feet adapted to climbing trees, eyes that see better under water, and people who can eat all the bacon they want without suffering from heart disease.

Bacon!

The list is pretty extensive.  There are seven billion people in the world, and there are lots of mutations happening, and sometimes a gene pops up that convers an advantage.  Ain't evolution grand?

My point is, these people have characteristics which, in the D.C. universe, would qualify them as "metahumans".  They have abilities that place them outside what's normally considered possible for humans.  And it's not through hard work, lightning strikes in chemistry labs, nor magic potions.  It's built in, hard coded.  So, are these metahumans?

Yes.  Or... are they?  Consider this....

Now, to offend any creationists who might stumble across this blog...

Are we apes?  Let's consider.  I'm not a chimpanzee.  I have the same number of fingers and toes, but my toes are shorter (and cuter).  We have the same general shape at birth, we have hair follicles all over, but my follicles are less active, and I'm taller as an adult.  I'm also physically weaker.  But about 99% of my DNA is identical to that of a chimp or bonobo.

If you think that's crazy... 50% of your DNA is shared by bananas.

Long ago, animals happened.  Some of these became vertebrates, but they were still animals.  Some vertebrates became mammals, but they were still vertebrates.  Some mammals became apes, but they were still mammals.  And some apes became humans, but humans are, like it or not, still apes.  Every characteristic that defines an ape still applies to humans.  Face it.  You're a monkey.  Or at least a great ape, with lots of monkey DNA.

So... humans are still apes.  Extend that.  Eventually, humans will have evolved.  It's difficult to say what we'll look like in 500 million years, because evolution isn't a path, just a process, but we'll definitely look different.  But we'll still be humans.  And apes.  And mammals, and vertebrates, and animals.

Unless we leave our bodies behind and become godlike beings of pure energy.  But that's for another article.

So... Do metahumans exist?  Yes.

But they're still human.  And therefore not metahuman.

See?  It's complicated.

And... regarding the incident with Jean...

It should be noted that, not five minutes later, I was walking past her home office, and she shouted, "Hamcat!"  I stopped, backed up, and looked into her office, and she said to me, "Hamcat.  HAMCAT!!!"  Then she went back to whatever she was typing.

This is how I know I need to move.

Features of Habit

habit /ˈhæb ɪt/ [noun] - 1. an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.

Welcome to the first article in my new Lifehacking series.  It's taken longer than I anticipated to publish this first article, but please bear in mind that I haven't yet written the one on how to stop procrastinating.

So... habits.  We all have them.  The word "habit" has taken on negative connotations, lately.  We think of habits as being something akin to addiction.  Often, one hears  phrases like "bad habit", but rarely, if ever, does one hear of a "good habit".  But habits are part of us.  We're wired to develop habits.  And there are very good reasons.

I won't go into it here... consult your local evolutionary psychologist... but simply put, habits are like computer macros.  When you develop a habit, your hindbrain can take over that function and free up your forebrain for more important tasks, like reading blogs.

Think about it... do you drive?  If so, you probably don't think much about HOW you go about starting and stopping.  Do you have to think each time about which pedal is the brake pedal?  If so, perhaps you should purchase extra insurance.  How about walking? We know we walk, but we don't think much about it.  When you drive, do you put on your seatbelt?  If so, do you keep a checklist handy that includes the seatbelt, or do you simply use the seatbelt because it's a habit?

Note: as habits go, wearing your seatbelt is a very good one.

Our lives are full of habits that help us get by.  You might get into the habit of looking both ways before crossing the street... feeding your children... locking your car doors when a brown person walks by.

I mention that last point to acknowledge that yes, there are bad habits, and they must be addressed.

The point of this lifehack is to take control of your habits.  There are two pieces to this...

1. The adoption of positive, helpful habits
2. The elimination of negative, or "bad" habits

To the first point, it would be nice if we could just develop helpful habits whenever we want, just by doing them, right?  Right?

Well, we can.  No, seriously.  Developing a good habit is as simple as doing the thing.

Well, maybe not quite that simple.  But that's most of it.  Pick a thing that you want to do habitually.  Do it each time it's relevant.  If you forget to do it, backtrack (where practical) and do the thing.  The point here is to build pathways in the brain.  We learn to do things by building neural paths.  Repetition reinforces those paths and makes them stronger.  The act of consciously taking the time to do the extra thing that you want to do actually builds the extra circuit in your brain that, over time, makes the thing happen without you thinking about it.

For example, if you've been driving without a seatbelt, and you want to get into the habit of wearing your seatbelt (good for you!), then the first step is to start bucking up every time you get into your vehicle.  I find it's best to do so before starting the vehicle.  Mostly because my vehicle makes a nasty noise if I don't.

Now, this part is important... if you find yourself starting your vehicle and realize that you haven't yet put on your seatbelt, stop the engine, and then buckle up and start the engine again.

I know that this can place extra wear and tear on your engine, but it's not much, really, and you know what else costs even more than vehicle maintenance?  Getting your face sewn back together after putting it through a windshield.

