Do Pigs Even HAVE lips?

SWBP: Conflicts

SWBP: Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems

a book I'm reading, 2007, edited by Bjorn Lomborg,
Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center,
Chapter 12, Conflicts, by Paul Collier, Oxford University
Summary and Commentary

You wanna that I should whack the guy, boss?

Motivated! Dedicated! Ooh Rah!

Rich countries and poor countries face differing security challenges. This chapter deals with poor countries (whose challenges are low-pro). Poor countries mainly face civil wars and coups. Security has received less attention than health and education, for these countries. The risks and responses to civil wars and coups are highly costly. New advances in 'defense economics' , employing cost-benefit analysis, offer promise to organizations like the permanent UN Peacebuilding Commission. Cost-effective international interventions could have enormous payoffs.

The author recommends 5 interventions:

1. increasing aid

2. making aid conditional upon limits to military spending

3. expanding peacekeeping forces &

4. guaranteeing security using 'over the horizon' measures

5. all of the above (packages of some or all of 1-4 -as reinforcing complementarities- to meet the specific needs of countries)

as solutions to the 3 'scourges' faced by poor countries experiencing conflict:

1.civil war

2.coups

3.military spending

1.Civil War

In poor countries, as I said, civil war is more likely. They also last longer and are more likely to recur. The economy can be devastated and large populations displaced. A typical civil war in a poor country costs around $64B USD.

3 recent developments have raised the risk for new outbreaks of civil war:

1. the discovery of oil in fragile states (like Chad)

2. the high price of primary commodities, and

3. fragile settlements that ended a number of recent civil wars

Mineral/oil resources may not benefit the local population, or primarily anyway, and add ethnic differences to the mix, and militias or guerilla groups secede from the state or try to take over.

Fragile settlements need real incentives for the combatants to maintain the peace, and effective sanctions against those who break agreements. Basic carrot and stick stuff. The continued presence of poor and brutalized sectors, inured to violence, in conditions that led to the conflict which are rarely more than suppressed by one side's victory, requires the building of a prosperous and stable state.

Gvt. expenditure, after war, becomes skewed toward military spending. This is in a context of many lives lost, disease, and population movements which can have a destabilizing effect on neighbors.

Internationally, civil wars can influence drugs, AIDS, and terrorism, too. There is credible though not decisive evidence that AIDS originated in an African civil war due to the dangerous conjunction of mass rape and mass migration.

2.Coups

They are far more likely in poor countries. In the past 30 years, there have been over 200 coup attempts (in Africa alone). Quantitative economic research has been done. Coups reduce growth by around 3% of GDP during the first year of the coup, and it lasts awhile, so they're costly. The mere threat of a coup inflicts costs, with gvts. pre-emptively making military expenditures. And get this: aid 'significantly and substantially' increases the risk of one taking place.

The root causes are similar to civil war: instability, poverty, and disaffection (plus arms). And they can lead to continuing conflict; still, there's quite a difference between a drawn-out civil war and a (mere, relatively speaking) coup.

3. Military Spending

Also the subject of quantitative research (and thus meriting mention in this mighty book), military spending does not reduce the risk of civil war, AND, in post-conflict situations, sharply increases the risk. Spending by one country results in spending by neigbors, which spreads to entire regions. About 11% of aid 'inadvertently leaks' into military budgets, which makes aid interventions problematic. Aid, military spending, coups, and civil wars are thus interconnected.

I'm going to quote an entire paragraph:

"Military spending in countries where civil war has broken out is typically increased by 1.8% of GDP. At the end of the war, expenditure drops in general by only 0.5%. At a time when a country needs all possible resources to rebuild itself, an increased proportion of the national income is spent in ways that do nothing to raise the welfare level of the population. Since poor countries are far more prone to civil conflict than rich ones, anything that depresses development and income becomes a risk factor for further violence. Little wonder, then, that in post-conflict nations, there is a much greater risk of a new war breaking out."

INTERVENTIONS

1.Increasing aid

Economic recovery is the surest way of reducing the risk of further conflict. Aid, unfortunately, finances additional military spending and increases the threat of a coup (unless it is made conditional, or paired with other interventions). Beyond the early post-conflict years, when institutions are weak and money is likely to go to unintended purposes (requiring oversight), post-conflict aid is normally unusually productive.

2. Introducing new conditions for aid

Conditions, such as not exceeding a particular level of military spending, or allowing practical intervention to maintain stability. The cost:benefit ration is estimated at better than 1:2 for eliminating increased military spending, and it's associated reduction in security risk.

3. Expanding the role of peacekeeping forces

An international peacekeeping force is the most useful replacement for increased military spending. Professional soldiers, with no allegiance to any warring faction, bring stability without the destabilizing downside of armed partisans. The more that is spent on peacekeeping forces, the lower the risk of further conflict, the Copenhagen Consensus is proud to be the first to report. The numbers? Doubling expenditure per inhabitant per year over a decade from 5 to 10 bucks reduces the risk/likelihood/probability of conflict by around 15 percentage points. The cost of a typical post-conflict civil war is $8B USD, but the cost of peacekeeping is 1.1B, so the ratio is around 1:7. Wars make the news more than successful peacekeeping, but the investment is easily justifiable. Peacekeepers must be of sufficient size and capability.

4. Security-Guarantees: Guaranteeing security (from 'over-the-horizon')

Okay, this phrase is a bit weird. It's troops at the ready in their home countries for rapid intervention, should there be any flare-ups. France did this for it's territories in Africa between 1965-2005. Their risk of conflict was only one quarter what it would have been otherwise.This reduction in risk was worth about 5 billion, across 13 countries, for a cost-benefit ratio of about 1:5. Let's hear it for the bean-counting statisticians and economists who calculated this stuff!

(To tell you the truth, I don't actually understand it, but I'm taking P.C.'s word for it) It worked for the UK in Sierra Leone, too.

5. Packages

Hopefully war torn countries will say, "I like your package!", lol. Sorry, couldn't resist. Anyway, -peacekeeping and aid complement each other.

-Aid and ceilings on military spending complement each other.

-Security guarantees and aid complement each other. (Complement is different from compliment). Security guarantees eventually replace peacekeeping, for less money.

-Peacekeeping + security guarantees complement ceilings.

These complementarities can be quantified and subjected to CBA (cost benefit analysis). He says there is a strong economic case for them. (Nike says Just Do It)

SWBP: Arms Proliferation

Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems, 2007
a book I'm reading, Edited by Bjorn Lomborg,
Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center
Ch. 11, Arms Proliferation, by J. Paul Dunne, U of W. England
Summary and Commentary

Kali has lots of arms....

I already wrote about this, in the SALW post. But this is even better, maybe.
I find it interesting that you can't spell 'proliferation' without 'pro-life'.
Weird.

Anyway, proliferation usually has related to nuclear arms, and it does in this chapter, too, but it also refers to biological and chemical weapons, and technologies, systems, and weapons, of any kind. It can be in quantity or quality, in the sense of more arms or more advanced arms.

The results of it can be increased probability of conflict, greater potential lethality and duration of that conflict, and an increased economic burden on countries, esp. developing ones.

It's hard to measure. There are illicit and small arms sales which go unrecorded, and the technology may be of more concern than the actual weapons. Lethality may not be reflected in price. Transparency is reduced due to the increasing internationalization of the industry. It's not just goods, but also services. Mercenary enterprise has corporatized into the Blackwater type stuff. Terrorists with i.e.d's (improvised explosive devices) and suicide bombers inflict asymmetric damages. Speaking of arms, a karate chop can be lethal. It's nuts.

Proliferation cost is a subset of military spending is a subset of total arms trade, just so that's clear.

There are 3 categories of weaponry: non-conventional, conventional, and SALW (small arms and light weapons).
1. Non-conventional is the big stuff, the WMD: ABC (atomic, bio, chem). Now, there's those airburst weapons, which are like small nukes, too. (It could be NBC, too, if you want to get crazy with the TV). Countries that have them pay minor costs, but the treaties, policing, and incentives to counter proliferation are expensive; then measures, if necessary, maybe military action, can result in catastrophe.
2. conventional weapons systems, like tanks, planes, ships, subs. The main suppliers are Russia and the USA. They provide defense, but also can give an advantage, which might start or escalate conflict. Arms races, and associated wasted expenditure, can also result.
3. these kill most people, unlike the larger categories which are used to project power. They're the main security concern in the developing world. 500,000 people a year, snuffed.