Sounds simple, right?  Well, it isn't.  Or it is, but not quite as much as I've made it out to be... there's one important detail... forgiveness.  This information actually came from a study about procrastination, which I will read, when I get a chance, but it's important in areas like this... apparently there's a quirk in the firmware of the human brain.  If you beat yourself up about something, that prevents you from actually overcoming it.  So if you forget to do the thing you intend to do, don't feel bad, and don't punish yourself.  Just back up (if you can) an do it.  Move on with your life.

Now... the second part... overcoming bad habits.  This is a bit trickier.  It's not about building new pathways in the brain.

Or is it?

It can be.  One popular method of breaking a bad habit is to replace it with a different, less-bad habit.  It's similar to the method used in 12-step programs such as AA/NA.  Have you ever been to one of those meetings?  They set out to replace your drug habit (and yes, alcohol is a drug, by definition) with something else.  Usually, that involves replacing the drug with a deity (although the term "higher power" is used by those groups that want to continue receiving government money and having people sent to them by the court system), although most of the attendees also take up smoking.  Have you ever been to one of those meetings?  I've fought oil fires (military training) that produced less smoke.

I want to point out here that the success rate of 12 step programs is exactly the same as the success rate of people who just decide to quit on their own (Dawson, et al.), and while the evidence regarding whether such programs work is as hazy as the meeting rooms, the fact that such programs teach you to give up one type of dependence and replace it with another doesn't sound like the most ideal outcome, to me.

But I digress.  The point is, yes, you can overcome bad habits by replacing them with other habits, but that's not the only option.

The brain is quite malleable.  Not just in the physical, silly putty sense, but functionally.  Studies into neuroplasticity (no, that's not in your spell-check dictionary, but yes, it's a real word) have shown that the brain can adapt to almost any situation.  People have lost as much as 80% of their functional brain matter and still managed to graduate at the top of their classes.  Stroke victims who lose the ability to walk and speak are often able to relearn those skills.  After some therapy and hard work, the functions previously filled by one part of the brain can be taken over by another part.

Is this relevant to overcoming a bad habit, or is it just some really cool information?  BOTH!  The fact is that, although old habits are a function of paths burned into the brain, those paths can be destroyed.  And not just by smoking and praying for help.

It's not just a matter of willpower, which is essentially your will fighting against your will.  There are many suggestions and methods for accomplishing this, but it breaks down fairly simply...

1. You have to want it.  If you don't want to stop doing The Thing, you'll keep doing The Thing.  You have to earnestly want to stop doing The Thing.
2. Be aware of your actions.  Often, we continue to do The Thing because we don't realize we're doing it.  A future lifehack will discuss self awareness, but essentially you need to become aware that you're doing it so that you can stop.
3. If you normally do The Thing as a step in a particular process, doing the process multiple times, while intentionally skipping The Thing can help.  This builds and reinforces pathways in the brain that don't include The Thing.
4. This one is important... forgive yourself.  Yes, this unexpected yet key component to learning a new habit is also key to losing an old habit.  If you slip up, if you forget yourself and accidentally do The Thing, don't punish yourself or lose sleep over it.  Forgive yourself and move on.

Again, you might ask.... can it be that simple?  Well, yes and no.  It looks easier than it is.  But over time, it works.  And less time than you would think.

A note about my examples above... I know that I used drugs and addiction as examples of bad habits.  Yes, there are physical components to some addiction, but essentially, many drug addictions are psychological, and involve brain pathways not unlike those of habits.  I don't pretend that overcoming addiction is a matter to be taken lightly, nor do I pretend that drugs are bad just because that's what Ronald Reagan, patron saint of the Republican Party, told me when I was a vulnerable young child.  I simply used that example because the information is compatible, and many people can relate.

Notable habits you can learn to your benefit:

1. Seatbelts.  Did I mention seatbelts before?
2. Taking your medication when you eat (especially for diabetics)
3. Unsupervised physical therapy (for sports and similar injuries)
4. Daily personal hygiene (I'm looking at you, Albert Blastin)
5. Eating breakfast
6. Allowing for extra travel time when attending a scheduled event
7. Reading bedtime stories to your children
8. Checking the gas gauge on your car (and also glancing at the tires before driving somewhere)
9. Making sure you have your keys before locking your vehicle door

A special note about this last problem... Tired of locking my keys in my vehicle, I intentionally got into the habit of locking my car doors using my keys, rather than using the controls.  I've never locked the keys in since, although I've had friends (I'm looking at you, Giordi), who have locked the keys in multiple times when borrowing my car.

And for crying out loud... wear your seatbelt!

Life Hacking: The Series Begins

OK, update on the whole weight loss thing... did you know that you can suddenly start losing weight for no reason if you become diabetic?  Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until the seasons change a bit before I can get back to testing the sunlight thing.  Or if I can figure out a way to get some sun in relative privacy beforehand, then I can test.

The "seasons" where I live aren't the traditional Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring.  They're "Oh dear God it's unbearably hot", "Finally, it's starting to get less unbearable", "It's finally cool enough to go outside without an environment suit", and "Oh, no, it's getting hotter again!"  No, the problem isn't that it's too cold to get some sun.  It's the position of the shadows of the trees in the back yard.

So, on to other topics... I'm going to start a new Life Hacker series here on my blog.  I've seen lots of "hacks" on the Lifehacker website, but many of them are disappointing.  Not because they don't apply to me, because it makes sense that many things that apply to one person won't apply to another, but because nearly all of the "hacks" I read involved invoking or evoking a deity.  If I want to read advice that says to pray the stress away or something like that, I'll visit an overtly religious website.

But I don't.

Now, I should be clear on this... When I say "hack", I generally am not referring to the word as it has come to be used, which is not the correct meaning at all.  To "hack" did not originally mean to crack a code and steal someone's nude selfies.  Cutting-related origin aside, in computers, to "hack" originally meant "to find a simple, elegant, creative solution to a complicated programming problem".  The original "hackers" were clever programmers who found ways to do things with code that made their professors scratch their heads.  At some point, this translated into computer pranks (one of my favorite pastimes) and penetrating security measures (again, one of my favorite pastimes), but originally, it was basically about finding clever solutions and new, better ways of doing things.

These days, the term is no longer used simply in computers, but in many areas of life.  And this is where I want to focus my new series.  I don't yet have an outline of the series, because I'm just putting together the beginning details.  I know I need certain things.

• I need to shorten my commute to work or increase my productivity.
• I need to find a new place to live.
• In that new place to live, I need to contrive a work space.
• I need to have room for my daughter to live with me without either of us losing basic privacy.
• I need to work on my health.
• I need to find a way to reduce the cost of groceries and other living expenses.
• I need to find additional income.
• I need to spend more time with my dog.
• I need to increase my overall productivity, both at work and in my personal life.
• I need to work on my personal appearance.
• I need to further my education.
• I need to work on my blog more often.
• And I need to do all of this within the bounds of a fairly small salary.

The obvious solution starts with having a job that pays well, or money to fall back on, but those aren't options for me at this time.  Therefore, hacks.  New, clever ways of doing things.  My financial resources are limited, and my time is currently limited.  Some of the bullet points above will help with that, but there has to be a starting point.  Therefore, I'm going to hack my life.  I don't know exactly how I'm going to start, but I'm working on putting together a plan, and I'll share what I learn in my new Life Hacking series.

I have to set my goals.  I started with the basics.  If you look at a build-it-yourself project, like on the Make Magazine website, it starts with a list of "materials and tools you'll need".  Well, for the most basic of these, I need a job - Check.  I just spent half a year unemployed, so I'm still working on getting caught up, but that's in progress, so soon I'll be able to move on.  That said....

Hack 1: Set up payments.  If you owe money from a period of hardship, you can usually set up automated payments.  Take your expenses, figure out the most you can afford to pay back each pay period, and then cut that in half.  That's the amount you should pay each pay period.  If you have something set up, then you don't have to worry about it after that.  It should take care of itself.   Just try to figure out when it will be paid and then make sure the payments stop at that time.  Some companies will continue to charge as long as you allow them to do so.  I owe a little money to my bank, so I have them take a small portion of my direct deposit.  In two weeks, that should be paid off.

Hack 2: Prioritize the things that you need to catch up on.  If you've been unemployed or otherwise financially burdened, you might have several things to pay up.  You need to set your priorities.

1. Things that will get you arrested are priority one.  Get your car's registration and insurance done, pay any fines owed, that sort of thing.
2. Things that affect your health and welfare are next.
3. Things that affect other things are next.  Get your car serviced if it needs service, because that car might be needed to get to work.  Make sure to get your phone bill paid.  Internet access can also fall here, if it's necessary for your work or other IMPORTANT things.  If you only use it for entertainment, it can fall to the bottom of the list.

It's all about priorities.  Make a list of things that need to be paid off, in order from most dire and immediate to least dire.  If you really think about what's the most important, you might just decide that some things you've been paying for for years aren't worth keeping around.

These are two starter hacks.  Simple, yes, straightforward, yes, and obvious, maybe.  But things that seem obvious are often overlooked.  That priorities list is something I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere, but that I've never done before.

So, here's the deal... I'm looking at changing my life.  It's not a bad life, really, but I think it could be improved.  The improvement will involve all areas of my life, hopefully making them work better together, and, in the end, improve my quality and enjoyment of life.  And I want to share anything I figure out that helps.  I'm going to change my life for the better, period, and if I can help you change yours for the better, then everyone wins.

So that's what the new series is about.  I got back on my feet, so next I need to find a place to live, and then I need to work on the things dependent on having a home, and so on, and I want to do a better job than I've done up to this point, and I want to share anything I learn.  I hope I'm able to convey information that helps people out there, and I look forward to seeing what happens.

On a side note, this could become a collaborative project.  It's the biggest thing I've ever worked on, and I've worked on some doozies, and yes, I know that I ended a sentence fragment with a preposition, and I would like to hear any non-preposition suggestions, comments, or questions.  If you don't want to add a comment to this blog, you can e-mail me.