Costs of proliferation
a)Proliferation cost is a subset of military spending is a subset of total arms trade, just so that's clear.

b)Other costs of proliferation are the indirect economic effects on the economy, such as the opportunity cost of producing arms, or spending valuable capital on them. After the Cold War, military spending went down, and was there a cost to arms producers like us? There was local dependence, which research suggests will not be problematic, and indeed, with reallocation of gvt. resources, there is a 'peace dividend.'

c)Also, proliferation upsets strategic balances, which can create an increased probability of more lethal conflict, with domestic, neighbor, and wider international problems. Arms races increase conflict probability, and increase neighbor country arms expenditure.

Benefits
Security, prestige, an attempt at influence with exporters, money for corrupt elites. There are expectations for benefits to local industry from offset agreements that provide investment and technology transfer. (What is an offset agreement?)

Guess what? He says, and I quote, "There is also the issue of whether military security actually works, especially in the developing world."

I know I've got the plan the works. Keep reading my blog, folks.

His 5 solutions:
1. Nuke disarmament, and WMD non-proliferation programs

2. Conflict prevention measures (like economic sanctions and better resourced UN troops)
He sites Cranna, 1994 as having a useful package of conflict prevention policy initiatives.
He also sites Chalmers, 2004, which evaluates the cost effectiveness of different measures, and gives the number of 139.4B USD to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan.
The costs of this has a low of 2B USD and a high benefit of 1875B USD. Pretty cool, huh?
Maybe war isn't where the money's at, eh?

3. Counter arms-proliferation measures (dampen, or nullify, their impact)
This happens through diplomacy, sanctions, threats, and military action, (or a mix).
This would act as a deterrent, so the cost would decrease over time.
This one has a low cost of 10B USD and a high benefit of 1795B USD. Yes, it's cool.

4. Control the trade in conventional arms
There is a system, but it can be a lot better. Proposals already exist, of course. To make it more rigorous, an 'arms trade treaty' would determine the nature and degree of the arms trade, and assist in policing/enforcing arms export control policies. This would curtail the arms trade, get all countries to adopt a code of conduct, create greater transparency, reduce the use of landmines, and include a commitment to uphold human rights.

5. Tax arms transfers
The money from taxed arms exports would go to a development fund that reduces poverty and inequality.

SWBP: Vulnerability to Natural Disasters

SWBP is Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems, a book I'm reading
2007, edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center
Ch. 10, Vulnerability to Natural Disasters, by Roger A. Pielke, Jr., University of Colorado
Summary and commentary

Can you protect me? I feel so vulnerable...

The main point the author makes, it seems to me, is that "the impacts of climate on society result fromthe interaction of the climate event and societal vulnerability to experiencing impacts." Reducing vulnerability has been ignored or underemphasized. Many cost-effective solutions have remained unimplemented, in developed and developing countries, alike.

In other words, when Al Gore puts up a picture of a hurricane and links it to global warming and says we should go to his site and learn about solutions, and then do things like buy the better lightbulbs and buy energy-star products and drive less, well that's all well and good, but totally off-mark: The best response to hurricanes is not to focus on Energy policy and the mitigation of greenhouse gases (although still good, of course), but rather to prepare and adapt to future natural disasters.

It's not one or the other; we should do both. It's just that, by the numbers, preparation is far more effective. Emissions reduction policy would only address a subset of the many causes of climate change, and a policy 5 times as effective as fully implementing Kyoto would only do 4.5% as much as building societal resilience. There's just no comparison.

The ratios he calculates for the difference in effectiveness of reducing the increases in ghg concentration vs. adaptation, under varying conditions, ranges between 5:1 to 22:1.

The skew in current priorities is reflected in a recent RAND study that US funding for disaster loss-reduction research in '05 was $127 million, only 7 percent of the amount invested in climate change research that year.

An example of how effective policies like risk assessment techniques, better building codes, code enforcement, land-use standards, and emergency-preparedness plans can be is the difference between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (on the same island) in 2004, when Haiti lost 2 thousand people and the D.R. lost only ten, due to their investment in shelters and emergency evacuation networks.

For disaster-preparedness/adaptation to happen, the author believes the issues of climate change and disaster vulnerability need to be clearly separated in the eyes of the media, the public, environmental activists, scientists, and policymakers. Changing (and current) weather-patterns demand it.

But let's get away from hurricanes. In addition to wind storms, earthquakes and floods are also the other 2 main categories of natural disaster. Other forms are droughts, epidemics, extreme temperatures, forest/scrub fires, volcanoes, and avalanches/landslides. The chapter has pie charts showing each category by number of deaths, amount of "losses" (does that include deaths?). Did they miss any?

Disaster losses have been increasing rapidly in increasing decades. But there are some important points to be made: 1) The Indian Ocean Tsunami killed more than 275,000 people while Katrina killed fewer than 1500, showing that much of the human toll takes place in developing countries. 2) Like Jesus said with the poor woman who gave all she had, the cost of disasters might not be measured best in the sum of economic losses, but what proportion of the country's overall economic activity was hit, and 3) disaster vulnerability response should be made a priority for the international community. It's a low global development priority, for some reason.

For effective action to take place, the author recommends:
1) getting the concept on the map by separating it from global-warming/energy-policy.
GHG emissions reduction, it is noted, does not have an effect for several decades on hazard risk.

2) Agreed upon globally-accepted standards:
-creating a globally accepted standard of acceptable disaster vulnerability, so countries' status and progress can be measured and compared.
-the creation of an open-source disaster database according to agreed upon standards.
-agreed-upon peer-reviewed procedures for normalizing economic loss data.

So sensible, anyone could have written it, in my opinion. Good stuff.

SWBP: The Economics of Biodiversity Loss

SWBP: Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems, a book I'm reading,
2007, edited by Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center
Chapter 9, The Economics of Biodiversity Loss, by Dan Biller
Part of my ongoing series of "book reports" (lol)
A synopsis, a summary, and commentary

The Grim Reaper morphs into a frog, sometimes...(like a lion in Zion?)

I read this chapter outdoors on a sunny day, on the shaded deck of our house on Cobb mountain, as birds visited the water hole and hummingbird feeder...
Really, no topic is closer to my heart.

I know, it's a far cry from fishery stocks and genetic resources, but the principle is the same: nature is dying. In fact, the chapter says the rate of extinction is between 100 and TEN THOUSAND times more than the natural rate of extinction would be, without "human intervention."

Honestly, I know everything is in fact natural, as human beings are a part of nature, but still.
I don't want the natural world to be destroyed by our species' immature need to pave everything and show off status in a new maserati, ETC. (perhaps eating burgers is a better example). I have a thing against status symbols. Grow up, people. Wouldn't you feel better if you bought a simple, reliable car and gave all the extra money to any of the zillions of worth(ier) causes? I think you should. Be a part of the solution. Be good.

Also, you can say, well, everything dies eventually. Well, that's true, but let's postpone the deal for as many of us who enjoy life as possible for as long as possible, okay?

ANYway. "Only a few ecosystems around the world have not suffered from human intervention, but the full consequences of this intervention are minimally understood." Basically, we think we're smart, but we really don't have a clue, and can barely scratch the surface of the interdependence that we perceive in the web of nature, I think is the understanding, here.

Habitats and ecosystems (coral reefs, rainforests, fisheries, etc. ) are threatened, and "it is difficult to conceive a world without biodiversity that can sustain human life." Who can say how it all plays out. Maybe it's like the butterfly effect. With the loss of species x (say, the cuban metallic-gold colored ant), we could all be f---ed. I dunno. I'm not an ecologist. We like to say "God only knows", but I really don't. I say we prevent as much biodiversity loss as possible. Life is good, right?

What we do know is that nature can be immensely enjoyable, and, for me, at least, of incalculable value, even when "red in tooth and claw" (perhaps especially so). Biodiversity is under threat due to pressures, often anthropogenic, outside of the purview of policy, such as "destruction and degradation of natural habitat (through land use changes, urban expansion, deforestation, changes of use in the coastal zone, overuse of marine and riverine ecosystems), the introduction of non-indigenous species, overhunting/fishing, pollution (e.g. industrial, human, and animal waste discharges), and climate change.

Biodiversity is shorthand for all the world's biological resources, whether we currently use them or not.