Insert clever ending here, and let's get hacking!

Photosynthetic Philosophy

I've discovered a new, wonderful thing!  Druids heal when exposed to sunlight.

No, think about it.  Have you ever heard of a Druid dying of skin cancer?  Maybe.  But not skin cancer from the sun, because if a Druid gets skin cancer from UV rays from the sun, the cancer cells immediately "heal" into normal cells.  Druids who don't get enough sun can suffer from all kinds of problems.

What's my source, you ask?  Because shut up.  That's why.

Anyway... isn't it wonderful?  I've noticed that since I started getting sun at least twice a week I've lost about twenty pounds a month, without making any other changes.

So, not only do Druids heal from sunlight, but we also get healthier.  This has possibilities.

When Knowledge Takes Root, New Ideas Germinate

OK, new plan.  After planting those seeds, I started actually reading up on the raising of trees from seeds.  What a concept!  As it turns out, you can't just plant apple seeds and have them grow right away.

I had been thinking of what we did in elementary school, which involved taking dried beans and watching them germinate in moist paper towels in the windows.  Those beans sprouted little plants within days.

In other words, those beans lied to me.

Apple seeds germinate during the winter, apparently.  Since I currently live in Texas, where "winter" is a euphemism for "the coolest part of summer", I had to simulate Winter.  I placed four seeds in a moistened paper towel, put that into a plastic bag, and put that into the refrigerator.

Fast forward to today.  Four weeks after I put the seeds into an artificially cold environment, I checked on them.  One tiny little guy has germinated.

The others show no signs of life, as yet, so I put them back and kept this one out.  Now, on to planting.

Now, as much as I would LOVE to have a little bonsai at my desk, my current setup doesn't have room for a bonsai.  SO I decided to look at other things I could do.

My roommate, Jean, was complaining about all of the empty bottles and jars I've been collecting, with an emphasis on the fact that I can't use one of my alternate "planting pots" when placing plants outside.  Now, I don't know that an apple tree can be kept as a desk plant, and I definitely want to give this little thing room to grow.  I didn't have any actual pots handy, and definitely need to get a big one for this, so I decided to go with something very non-traditional.

Did I select a pill box for planting my first apple tree?  Yes.  Yes, I did.  But wait, hear me out...

The cardboard box is ideal for planting a new seedling, because it's small enough to move easily, and will have no problems holding the soil.  And when it's time to replant, I don't actually have to remove the box.  I can plant the box right into the soil of the bigger pot, and the box will become compost.

So, I folded the flaps inside the box, to reinforce the strength of the box, but, more importantly, to get them out of my way so that I could think.

I added soil to the box, filling it about half-way.  Then, I dropped the seed into the center and filled the box the rest of the way.

The potting soil I chose is, according to the label, formulated for vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs.  I figured apples might fall somewhere under there, so I used that kind.  Next, for moisture.

Obviously, cardboard's One True Weakness is water.  Well, water and fire.  I'm concerned with water.  I need to be able to water my little plant.  Due to the way these boxes are coated in some kind of shiny mystery layer, I wasn't worried about the box falling apart, as long as I didn't overwater, but obviously the box would still leak water through the bottom.  So I needed something to catch and hold the excess moisture.

Enter the lid.  I took a jar lid that would have gone into the trash and cleaned it thoroughly.

And that's it.  I added just enough water to moisten the soil (I hoped) and the runoff sits in the lid.  As the soil dries, some of the water should soak up from the lid back into the soil.

And that's it for now.  Let's see how this seed turns out, and also let's see how long it takes before Jean starts screaming, "You planted a tree in what?!?!?"

The Roots of a New Idea

OK.... so.... on a lighter note than I've been using lately...

I'm thirsty.  Like, all the time thirsty.  I've had diabetics watch me chugging water, and tell me to slow down.  For the record, I'm not diabetic.  I'm just the thirstiest person I've ever met.

Water is great.  Cleaner water is better, of course.  Still, who wants to drink just water?  It's unhealthy to drink more than a gallon or two of plain water per day.  I used to do that, when I distilled water for a living, but it flushed nutrients out of my body and caused issues.

Enter the juices.  Variety is the spice of life, as it were.  So when I go to the grocery store, I look at various flavored drinks, mostly aimed at children, distilled and spring water, and fruit juice.

The trick with fruit juice is that many of them are loaded with extra sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), extra acids (citric is a huge one), and other additives.  I'm not afraid of some additives, but most of the things added to fruit juice destroy the taste.  Ignoring the health implications of various additives, particularly HFCS, fruit juice that has added sugars just doesn't taste right.  And the additional acids?  Orange juice is already highly acidic.  Why add more acid?  Some brands of orange juice literally burn when I drink them.  So I don't.  And apple juice... whose bright idea was it to add two kinds of acid to apple juice?  And whose idea was it to then label it as "100% pure apple juice"?  Seriously?

So I read the ingredients list.  One thing I've found that I want to share is a brand called Simply Orange.  They make the purest, yummiest orange juice that I've found.  They also make other juices and juice mixtures (like orange and banana, if you can believe such a thing).  Another brand I've found that's pretty good is Mott's Apple Juice.

Note: I'm not being paid by either of these manufacturers.  I simply want to share them with everyone.  Added sugars and other ingredients are a significant factor in the health crisis that goes largely unreported in this country, mostly affecting young people.  When I find something this good, I want to get the word out there.

Anyway, dietary considerations aside, let's get on to my idea, which has nothing to do with nutrition.

In searching for juices that were consumable in large quantities, I found a brand I didn't know (Mott's), and it was being sold in small child-sized bottles.  I saw an opportunity to try it without having to buy a whole gallon, and found the small bottles to be convenient, in addition to the juice being better than most other brands.

As I stared at a bottle I as about to throw away, I was hit with an idea.  See if you can see where my thinking was headed:

This was the empty bottle.  It's made of plastic.  I've been thinking about "green" things lately, like alternative energy, rooftop gardens, and reusing packing materials.  It occurred to me... I could cut off the top of the bottle and use it for a teensy planting pot.

I've also been thinking about growing baby plants.

So I cut off the top just above where the label is, and I removed the label just for aesthetics.  I washed out the bottle because I didn't want anything growing on the residue of the juice.  Then, I purchased a small bag of potting soil.  A little soil in the bottle, followed by two seeds from an apple, and I had myself a cute and obviously homemade potted plant.  Or what WILL be a pottled plant once the seeds sprout.

Of course, I'll need to wait a while before the seeds turn into anything beyond the barest of plants.  Longer still until they need to be transplanted.  Still, that gives me time.  I hope to move soon, and to have more room for the plants with which I wish to surround myself.  Apple trees are often bearing fruit during their first decade, so I might get some fresh apples from these guys.  I also hope to plant some orange seeds, but those are trickier.  I'm not sure how well they'll do in the climate where I live.

But even if I raise them as indoor trees, keeping their size small and using "grow bulbs" to provide the sunlight they might not always get, they'll be plants, and the benefits are numerous.

For one thing, there's the aforementioned fruit.  If your trees bear edible fruit, then planting them is worth the effort.  Also, they provide oxygen.  Not a lot, individually, but if you surround yourself with enough plants, the slight elevation in oxygen levels might be beneficial.

Other benefits are less direct.  For example, if you're surrounded by plants, you'll need to provide sunlight for them.  While direct UV can be harmful in large quantities, it's a simple fact that for people who don't have certain rare conditions, more sunlight has benefits.  We didn't evolve in air conditioned interiors with window shades  We evolved in the open.  As our ancestors left the more heavily wooded areas, we also lost the ability to produce certain vitamins without sunlight.  Also, more exposure to sunlight can sometimes help with conditions such as SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), a form of depression that affects many people.  Also, for many people, being surrounded by plants offers some emotional boosts simply because they're surrounded by plants.

I'm looking at you, Druids.  And Buddhists.  And Celts, and Native Americans, and hippies, and children, and Cajuns, and botanists, and librarians, and farmers, and the list goes on.

So this little pot of "gold" holds what I hope to be my future - a future wherein I'm surrounded by plants, some of them feeding me, some of them looking pretty, but all of them green and alive and happy (to the extent that plants can be said to be happy).  And if that small bottle holds my future apple trees, what should I do with this?

That's a one-gallon bottle that previously held spring water.  I had saved them for various reasons, and then a roommate threw most of them away.  I kept one that I had dried out and was using to store coins that are older than I am.  (Apparently, my age is the marker some of my friends use to define "antique").  I kept another for storing pennies to use to decorate a kitchen floor or something similar.  Perhaps a desk top.  In this case, though, I think it will make a nice pot for a plant that's too large for a hand-held bottle.

I'll post more such ideas as I come up with them.

The White Cloaks under the Black Robes

It occurs to me that the recent Hobby Lobby decision isn't sexist... it's racist.

First, I need to take a moment to apologize for my previous blog.  I had intended to marvel at the wonder of the scientific process, and how it's less a method of obtaining new technologies than it is a new way of thinking, and one that can lead to yet more way of thinking.  Instead, I slipped into a rant on politics, and that was not my intention.  I apologize.  Perhaps one day soon I can fix that and do the post I had intended.

Anyway.... where was I?  Racist!  Right....

I've concluded that the whole thing was racist, not sexist.

Wait, hear me out.

It's true that the ruling itself was a blow against women.  Some people are trying to argue that it's not serious.

"It only applies to birth control."
"It only applies to certain types of businesses."
"They can just use a condom."

Some people are making the whole thing out to be a minor issue with little impact.  I could just tell them to tell that to the women who work for stores like Hobby Lobby.  (I wasn't able to find statistics on how many women work for Hobby Lobby, but they have about 21,000 employees, so I'm going to guess.... a lot.)  But I don't even need to go with that argument.  Instead, I can argue consequences.