The main point for policy-makers is "the consequences of losing even modest ecosystem areas could be large" so biodiversity loss has a potential large scale effect. We're dealing with uncertainty and irreversibility, so there is the utmost need to adopt the precautionary principle, and not relegate biodiversity concern to low/er or no priority simply because of lack of information or because it is a newer concern among development issues.

Mr. Biller proposes 4 solutions:
1. A certain minimum level of biodiversity needs to be recognized as necessary, as information is attained on the benefits of biodiversity conservation, and perhaps values can be assigned to areas of biodiversity for CBA (cost-benefit analysis).

Species and ecosystems need to be preserved. "The information stored over millions of years of evolution is at risk."

The argument for a moral duty to preserve species (how would we like it if aliens blew up the earth to make room for a space highway, like in Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Universe?) and the beauty of the richness of life clearly trumps, for me, this argument to preserve "information." But my life may depend on this information in the future, so what do I know.

2. Um, I don't actually know what he's saying on this one. He uses economic jargon, that while I understood the explanatory footnote, I can't and don't want to decipher his econo-speak, which says, "Bundle non-excludable attributes of biodiversity with its private goods and club goods and design economic instruments that take advantage of markets to deliver these attributes."

The only examples he gave were tradable fishing quotas, tradable hunting quotas, and subsidies (which unfortunately have the potential for rent-seeking). This guy works at the World Bank, not at the local high school, so I'll give him a break. Maybe it has something to do with privatized conservation, such as in the form of game parks, or like when Mexico paid an indigenous community to conserve a watershed.

3. No, that's option 3 (privatize the biodiversity that is feasible, and involve local communities).

4. Eliminate perverse incentives. 'Perverse' means environmentally harmful, in that they encourage environmental damage and biodiversity loss, such as pollution, urban sprawl, road infrastructure, and consumption of natural-resource intensive goods.

He says perverse incentives like direct subsidies to agriculture, govt. support for marine capture fisheries, and for coal production, deplete scarce government budgets, can be regressive in income (affecting the poor more than the rich), and discourage efficient markets through rent-seeking behavior (uncompensated transfer of goods/services as a result of a 'favorable' policy).

I think Dan Biller may have done this cause a disservice. Rent-seeking excludable club goods just doesn't get me like maybe a trip to the rainforest would, know what I mean?

SWBP: Land Degradation

SWBP is Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems;
a 2007 book I'm reading, edited by Bjorn Lomborg, of the Copenhagen Consensus Center
Ch. 8, Land Degradation, by Ian Coxhead and Ragnar Oygard
pp. 146-159

Stop treating dirt like dirt

There's a big long definition: in short, it's reduction in in soil quantity and quality as an input to agricultural crops. Watershed function and other off-site effects figure into it, though, too.

It's measured by pH, organic matter content, plant-available nutrients, porosity, grain size distribution, water permeability and retention capacity, topsoil depth, presence of toxic chemicals (to plants or plant consumers), etc. -which varies with depth and horizontally, as well. All these characteristics interact. I'm no soil scientist, but my alma mater,UCD, I know has a pretty good program in it.

This chapter begins with a crash course in farming:
Crop yields depend on water, fertilizer, seed variety, and crop mgmt. practices, in addition to soil quality. (I think they forgot weather; i.e. sunshine, lol) In other words, it's not a good proxy for measuring degradation, but trends can still be seen.

Nutrient levels are improved by adding manure or fertilizer; acidity is countered with lime; and drainage and irrigation improve water availability.

Likewise, degradation (loss of topsoil and nutrients) occurs through: 1. soil erosion through seedbed preparation leaving the soil vulnerable to wind, rain impact, and surface water flows. Or, through intensive grazing that also lowers the amount of protective vegetation. 2. "soil compaction and crusting" 3. nutrient mining by removal of crops without replacing it with manure, fertilizer, or plant residue. 4. salinization under arid conditions, when salts are not washed away. 5. waterlogging from poorly-controlled irrigation. 6. there's also pollution and alkalization.

Characteristics such as slope, soil texture, climate, and cropping pattern affect soil resilience. Some of the above problems are less irreversible than others.

Off-site effects include siltation of dams and waterways, nutrient runoff causing eutrophication, pesticide runoff, windblown soils, and released CO2 and CH4 (contributing to global warming).

FACT: No developing country has installed a system for monitoring soil quality at a national scale. Little is known about status, and even less about trends, or what extent the degradation is human-caused.

What is known is that some environments have experienced a 50% or higher reduction in crop yields. Experimental plots have yielded data, but the basis for extrapolation to farmer's fields is weak. One study, with contributions by 250 experts, estimated that 560 million hectares of land had been degraded since the 1940's, or 38% of the total. A review of 16 studies shows that soil quality has remained fairly stable for 75% of the world's arable land, but widespread and accelerating on the rest. Specifically, 5-8 million hectares (ha's) have gone out of production each year (since?). These are primarily lands on the margin of cultivation, such as at the edge of deserts, or steeply-sloping or high-altitude areas.

Temperate lands are more resilient, so the problem exists primarily in poorer societies of tropical and sub-tropical areas where property rights are weakly defined, information systems are weak, and managerial capacity is low. Income from the land accounts for a greater share, making them more vulnerable to this problem, as they have fewer resources to combat it. Land tenure insecurity and credit market failures lead to faster soil mining.

The FAO predicts an increase in farmland area over the next 25 years of 8%, much from the clearing of tropical forests, which will have high local costs but will not threaten food supply or agricultural commodity prices.

The solution, in basic terms, is to maximize vegetation cover to prevent erosion; replace the removed nutrients; prevent the accumulation of harmful substances; and put in structures to reduce the speed and volume of water flow over the soil (i.e. terraces, bunds, vegetation strips).

5 market-based policies that offer economic incentives to achieve this are as follows:
1. Price and Trade policy reforms. E.g., no explicit or implicit subsidies on practices that increase land degradation, or taxes on activities that tend to reduce it. Abandoning or reducing protectionism is good, too, despite the short-run costs of policy implementation, market-adjustment, and revenue-losses to governments. They are minuscule in relation to the long-run benefit streams.

Crops that contribute to land degradation will be grown in countries and environments with lower environmental costs, say Ian and Ragnar.

2. Poor rural households "face severe liquidity constraints and have very high discount rates." This book mentions discount rates in every single chapter; I still can't definitively say what they are, although I can say it has to do with expectation for the future. It's an important concept, obviously, but I just didn't get it, earlier. The whole book is premised around benefits and cost ratios at discount rates of either 3 or 6 percent. Hmm. It's just this kind of ambiguity that makes an exciting excercise more "dismal." My fault?

Anyway, the improved functioning of imperfect credit/financial markets will facilitate land-conserving investments, while also probably increasing the land area to be cultivated, leaving the overall picture ambiguous. It's a solution, with a caveat.

3. The solution has to be culture-specific. In areas of low population density, they use up the land, and move on to a new plot. In Ethiopia, secure land rights might induce investments, such as in terracing. Elsewhere, investments can be a means of obtaining permanent land use rights. In Ghana, women, who have less rank, leave the land that they farm fallow for less time, based on the assumption that land which is actively cropped is less likely to be reallocated. Entire communities can be empowered to manage something like a rangelands as a commons, to reduce grazing intensity. Legal systems need to work, to give certificates of land title meaning. Soil qualilty is hard to observe, and be poorly captured in land transactions.

4. Technology. Nutrient replacement costs, for example, can be reduced, and returns to nutrient inputs (yields) can be raised. Less land is thus necessary for the same output. Marginal agricultural land can also be retired by migration from farming to industry, like what happened between '85-'95 in Thailand.

5. Direct land use interventions, such as conservation areas, land-use zoning, or public reforestation projects. China, for example, is spending 40B USD on almost 15 million hectares. Some countries pay farmers to desist. Bribery is messy, though (cost of monitoring and enforcement). Improved water management and installation of drainage systems, ending water and energy subsidies that encourage water wasting, are all good.

Attempting a benefit:cost analysis, they say, is futile, due to the heterogeneity of the projects, but rates of return can be presented. I'll give 'em to you if you ask. I'm tired.

By the way, Eutrophication is:

noun
Excessive nutrients in a lake or other body of water, usually caused by runoff of nutrients (animal waste, fertilizers, sewage) from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life; the decomposition of the plants depletes the supply of oxygen, leading to the death of animal life; "he argued that the controlling factor in eutrophication is not nitrate but phosphate"

You're welcome, lol.