Insert philosophy police here.

This is one of the few cases I've seen where the "Slippery Slope" argument is applicable, rather than being a logical fallacy.  It goes back to the first argument above.

The problem with a "Slippery Slope" argument is that, often, it's used to complain that event A will lead to event B, where event A and event B contain some fundamental difference that makes them actually two separate issues.  As an example, idiots complain that legalizing same-sex marriage will lead to legal pedophilia.  The key difference here is that same-sex marriage, like all marriages, is between two consenting adults, whereas pedophilia involves at least one party who legally can't give consent.  (For the purposes of this article, I'm going to avoid the pedophilia vs. child molestation dichotomy.)

On the other hand, the "Slippery Slope" argument accurately applies to the Hobby Lobby decision thusly: The US Supreme Court ruled that certain corporations have religious rights that trump the religious rights of employees.  I referenced the first argument above, and here's how this one argument demonstrates the slope in question. To repeat: the argument is:

"It only applies to birth control."

Now, at first, the argument was:

"It only applies to certain forms of birth control which the owners of Hobby Lobby inaccurately conflate with abortion."

It was widely argued that only four methods of birth control were restricted, although they were really good methods.  A couple of days later, the aforementioned Supreme Court had to point out to the country that no, this didn't apply to just certain forms of birth control... The ruling applies to all forms of birth control.  Already, in one aspect of the ruling, we have two different points, and a line drawn through those points leads in a bad direction.

Here's the slope in general: It started with Corporate Personhood.  The idea there is, simply, that a corporation is legally a "person", having the same rights as a human person (or Natural Person).  This Legal Fiction allows corporations to enter into contracts with other parties, sue or be sued, and a host of other things that make doing business easier (to an extent).  The problem is that the origin of legal Corporate Personhood in the US was to allow corporations to have political influence as of they were humans.  The Legal Fiction that equates money with speech allows Corporate Persons to exercise their right to free speech to purchase the laws they want from politicians.

That's the top of the slope.  Corporate Personhood.  At that point, for some purposes, a corporation was considered a person.  Then, with the more recent Supreme Court ruling, it was determined that some of those Persons have religious freedom, and that those corporations can exert their religious views over the lives of their employees (who may or may not hold the same religious views) with respect to birth control.  That's an important detail, seemingly... The Court stated in the ruling that this only applies to birth control.

Said the majority opinion,  "... under the standard that [Religious Freedom Reformation Act] prescribes, the HHS contraceptive mandate is unlawful."  Essentially, The Corporate Person has First Amendment rights that are protected under the RFRA.  And those rights take precedence over the First Amendment rights of the employees.

Now, it's true that the Court stated that this opinion only applies to birth control.  This exemption was previously held for non-profit and religious organizations (which are considered non-profit no matter how many millions they make), but it has now been extended to "closely-held for-profit corporations".  Another slope.  Bear in mind that this same court previously ruled that the entire Affordable Care Act was constitutional.  Now, they're declaring that one part of this act is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment rights of Corporate Persons.  This clearly indicates that the Supreme Court might later revisit this limitation and decide that other objections that a corporation has on religious grounds are also protected.

Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent, "In a decision of startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs."  Even a sitting justice in the Supreme Court agrees that this ruling is part of a Slippery Slope.

If the corporation can deny birth control to female employees because that corporation mistakenly believes that the Christian holy book opposes birth control, then that means that companies with other religious beliefs can force those beliefs onto the health care of other employees.  Blood transfusions, stem cell treatments, psychiatric care, pap smears, vasectomies, HIV medications, eyeglasses, and even medical care in general, can all be denied on religious grounds.

But wait, there's more!  Major religions also support slavery, racial discrimination, sexism, the stoning of infidels, and rape, while prohibiting homosexuality (not just the associated acts, but the condition itself), the eating of shellfish, wearing clothes containing mixed fabrics, planting multiple crops in a single field, working on "the Sabbath" (which can mean either Saturday or Sunday, depending), and the list goes on.  There are cases waiting on the court's decision regarding whether a company can opt out of other laws (such as non-discrimination laws) based on religious beliefs.

The Hobby Lobby decision clearly indicates that the current US Supreme Court is willing to allow exemptions from existing laws, even laws it has already deemed to be constitutional, based entirely on what one claims to sincerely believe.  "Claims" is an important word, I think.  After all, how does one prove a "sincerely held religious belief"?  Let's take another look at Hobby Lobby.

Hobby Lobby, lime many companies, offers a 401(k) plan.  In this plan, they have invested millions of dollars into companies that produce birth control.  One method is the Plan B ("Morning After") pill, which Hobby Lobby's lawyers call "abortion".  Other forms of birth control which Hobby Lobby wants to deny to its employees are also produced by companies that receive investments under Hobby Lobby's 401(k) plan.  And the owners of Hobby Lobby know this.  So, why would someone who is opposed to the use of these drugs contribute to their manufacture?  It must be part of a larger picture.

On a side note, Hobby Lobby owners have also been working to get Bible classes into public schools.  But that's another subject.

In trying to understand Hobby Lobby's position, I thought about the Koch Brothers.  David and Charles Koch are two billionaire brothers whose father became incredibly wealthy by dealing illegally with Russia during the Cold War.  They make an unreasonably large fortune mainly in oil, natural gas, and coal.  I don't actually have a problem with this... I wouldn't mind being wealthy, myself, and I don't blame children for the crimes of their parents.  What I have to wonder about is this: The Koch brothers have invested millions in funding opposition to the Affordable Care Act.  At first, I had to wonder why they would be opposed to poor people getting health care.

Well, as it turns out, the Kochs are opposed to the ACA because they are opposed to Barack Obama.  The ACA was his signature act in office, his crowning accomplishment, if you will.  The Kochs are attacking the ACA because they want to discredit the President.  This isn't a secret.

So, back to Hobby Lobby... Why would a company that doesn't actually oppose birth control fight so hard to earn exemption from the birth control part of the ACA, opening the door to a situation where religious extremists can impose their dogma on others?  To work toward discrediting the President.

How is this racist, you ask?  Good question.

Barack Obama isn't the first Democrat to be elected President.  In fact, his skin color is the only demographic fact to separate him from previous Demographic Presidents.  Let's review the facts.

No other President has ever been required to provide his birth certificate after entering office.  Obama was asked to provide his, provided it, then asked for a bigger one, provided it, and then they still denied that he was born in the US.

Rick Santorum called the President a "nigger" during a speech.  It was on television and everything.  He tried to cover it up, but failed.

Barack Obama is, according to the Secret Service, the "most threatened President in history".  He receives over thirty death threats a day.  Some of them have been made publicly, such as when Ted Nugent, an alcoholic sociopath who fancies himself a musician, stated that if Obama was re-elected, "I will either be dead or in jail."  He later reiterated, indicating that he was "serious as a heart attack" and called for his audience to "ride into that battlefield and chop [Democrats] heads off in November."

Barack Obama was the first President in history to be denied the opportunity to speak to a joint session of Congress.

Benghazi.  IRS.  Bowe Bergdahl.  Need I say more?

The list goes on.  It's no secret that much of the opposition to what Barack Obama tries to accomplish is because Republicans are racist.  This is the reason that the Koch brothers lobby against the ACA.  This is the reason that so many people who had never heard of Obama and were self-described liberals were opposed to his running for office even before he was elected President.

And this is why Hobby Lobby is opposed to allowing their female employee to have bodily autonomy.  It's not about birth control.  It's about racism.

Addendum: Don't get me wrong.  It's also sexist.  Just not in its roots.

I Hope I'm Not Wrong

This has been on my mind a lot, lately.  I've been watching debates and lectures, and reading articles, and basically stuffing information into my brain as quickly as my computer has been willing to feed it to me, and then pondering the result.

Not unlike a Middle Earth Dwarf enjoying a particularly pungent fart, and pondering the meal which produced it.

So, I've been thinking about how science is not what gives us all of the wonderful gadgets that fill our lives with comfort and convenience and put food on our tables... it's far more important than that.

No, hear me out.

Science doesn't give us gadgets and gizmos.  It doesn't produce new medicines and new strains of food crops.  It doesn't power our televisions.  It doesn't turn seawater into fuel.  It doesn't even allow us to mass-produce books with which to educate our children.

All of these tasks are accomplished via Engineering, not science.  Engineering is the application of processes and principles learned via science to produce new technologies.  Engineering can feed back into science, as with the electron microscope, Large Hadron Collider, and the process of putting the cream filling inside Twinkies®.  (Scientists eat a lot of Twinkies while conducting research.  It helps with the process.)  But Engineering isn't, strictly speaking, science.

So, then, one might ask, what is science?

I'm glad one asked.

Science is a process.  It's the process for discovering new knowledge.  It's the process for learning new things, not from someone else, but that someone else might not know.  The central part, the most defining part, arguably the most important part of science, is The Scientific Method.  That's what's really the key to why science is important.

Sure, there are other parts of science, like the classification of things based on what's learned, but The Scientific Process is the important part.  And here's why:

Science isn't about building a smarter phone, nor a self-driving car, nor a house that does the cleaning for you.  Science isn't about flying to the stars, nor flying across the ocean, nor making a flying car.  And science isn't about curing disease, feeding the hungry, nor streaming information more quickly across the Internet.

Science is about thinking.  It's about taking existing data, conditions, observations, analyzing them, making an educated guess about what's happening, finding a way to test that guess, and testing it repeatedly to determine whether the guess is consistently predictive of the results.  But mostly it's about thinking.

The Scientific Method was one of the truly great revolutions in all of history.  Writing, the domestication of food crops, The Scientific Method, tea cups with pictures of cute animals on them, and the willingness to look beyond the ideas handed down by our elders in order to examine the facts are, arguably, the most important revolutions to happen in human thinking.