Sarah Louise Palin

Or, in anagram speak -'lush paranoia lies'

Lies seems apt, as, well, her entire speech was a kind of lie.
Her "moment of truth" was written by Bush's speech writer -not even her own words.
She practiced speaking this guys words for 5 hours before the speech, and basically, to me, in all reality, is just a talking head/mouthpiece. When I hear a speech, I want authenticity and genuine from the heart talk about substance, not something a parrot could do (I just saw this parrot on Ted, named Einstein...pretty cool).

Lush seems apt, too, as her words, to me, were pronounced with all the words contained in them punched through (probably subliminally, for most people) in her bizarre manner of speaking. By this, if you don't understand me, I mean punching 'bomb' in the word Obama, or ..you get the point. There's nothing wrong with this. But I don't want to start getting sidetracked by how she speaks over what she's saying. The economist blow by blow reaction to her speech in their blog (Eagleton is the heading) actually said they should name a drink after her, because, I assume, people retreat into drink upon facing the madness of the world, as revealed through words being used more richly -like what I imagine a wizard casting spells might do- than just the one intended meaning of the utterance. Like MEAN in meaning. Anyway, I actually thought of alcohol for some reason while she was talking, before I looked up the anagram or visited the Economist.  Maybe because of PUB in RePUBlican?

Paranoia is also an interesting point, in regards to her. She has an us-them mentality that I do not appreciate. Apparently, she was in support of the Bridge to Nowhere at some point, which has not been widely known. Also, there's something about her meeting with Karl Rove before her selection, who plays dirty, as I have seen in a documentary about him. She hunts moose for sport, which isn't necessarily bad, but does she get some perverse kick out of killing things? Does she have any pets? She doesn't believe in evolution, which I find a bit scary. Let me tell her now, that I, God, did not create the moose that she so enjoys killing. Finally, she doesn't even know what the veep position is about, and basically just seems to want to use it as an opportunity to plug drilling in Alaska, which I read McCain doesn't even support. She could be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and only moments ago she was a PTA mom. I suppose that's suppose to be encouraging for all of us?...i.e. fate could land us in the presidency just for being a activist parent? I'm sorry, but I think this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, a possible Sarah Palin as president. She strikes me as mean-spirited, too, frankly. But wait, there's more. She was for banning books at a local library. On the plus side, she's supposedly pro-life, although I suspect war, capital punishment, and other tough-guy Republican positions will remain deathly.

Oh, well. Drink up. Better yet, vote your conscience.

p.s. She also was for banning books at the local library. Geez, it just gets worse and worse.
ALSO, she's being instructed to not talk to the media.
ALSO, she goes to a church where people speak in tongues
I can do that. Gwobble tiggle thwork aba do ku shi chu mao bi shlorp!
Remember, God is in ALL things, lol.
I suspect Karl Rove thinks the next for years are destined for bad things, and is purposely trying to throw the election to the Democrats. That's fine with me. Barack rocks!

addendum: Sarah Louise HEATH Palin anagrams to 

'A euthanasia hellish pro'.

That makes me think of her putting a moose out of it's misery.

SWBP: Deforestation

SWBP is Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems, a book I'm reading;
2007, edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Ch. 7: Deforestation, pp. 125-142, is written by Hank Folmer and G. Cornelis Van Kooten, with a shout out to Canada's Sustainable Forest Mgmt. Network.

Saruman said to "Rip them down!" (but he was actually a servant of Sauron)

Deforestation is the loss of forested area, to logging and agriculture (the human causes), or to natural means like fire and disease. Logging, contrary to popular belief, is not the major factor (it's only between 2-10%). Agricultural conversion is.

The chapter has a table that shows deforestation patterns across the planet between 1980-2005. Deforestation is mainly a tropical forest problem, between 23 degrees north and south of the equator. Boreal and temperate forests have actually increased in size. But overall, total forest area is decreasing, with Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia leading the way, although the rate of world deforestation is declining.

To quote Bjorn, "During the '90's there was a continuing steady loss of tropical forests: the decline was about 0.5 percent annually. The current rate of loss means that forests overall are not in any immediate danger, and, of course, regeneration is possible in time."

The authors say, "Even at the current rate of tropical deforestation, the world's tropical forests would continue to exist throughout the 21st century, and well into the 22nd century."

I would hope they would be with us always.

They note that tropical rainforest, of most concern to the international community, experiences relatively slower rates of deforestation than other tropical forest, and the highest rates of tropical deforestation occur in (moist or dry) upland forest.

Anyway, between 1990 to 2000 the world lost 9,397,000 hectares, and between 2000 and 2005 lost 7,317,000 hectares of forest, according to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). This is similar to the large-scale temperate deforestation that has already occurred centuries ago in many regions of Europe and North America, for fuel, construction, and agriculture.

Doesn't this statistic make the people tree-sitting or chaining themselves to trees seem kind of silly? (But if you fell a tree, does it not sap?)

Did you know that wood matter is produced by plants from matter in the AIR, not the ground?

Okay, maybe I'm getting off topic. The chapter attempts to weigh the costs and benefits of deforestation, and propose solutions. It's not cut and dry, so to speak.

Forests have 1.timber and other products (production functions), 2.carbon sink and watershed utility (regulatory functions), and 3.the wildlife habitat/biodiversity function. Regulatory functions also include things like waste assimilation, soil conservation, etc. which do not have prices attached to them (easily, anyway). Non-market valuation is necessary, they propose.

All the (listed/described) factors that need to be taken into account are: value per hectare: clearfelling or sustainable selective logging (clearcutting does not usually occur, but if so, what percent is usable), "stumpage" prices, mgmt. costs, site conditions, productivity, and, especially, subsequent use of the land, such as artificially generated stands or managed plantations. Whether the land is used temporarily, and left fallow to revert back to forest, or used for permanent or semi-permanent agriculture, depends on ag prices, conversion subsidies, access roads, population pressure, and lack of tenure security, with variable significance. Soil-erosion/nutrient loss vs. use that provides crop-cover all year long is a big deal. The value of small-scale gathering of things like rattan, oils, fruits, nuts, and bushmeat, can be large at some times and places. There's eco-tourism, too. As many as possibly 16 million species go extinct in tropical forests every year. Illegal logging is widespread. The relation of income to deforestation has been studied, with the conclusion that it's complex and ambiguous. Factors differ in different places, and the definition of deforestation is variable in different studies, too. And CO2.

They use the term "forest regret" which is not explained. I have no idea what it means.

He lists 10 forms of policy failure in regards to forests (deforestation PLUS reduced welfare of society): 1. direct subsidies to fell forest, 2. indirect subsidies that encourage timber companies to harvest excessively, while failing to capture true costs, 3. creation and protection of an inefficient (log-wasting) forest-industry, 4. subsidies to cattle ranchers for foreign exchange, 5. tax credits, 6. exemption of ag income from taxation, 7. subsidized credit for agriculture, 8. rules on public land allocation that favor large land holders or require 'development' of land to demonstrate ownership, 9. access roads, 10. overpopulation and migration policies.

Of note: the value of forest soils for agriculture is often overstated, resulting in quick depletion from wrong crops. Peasants are encouraged to move to forest, so governments can avoid dealing with social unrest in cities. Politically powerless social groups cannot advocate for the protection of undervalued minor forest products. In the interests of economic growth and development, forests might not be seen as an essential resource, and may even be seen as an asset to be liquidated. Illegal logging is rampant in the absence of an honest and well-functioning court system, and corrupt politicians who use govt. property to benefit their supporters at the expense of the population, and, in general, a state that transparently forms policy, and has the legitimacy to make painful decisions.

There are some big remaining unanswered questions, like what is the potential cost of CO2, with the absence of forest? Deforestation may have a net benefit of around 22B USD (dollars) a year, but might also have the potential to damage global welfare by around 126B dollars, the chapter says. Because developing countries are given no, or inadequate, compensation for the CO2 released by their deforestation activities, CO2 does not enter into their decision calculus.

Global warming has a tipping point, so anti-deforestation efforts become increasingly more valuable/important. The chapter says, "It is clear that, in the absence of massive global transfers to tropical nations to encourage them to preserve forests (e.g. Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism), deforestation will likely continue."

Market failure might be less of a factor than policy failures, in which govt. interventions encourage deforestation. While we can't assign numbers, the benefits of preventing deforestation outweigh the costs. The World Bank, and the international community, can play an important role in inducing changes in specific countries' harmful policies.