Before the beginning of what can be called Human Civilization, all communication was oral, and that tended to change over time, so that the true nature of history, law, and who won the latest stick-throwing contest would become distorted.  Writing changed all that in ways that nothing else had.  Also, that which we were told by our elders (parents, grandparents, and assorted old people) was taken on faith, even though many of those same old people couldn't remember their own names.

And before The Scientific Process came about, one might look at, for example, lightning, and wonder, "Now what could be causing that?"  More often than not, the conclusions drawn led to beliefs about supernatural entities and forces that were powerful and must be feared and appeased.  The modern Scientific Process, though, would involve looking at the lightning, comparing it with what we already know (sweaters right out of the drier), setting up a way to test that, and so on.  We would eventually gain understanding about the world around us, and, more importantly, ourselves.

That's all it was.  A revolution in thinking.  Certainly, there was a process involved.  We had to come up with new words (hypothesis, theory, Nobel Prize), but we started with some pretty basic information (maggots form on dead meat) and build up from there, and took what we learned and built upon it to learn more.  Science was born not as a gizmo to make pretty blinking lights, but as a new way of thinking.  An organized way of thinking designed to bring positive results.

And that's where it gets tricky.  We're living in an interesting time.  Mankind enjoys the benefits of science (and, by extension, engineering) like never before.  We have machines to make our morning coffee.  We can produce gasoline from seawater slightly more cheaply than from oil (and that process will become even cheaper).  We can cure diseases that didn't exist 10 years ago, and many that existed long before that, even cancer, if it's caught in time.

Ladies, check yourselves, and get regular mammograms after the age of 40.

We can cross the ocean in a matter of hours, fly to the moon, and even land robots on Mars.  So what's the problem?

There are people, many of them prominent figures with some political influence, who are opposed to science.  They aren't just opposed to creating clones of serial killers, nor handing over our nuclear arsenal to an artificial intelligence, nor even genetically engineered crops.  They're opposed to all science everywhere and always.  I hear phrases like, "Scientists don't know anything" and "Why can't science answer question answered 20 years ago" or "Why can't science answer unanswerable or philosophical non-scientific question?"

They want to eliminate science because it disagrees with their preconceived notions, or because the results of scientific studies interfere with their personal financial gain.  But, really, what are they doing?  Is science a bad thing?  What would happen without science?  If, for example, we eliminated all science and its fruits tomorrow?

Well, for one thing, most human life on this planet would be gone within six months.  This isn't an exaggeration.  Think about it.... We use machinery and chemicals to grow genetically engineered crops on smaller fields through the efforts of fewer people.  We process that food using factories and ship it using trucks and sell it using computers.  We have vaccines (and no, I don't want to hear your anti-vaxxer rhetoric, I know what's in vaccines, and I know why, and it has never been shown to cause autism).  We have personal hygiene that helps prevent the spread of disease.  Corrective lenses, endoscopic surgery, prenatal vitamins, mass transit... these are all things keeping people alive.

Why would people be opposed to something as important as science in the face of financial consequences?  Pure selfishness, to a degree that has never been seen in any species apart from humans.  The same goes for when someone chooses religion over science... it's not that the religion is directly harmed by science, but that people with their little beliefs in the superiority of their beliefs prefer for their beliefs to be dominant, and that's hard to maintain in the face of a method of determining what's real.  These people know, KNOW, that they're hurting the future of mankind.  They don't care.  Some of them have children and grandchildren who will be harmed.  They don't care.  What they care about is their own current success.  Fulfilling their own greed.  Getting their wishes.  They want their oil companies to net billions in profits this quarter.  They want their megachurches to take it billions in tax-exempt donations.  They want to maintain personal power over the lives of others.

I said that no other species has exhibited this kind of behavior.  Here's a caveat: there have been individual members of pack species that have worked against the good of the pack.  Whether it was due to a diseased brain, an injury, a genetic defect, or some other cause, there have been those who worked against the greater good.

The other pack members rose up and ate them.  THAT was for the greater good.

Right now, we're locked in a massive struggle.  Several, but they really mostly come down to the same thing.  A few individuals are in power.  They have the money, the means, and the media.  They want what's good for them right now, and they'll do anything to get it and keep it.

These individuals are diseased.  But the disease almost seems contagious.  Due to their influence, mostly through the media and through pre-paid politicians, they're able to convince seemingly healthy, clearheaded people to vote against their own interests, to donate to causes that hurt them, to work against their own good and the good of their descendants and the world in general.

What's needed, I think, is knowledge.  REAL knowledge.  Not prepackaged fluff from news agencies with an agenda.  The simple facts.  I would hope that, if people knew the truth, they would act in a way to benefit the most people over the long run.  This is what I want to believe.  It's what I have to believe.  Because if it's not true, then our entire species is diseased and we don't deserve to survive the next 100 years.

Such hope isn't science.  There's no evidence to support it.  But nor is it faith.  I no longer have the emotional energy for faith.  It's just hope.  I'm seeing signs.  I see more people opening their eyes, learning the truth for themselves, and working toward the greater good.  I see things improving overall.

I hope I'm not wrong.