SWBP: Climate Change

SWBP: Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems, 2007
a book I'm reading, edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Consensus Center

I've already written a long article on global warming;
I tried to merge as many varying sources on the subject as I could.
Chapter 6, Climate Change, written by Gary Yohe, adding to the subject.

Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?

Poor developing countries are most vulnerable.

The chapter has a chart for effects in the categories of water, food, health, land, and environment for each degree increase in average temperature (since 1990, I believe). They are: (1 degree)glacier disappearance threatening water supplies for 50M people, 300,000 people would die from climate-related diseases (malaria, diarrhea, and malnutrition), thawing permafrost would damage roads and buildings in parts of Canada and Russia, 10% of land species could face extinction,

(2 degrees) potentially 20-30% decrease in water availability in Southern Africa and the Mediterranean, sharp declines in crop yield in tropical regions, 40-60 million more people exposed to malaria in Africa, up to 10 million more people affected by coastal flooding each year, 15-40% of species facing extinction,

(3 degrees) serious droughts once every ten years for southern europe, 1-4B more people suffer water shortages, while 1-5B gain water, increasing flood risk, 150-550 additional millions at risk of hunger, and 1-3 million more dying from malnutrition, if carbon fertilization is weak, and 1-170 million more people affected by coastal flooding each year. Also, 20-50% of species would face extinction, including 25-60% of mammals, 30-40% of birds, and a possible onset of Amazon forest collapse (according to some models).

(4 degrees) potential 30-50% decrease in water availability in Southern Africa and the mediterranean, agricultural yields potentially decline by 15-35% in Africa/parts of Australia, e.g., up to 80M more people exposed to malaria, 7-300M more people affected by coastal flooding each year, and around half of the world's nature reserves fail.

(5 degrees) possible disappearance of large Himalayan glaciers, affecting one quarter of China's population and hundreds of millions in India, continued oceanic acidity increases would disrupt marine ecosystems and fish stocks, sea level rise would impact NY, London, Tokyo, Florida, and small islands.

The latest science suggests the earth's average temperature will rise by even more than 5 or 6 degrees, resulting in massive large-scale movements of population, which the author warns could be catastrophic. This degree of change is comparable to what happened between the last ice age and today.

To be fair, there are some benefits/plus's/upsides, surprisingly.

In a survey of the over 100 estimates of the social cost of carbon, a tonne of carbon ranges in social cost from a median of 13 dollars, a mean of 43 dollars, up to 350 dollars. The author of the survey, and another expert, a geographer, agree that 50 bucks per ton is representative of the lowest reasonable estimate of the true social cost of carbon. A fifty buck tax per ton would be something like adding 5 bucks to the price of a barrel of oil.

But over the long term, this would not work. The interest rate would demand a 2-3% increase per year. This is the only way to give the policy traction, he says.

SWBP: Air Pollution

SWBP is a 2007 book I'm reading, edited by Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center; Chapter 5: Air Pollution, is authored/addressed by Guy Hutton of DSI (Development Solutions International). He is my favorite author of the book so far, I think, in directness of style. Summary and Commentary:

Cough. Who farted.

Air pollution is largely (mostly?) due to human activity, from combustion of fuels. Specifically, the combustion of fuels for transportation, energy generation, energy-intensive industrial operations, resource extraction and processing industries, and domestic cooking and heating, among others. Tobacco smoke is another one, which I have previously written about (see Barack Smokes, why he shouldn't).

The problem with Air Pollution, indoor and outdoor, is a) indoor cooking fires with solid/biomass fuel kill 1.5 million people every year (the majority in children under 5), and b) outdoor pollution, particularly in Asia, may result in about half that number of deaths. In addition to human and animal health, buildings and materials, crops, and visibility are affected. Aside from the deaths, there are countless million more episodes of illness. Cough.

I imagine it's like smoking, in a way, in that it shortens life expectancy, which I assume is what they factor into the above mortality statistics. I wonder how they do that. Because, obviously, outdoor air pollution isn't like a bullet to the brain. But it can be just as deadly. Mr. Hutton explains that scientific medical controlled trials on air pollution are inadequate and necessary. This is because there are many pollutants with different, hard to discern, health-effects.

It's been in the news lately with the Beijing Olympics.

quotes
Indoor- "The total disease burden, including morbidity, is estimated at 38.5 million Disability-Adjusted Life-Years (DALYs)." Indoor cooking fires in rural areas mainly use firewood, dung, other agricultural residues, followed by charcoal and coal/lignite. 38.5M years. Geez.

Outdoor-"According to the World Health Organization, PM concentrations in urban outdoor air from industries and vehicles may trigger some 800,000 premature deaths a year with 65% occurring in the developing countries of Asia." (Is PM parts per million?)

Forest fires, and events like Bhopal (chemicals) or Chernobyl (radioactivity) are part of the problem. Air pollution, defined, is suspended particulate matter (dust, fumes, mist, and smoke), gaseous pollutants, and odor. Indoor and outdoor pollution, combined, are estimated to cause 2.5 million deaths a year. This killer lurks and lives in the home, in the workplace, and in the urban environment. The quality of life, as well as economic consequences, make air pollution control programs highly cost-beneficial.

The benefit-cost ratio, though hard to pin down, is estimated between 0.5 (the lower Shanghai estimate) to 13.0 (the higher U.S. Federal regulations estimate). Even aside from the silly numbers (unless you're an investor), 1.visibility, 2. ecology (crop damage and wildlife effects from acid deposition), and, of course, 3.health (often acute lower respiratory infections in children and COPD -chronic obstructive pulmonary disease- in adults, among the 3 billion people who depend on solid fuels for cooking fires), make this an obvious priority.

SWBP: Subsidies and Trade Barriers

SWBP as I call it, Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems, is a book I'm reading; 2007, Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, Chapter 4: Subsidies and Trade Barriers, written and solved by Kym Anderson, from the University of Adelaide and the World Bank. Big money, big money! Summary and Commentary:

Tear down the wall

The gist is that government intervention in markets causes harm. The brunt of which is carried by the poor. It's a no-brainer. The benefits of completely removing all trade barriers would be between 67 and 260 times the costs. No trade or agricultural barriers would result in benefits estimated to reach 287B US dollars a year. Include services, and the benefit goes up to 2.4T US dollars. That's T as in Trillion.

Cushioning the blow for those who lose their jobs would be a short-term headache, but the boost to economic growth would soon create many new jobs.

Such widely distributed prosperity makes trade liberalization a high priority, in Mrs. (?) Anderson's view. The distortionary policies in agriculture and clothing, in particular, are especially harmful to the world's poor. My whole religious sensibility is centered around lifting poor people from struggle, misery, and want. This one should be easy, once the world's policy makers are educated, with solid data from the past, as well as the theoretical model, of why liberalization works. Liberal is not a dirty word, you know. With a potential payoff of 260 dollars for every dollar spent, the political will for creating completely free trade should be ample. Even 67:1 is a mighty good deal.

SWBP: Money Laundering

Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems, a book I'm reading;
2007, Edited by Bjorn Lomborg; Chapter 3: Money Laundering
Problem addressed/Chapter authored by: Donato Masciandaro

Summary and Commentary:

Competitors, keep it clean! No blows below the belt!

ML, as the chapter calls it, is the criminal practice of engaging in financial transactions in order to conceal the identity, source, and/or destination of money, by colluding intermediaries or lax intermediaries ("honest but inefficient in protecting their integrity") in offshore financial centers (OFC's) and the banking and financial industry. It responds to the overall demand for "black" financial services expressed by individuals or groups that have committed income-producing crimes. It can act as a multiplier of illegal revenues. It is "a rather complex operation."

It is different from the financing of terrorism, which is "money dirtying."

Estimates of the amount of laundered money, globally, range from 2-32% of total world GDP. In 2005, 1.038 trillion dollars are estimated to have been laundered, from the drug trade alone. Total GDP now is something like 47T dollars, so 32 percent of that is 15.54 trillion dollars. Wow.
Masciandaro puts the estimate at 3.8T, or 9% of the world economy.

If this were like Robin Hood, or the Lottery, or maybe even Native American casinos, where the money flowed to the poor or for education or a historically disadvantaged group, maybe it wouldn't be much of a problem. And I guess we don't actually know. But the author makes the assumption that it's a public bad, taking a conservative view, and uses some research and an equation with some baseline assumptions to show that reducing the multiplier effect through anti-money-laundering regulations will result in the cost of money-laundering going up from 25% to 60%. He admits his proposal is based on the modern theory of financial regulation, not the traditional theory of regulation, in which regulatory effort can be either irrelevant or unproductive.

In short, he calculates a benefit/cost ratio of 3.16. The cost cannot exceed the total value of world banking profits, which in 2004 was 0.53 trillion US dollars.

He points out some realities: Some countries are predisposed to adopting lax regulations because the externalities of criminal activity do not affect them. The future in addressing this issue revolves around two things: Information and Incentives. There are 4 categories of actors on this issue: Bankers/the public, Criminals, Policy-makers, and Losers (those who bear the costs of black money). I'm not sure why he lumps bankers and the public together. Getting a firmer grip on the real Benefits and Costs of this issue seems necessary.

It became more of an issue after 9-11. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

SWBP: Lack of Intellectual Property Rights

SWBP is Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems; a book I'm reading
This 2007 book is edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Director of The Copenhagen Consensus Center. It addresses 23 global issues; Lack of Intellectual Property Rights is chapter 2, authored (and solved) by Keith E. Maskus, University of Colorado. Summary and Commentary:

Gee, I guess it's a good thing I'm adding my own commentary, I think..hmm.

The problem, defined: The ability and willingness of around 150 country's governments to enforce patents, copyrights, trademarks, plant variety rights, certification marks, and geographical indications are almost completely absent, with consequences ranging from 1)the lethal (fake pharmaceuticals) to 2)limiting the ability of entrepeneurs and artists to create and sell new products (In Indonesia, evidence suggests that up to 4-5% of the population find it difficult to escape poverty because of this), to 3) the reluctance of international firms to provide such products as new medicines, vaccines, or agricultural technologies, in the absence of exclusive marketing rights, and finally, to 4) the deterrence of FDI (foreign direct investment) (which may reduce GDP growth by .1-.25 percentage points in larger developing countries).

It's part of the larger problem of a weak regulatory environment, as an indicator of a business climate that discourages innovation and FDI.

Solving this problem would mean better healthcare, more innovation, and job creation. There are two solutions. The cost-benefit analysis indicates that a total cost of 3.5 - 4.1 billion dollars for the first solution would return benefits between 2.4 - 5.2 times greater. And the second solution, at a cost of 6 billion dollars, would return an estimated 9 times the benefit.

What are the solutions?

The first is to improve intellectual property regulations and their enforcement.
The second is to encourage companies in developing economies to protect their own IPR (intellectual property rights) with financial and technical assistance.

The most important aspect of the second solution for the author is to have developing economy students study IPR in industrialized countries. Training 10,000 students would cost $200 million per year, but would return between 8.96-9.17 times the benefit.

Aside: "One person estimates that products developed from traditional knowledge and sold internationally could amount to 50-100 billion dollars a year if suitable marketing and IP protection channels were found."

Development is where the money's at, y'all.

Does all intellectual property emanate from, and therefore belong to, God? No comment.
Glad to be of service, though.

Actually, doesn't someone own the rights to the bible, now that I think about it? Ha. Nuts.

SWBP: Financial Instability

SWBP is Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems;
A 2007 book edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center
The first chapter; first of 23 discussed global problems:
Financial Instability
Each chapter is written by a different author/specialist;
Peter Blair Henry from Stanford authors this topic/proposes a solution:

If Jesus is the answer: Male anger in a stable? (manger, get it?)
Moderation in all things (including moderation?)...
I say open all markets, and really go for true value, with REALLY strong policy guiding society (humanity, I mean) toward HAPPINESS, primarily. Does that help, lol? Actually, can we make the animals happier, too?

First off, fyi, there's a distinction between the words 'economic' and 'financial'
Economic means:
Financial means:
(Fyi means 'for your information', fyi).

Financial Instability is when the graph of a country's growth over time gets jumpy, I believe. And by jumpy, I mean going negative (otherwise it wouldn't be a problem).
The chapter doesn't say this. Maybe I'm wrong. In any case,

The book just refers to "financial crises," which come in 3 forms and have 4 solutions. (forms: banking crises, currency crises, and combinations of both) (solutions: reregulation of domestic financial markets (for banking crises), reimposition of capital controls (for currency crises), a single world currency, and engineering an international financial solution.

He seems to think a world currency is a hopeless and unachievable objective; I think the case just needs to be made that it's in everybody's self-interest. Challenge to economists: How great would the reward be?? Let's Do It! (The chapter says for a 16 billion dollar cost, the world would reap a 107 billion dollar benefit).

I read the chapter and I don't actually know what these banking crises, or currency crises, might in actuality be; but I DO know that they are calculated to cost more than 1% of economic growth/9% of economic output, which is no small sum, especially that the economic devastation happens in developing countries whose ability to care for their most vulnerable citizens is reduced. They happen an average of once every 12 years. The solution to this problem is amazing; for an estimated 0.5 billion dollars annually, the annual gross benefits could be over 150 billion dollars (!).

What's the solution?

It's "Build developing nations' capacity to design and implement institutional reforms that are suited to their own circumstances." Geez. I coulda thought of that. Sounds simple enough. But the beauty of this book is it assigns economic values to various solutions, so you can get a handle on what might be the best option(s). They're only guestimates, though.

Policy-reforms and institution-development in developing countries need to be done in their local contexts (all politics is local, he says), so enabling the training of domestically skilled people by providing funds would increase productivity and reduce the incidence of financial crises.

I remember this solution from back during my time at Davis. We think we're superior, in so many ways, and that we therefore need to solve developing countries' problems for them. The empowering solution is thought to be to provide enough capital for domestic citizens to get local institutions on their feet, to solve their own problems the most creatively. "Engineering an international financial solution" would be a hubristic exercise in over-generality, seems to be what he is saying. In other words, the "international" solution is national, or perhaps at even smaller levels.

I would add that we should erase the country mindset, however, anyway, and people anywhere should be open to ideas from anywhere else. Ideas know no borders, but I would agree that it is probably far more likely to have the best ideas for development coming from the developing regions themselves. In this case, it's a matter of adapting the well-developed financial institutions throughout the world -a product of trial and error- to local conditions and circumstance.

Bjorn says solving this problem could even lead to better overall governance and faith in public institutions.

Piddlip is Bad

Ha. To explain:

Piddlip is an acronym I made up, which spells out:

1.Pain/suffering, Immorality (sin), Disease, Death, Lies, Ignorance, and Poverty.

Conversely,
2.Feeling good and happy, Service (compassion, caring, loving-kindness, action), Health, Life, Truth, Knowledge, and Comfort are GOOD.

(That has no vowels to facilitate an acronym -sorry).
(Also: Of course, as I have learned, lies can be a way to access the truth. A word to the wise.)

Range of Human States

(In English: Other languages may be more -or less- nuanced):

States of Being:
On Misery-Bliss scale (Negative, Neutral, Positive)

Physical- Mental

Negative/Suffering (3 levels)
1.Agony Torment
2.Pain Anguish/Misery
Hopelessness/Despair
3.Discomfort Malaise/Unease/Discontent

Neutral/Lack of Suffering (Neither Suffering nor Joy)
4.Health + Simply Being (IS a Positive; 6 levels)

Positive/Happiness or Pleasure
5.Comfort Satisfaction
6.Happiness.......Define for yourself *
7. Joy, Laughter
8.Ecstasy Bliss
9. Nirvana

*I define happiness a lack of suffering, which means health, wellness, PLUS any of the following: sensual pleasure/hedonism (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch; e.g. good meals, good music, good sex, a good book, a comfortable chair, a massage, sounds of laughter or nature, warmth of sun by pool, good music or conversation, a fun movie), a feeling of peace tranquility and calm, a feeling of job well done/accomplishment, helping others, fitness endorphins, and learning (especially to questions I've previously had).

Some Questions on My Mind

Obviously, I'm not Omniscient:

1) Who invented the concept of angels?
2) Are Rome, the Roma, Romania, and Amor all linguistically related?
3) What's with numbers and words? (e.g. won, to, three/there/h-tree, for, i've f, sicks, S-even (how odd), ate, h-eight, ninny, etc.)
4) What is it that shakes a light wave?
5) If space can fold in on itself, what is space? Should we go back to the "ether" concept? Is there no such thing as "void"?
6) Could the really small be linked to the really large? Could you be shrunk to the size of a universe?
7) Where does stuff sucked into black holes go?
8) How can you free your mind if you're a captive audience? Can telepathy be legislated about? Should unwanted voice(s) be made illegal? Can they? How would that be enforced? Can we really talk about a right to privacy when our own heads aren't private?
9) Are years getting incrementally shorter or longer (by even a small fraction of a second)? Is the earth speeding up or slowing down? Getting closer or further from the sun?
10) Is evil just biological?
11) Could I be born-again as a leach?
12) Could Osama Bin Laden be/have been under a U.S. citizen's mind control?
13) If quantum foam experiences time differently, does it have a range?
14) Are dreams ever out of body experiences?
15) Can all drug experiences be replicated by natural body chemistry?
16) Could we genetically design a plant-animal? A solar powered animal..
17) Are the undersea vent-creatures genetically linked to us, or did they arise independently?
18) What's your list of questions? Maybe a question a day is all I ask.

Joe Biden

His name anagrams to 'Be Joined'

I like him. Straight shooter, as they say, I think.
Joe Biden, Wikipedia; link

MIT's 3W IDD Summit

3W is my shorthand for Third World.
IDD is International Development and Design:

The Christian Science Monitor had this video today; link.

For instructions on how to build this year's, and past year's, devices, go to:
http://www.iddsummit.org/

At least, I assume the summit site will be able to give you some help.
I hope I don't make an ass/(of) u/me.

They should make their link better and include instructions to all year's devices, in my opinion.
And maybe include links to sand filter instructions, etc.. as a general resource for when the underdeveloped world really makes it's presence on the web, in the near future, I imagine.

Wikipedia Teshara references

Earlier I referred to all the Gods in my name; I found more.
I'll give Wikipedia links to all the strange embedded meanings in my surname, Teshara:

Te, Tes, Tesh, Tesha, Teshar,
Eshara, Shara, Hara, Ara, Ra
Es, Esh, Esha, Eshar, (e-share)
Sh, Sha, Shar
Har, Ar, Ha

Earth, Heart, Art, Has, Sara, As, Ash, Set, Hater, Hate
Hear, Hare, Tear, Rate, Tare, Erat (word), Erat (person)
Saar, Haas, Rah, Seth, Rash,
Hat, Rat, Sat, Tah, Tar, Tas,
Tea, Ate, Eta, Eat, Ear, Are, Era, Rea, Rae,
Ert, Ret, Ter, Sea, Heat,
Asa, Sar, Aha, Ser, Asha, Arah, Het, Shet, Tas, Tash, The,
Hr, Rh, Sr, Ts, St, Th, Ht, Tr, Rt, Er, Tr, Rt, Ta, At, Et, Ta,
Eh, He, Se, Hs, Aa, Ae, Ea,
Haat, Hata, Taha, Aath, Thaa, Atha, Athar, Athas, Athares, Atar,
etc.

Ararat

My Activity Paradigm

Ooh, I make it sound fancy, don't I?
I am alone much of the time, so I have put some thought into how to wisely spend my time.
To be healthy, you need to keep busy, so this is what I do:

I think we all pretty much do 10 things around the house:
In 3 categories: input, output, and biological:

Input: Watch, Read, Listen
Output: Write, Talk, Create
Biological: Sleep, Eat, Exercise

The tenth thing is Work. Which, for me, is chores around the house, or gardening..
Sleep includes things like Meditate, Sit, and Nap
Eat includes Drink (I could have said Ingest). I include Cook with this, of course.

Listen

-Listen is anything Audio: Speech or Music.

-Speech could be talk radio, television in the background or over my wireless headphones, books on tape, lectures or presentations or readings of whatever length online (i.e. ted lectures, u-tube, or learning out loud), telephone recordings, and, of course, actual conversation over the phone (which I hardly ever do).

-Music could be cd's, tapes, am or fm radio, radio on tv, radio online, satellite radio.

Input categories
(by what device -of 7?- you're interacting with): computer, tv, radio, stereo, phone
Read: Book or Magazine; computer

Watch: TV, Computer
Listen: Radio, Stereo; computer, phone

(by your 5 senses):
See, hear, smell, taste, touch.
Feeling and Intuition are the 6th sense.
The internal sense of vibes or spirit or voice(s) or whatever.
So just flip through the list in your mind and decide which sense you want to engage.

-unless you want to output (write, talk, create) or bio (eat, exercise, sleep)

so, to be stupid,

So 'whirl, world trade center, see' is a way of thinking of WRL, WTC, SEE.

in the I owe bee (iob -input, output, biological).

maybe it's boy, see the wtc whirl.  (boi, see wtc wrl)

for the 9 things to do round the house.

Aside:
I'm a very visual and spatial person. I am constantly imagining myself interacting with the things around me, as I walk through the house. In this way, I see the potential for all the possible activities I can do in each room I'm in. If you're bored, then you're boring. There's always more than enough to do. Busy, busy as Bokonon says. You couldn't pay me enough to sit around and twiddle my thumbs wasting time in an office. Or play videogames. I've recently decided to do some push-ups every time I go into a new room. I don't like videogames that much. I used to have an atari as a kid, though. I liked kaboom. I wanted to learn how to program it, but my teacher told me to figure it out myself, so my computer-programming career ended there, in 7th grade, in '84.  If you're in action mode, just do whatever you see needs to be done, until everything that can be done is.  ANYway,

I've got all these buttons on my toolbar, which give me all my routine online options at a glance. Pretty cool. And I don't have to type in the webpage addresses.

For some reason, I'm not as excited about my book I'm working on. My wife's book collection and music collection is a continual possibility for exploration. People aren't reading anymore. I used to love to read. I need to get back into it, with real, actual, physical, books.

Okay, have a nice day!
-Jess

Ashrita Furman

Along with that pic of John Terilli (posted earlier, under 'JT Universes'), I have two other pics of healthy people I want to lose my gut to hopefully look like, throughout my lifetime:

Ashrita Furman and x. (I'm looking for his name and pic)

I saw Ashrita in the Guinness Book of World Records, and I thought to myself, he looks good, I want to look like that. It's practical athleticism, not just for looks... By now, he's set like 100 records. He's always looking to conquor something else. He studied under Sri Chinmoy, who he mentions in this abc interview. I imagine all these goals he strives for keeps him focused, as well as in tip-top shape.

There's something -everything- to be said for supreme focus, and keeping oneself challenged, and developing one's potential to the utmost, and setting an example...

A few cool articles on fitness psychology:
1.Neurosis and fitness
2.Body building with a heart.

Bodybuilding, defined, is performing different exercises for each body part -for muscle hypertrophy, symmetry, and balance. (hypertrophy means size).

Aikido Diplomacy

The founder of aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, declared:
"To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace."

Some brainstorming on international conflict resolution:
1) Healthy leaders. I cringe at chubby or overweight or even obese leaders, with greasy complexions. They should feel good, with lots of happy endorphins in them. They should feel peaceful, and not angry or stressed, to help act accordingly.

2) Boxing and martial arts clubs everywhere, available to everyone. Frustration and aggression are a natural part of life, that should be channeled into creative, healthy, athletic endeavor. Inflicting injury, however, usually doesn't help things, so people have to know what they're getting into, and mutually agree to the risk. Clear rules for winning and losing should deter urges for violent retaliation. Peaceful philosophies in tandem with athletic self-control should create sane and happy lifestyles.

Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury.

Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on.

On Knowledge

A few aphorisms I've collected:

1. The more you know, the more you know you don't know. -?

2. Ignorance is bless -?; In knowledge is suffering -bible.

3. The first step to knowing something is having a word for it.

4. KWUTEO: Knowledge, Wisdom, Understanding, Truth, Enlightenment, Omniscience.
(I made this word up).

The Foundation of All Good Qualities

I just finished this free Buddhist 82 pg. book, by Geshe Tsultim Gyeltsen

His website is http://www.tdling.com/.

Wondering about the title? The foundation of all good qualities is....
The Kind Guru!

That's it.

p.s. Did you know that guru is the Zimbabwean name for tripe?

Just War Theory

Just in the sense of justice, not "mere"

the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 2309, lists four strict conditions for "legitimate defence by military force":

1.the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

2.all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

3.there must be serious prospects of success;

4.the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

What does God think of this?
Let me tell you what I, God, thinks: Bullshit. Soldiers are not Buddhas. People have a right to defend themselves, of course, but the best way out of a conflict might just be to give in. Turn the other cheek. If you're willing to die, no one's stopping you, of course. War is messy, and although leaders may think they are fully justified in entering a war, jus in bellum (just conduct in war) is basically impossible, I would have to say. In other words, people get kill crazy. But they should be Buddhas. Peaceful, kind, compassionate, loving, friendly, happy, helpful, wise, etc.

Here's what John Kerry said, after his participation in Vietnam:
Asked whether he had personally committed atrocities in Vietnam, he responded:

"There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals."

I have an even higher standard than Geneva or U.S. law: Thou shalt not kill.

Only time should kill. Who can say where the road goes? Only time.
There's time-life books. There's also time of death. When you're number's up. As Pink Floyd sang, "shorter of breath, and one day closer to death." Is it fated, people wonder. Nah. You can move your number around. You do that by moving your body around.

As for military defense, murder is always wrong. So just give up, already. Outlaw all militaries, for Christ sakes. Can't we all just get along? Let conflict be interpersonal. Nations are artificial constructs. They don't even exist. There are borders with laws and citizens and pr machines that create identity, in addition to culture, religion, language, which usually transcends borders. But everybody is just PEOPLE. Enough already with the stupid false identities, jingoism, and nationalistic fervor. Get real. Get human.

Not that countries are bad. I mean, why not. But nobody wants to get killed, so I've got to step in as Dad and stop all this stupid squabbling amidst my children. Alright? Now, go to your room.

As for killing plants and slaughterhouses for your carnivorous appetites, well you gotta do what you gotta do. But you don't need to go to war. That's obvious.

Consistent Life Ethic

Submitted post on Consistent Life Ethic website:

"I have always wondered why the Catholic Church takes such a strong stand on abortion, justifying the stand as protecting the soul of the unborn, yet they take no public stand on catholics killing others in military combat, an action that is clearly in violation of Jesus teachings. I have been asking that question since the end of the Vietnam War. Mostly I get dismissed with "I'll have to ask ___, come back later. One priest used "papal infallibility" as the justification. One priest stated that the Vatican is afraid their public image would suffer severely if they took a stand that would prohibit catholics around the world from engaging in military combat for conscientious reasons. Some admitted that the Vatican silence on this issue made NO sense to them. There is a line in one (or more) of the catechisms that states something like "anyone who knowing supports actions of another that are in conflict with the teachings of the church authority is equally guilty of ..." or something like that. The church teaches that killing is a sin, it is part of our deposit of faith. Why has the magisterium NOT addressed this issue?"

Ok, I'm going to weigh in, here (I weigh 205, lol)

(I don't believe in souls. At least not in the sense of a non-physical identity that inhabits our bodies and migrates elsewhere upon death. The JW's say it was originally a word that meant our bodies, which is the only way I give the term truth/meaning. But maybe there is a reality that corresponds to the funkier understanding, which I will explain).

There is a theory of Just War in the Catholic doctrine. God is a man of war, the old testament says. Self-defense is acceptable, and the Pope has his security detail/Swiss guards, of which I cannot say if they are authorized to use lethal force. I would assume they would try to avoid killing an assassin, if possible. In any case, almost everybody kills spiders or whatnot in their homes, although the truly compassionate attitude of loving-kindness should probably facilitate nonviolence to even the smallest or deadliest of animals, if possible. Vegetarianism figures into this, as well. But, since we're talking about not taking life...well plants are living things, too. And we've got to eat. Some believe, including scientists, that all matter has consciousness, such as the water depicted in the movie what the bleep do we know. An honest look at ourselves shows that we are things, like any other thing, such as a robot, albeit designed by eons of evolution instead of a human engineer during a single lifetime. Didn't Jesus say he was a rock?

This brings up the question, what is the difference between life and consciousness? And is death merely a change in form? What is a unit of consciousness? We perceive distinction, but perhaps everything is One, as they say, that unity being termed God, which you are a part of, whether you believe it or not, recognize it or not, or call it that or not. And death is like becoming the dead skin cells of the God-organism, fallen leaves, that fertilize the soil and create new life to sustain it in the future. We even have a concept of Death, as a living being who kills us. It's all alive. Perhaps even the emptiness, the void, is a kind of form of life. I was just thinking about naming two pet dogs Being and Nothingness. I got a chuckle out of that.

If we believe in prayer, we believe in telepathy, so every thought we have ever had has been heard by someone or something other than ourselves. In fact, the very concept of self is diminished, as we perceive other's thoughts within our own minds. So, "our" ideas live on, and we obtain a kind of immortality of effect in the world, although our bodies and consciousness will cease upon death. Of course, if our consciousness has come from an external source all along, then we can conceivably continue to exist beyond death. If all your thoughts, words, and actions come from "God," i.e. you are only a medium/vessel, or whatnot, for a source, then your memes will persist and your program will propagate, and possibly the detailed personal experience of your life will be added to, even after death, in a machine or the mind of a genius or whatever else, the robots of planet Organon, lol.

This might seem to explain why Catholic doctrine has not forbidden killing, despite it being the xth commandment. We have to kill to eat. Humans are animals. And they wouldn't be very popular if they decreed vegetarianism, or everybody to stop eating plantlife altogether, and sweep in front of them, like the Jains. Cannibalism is obviously not acceptable to any valid, much less universal, moral system -unless it is in the form of a ritual like the Eucharist. Even vegetables. I had a recent thought- what if you knew you were going to die in a week, cut off your legs to feed a starving friend, and somehow both anaesthetized the pain and did heroin until death, so that you felt no pain and actually felt better during your remaining time... Sorry. I know that's not really the happiest thought experiment. It might not be the unhappiest, though, especially if you had achieved your life's goal(s), and left the world a better place than you found it. Anyway, eating the body of Christ might be something like that. Eat a rock. Get your minerals.

Why hello there!

300 words that will get the cia, fbi, and nsa to look at your webpage:

Waihopai, INFOSEC, Information Security, Information Warfare, IW, IS, Priavacy, Information Terrorism, Terrorism Defensive Information, Defense Information Warfare, Offensive Information, Offensive Information Warfare, National Information Infrastructure, InfoSec, Reno, Compsec, Computer Terrorism, Firewalls, Secure Internet Connections, ISS, Passwords, DefCon V, Hackers, Encryption, Espionage, USDOJ, NSA, CIA, S/Key, SSL, FBI, Secert Service, USSS, Defcon, Military, White House, Undercover, NCCS, Mayfly, PGP, PEM, RSA, Perl-RSA, MSNBC, bet, AOL, AOL TOS, CIS, CBOT, AIMSX, STARLAN, 3B2, BITNET, COSMOS, DATTA, E911, FCIC, HTCIA, IACIS, UT/RUS, JANET, JICC, ReMOB, LEETAC, UTU, VNET, BRLO, BZ, CANSLO, CBNRC, CIDA, JAVA, Active X, Compsec 97, LLC, DERA, Mavricks, Meta-hackers, ^?, Steve Case, Tools, Telex, Military Intelligence, Scully, Flame, Infowar, Bubba, Freeh, Archives, Sundevil, jack, Investigation, ISACA, NCSA, spook words, Verisign, Secure, ASIO, Lebed, ICE, NRO, Lexis-Nexis, NSCT, SCIF, FLiR, Lacrosse, Flashbangs, HRT, DIA, USCOI, CID, BOP, FINCEN, FLETC, NIJ, ACC, AFSPC, BMDO, NAVWAN, NRL, RL, NAVWCWPNS, NSWC, USAFA, AHPCRC, ARPA, LABLINK, USACIL, USCG, NRC, ~, CDC, DOE, FMS, HPCC, NTIS, SEL, USCODE, CISE, SIRC, CIM, ISN, DJC, SGC, UNCPCJ, CFC, DREO, CDA, DRA, SHAPE, SACLANT, BECCA, DCJFTF, HALO, HAHO, FKS, 868, GCHQ, DITSA, SORT, AMEMB, NSG, HIC, EDI, SAS, SBS, UDT, GOE, DOE, GEO, Masuda, Forte, AT, GIGN, Exon Shell, CQB, CONUS, CTU, RCMP, GRU, SASR, GSG-9, 22nd SAS, GEOS, EADA, BBE, STEP, Echelon, Dictionary, MD2, MD4, MDA, MYK, 747,777, 767, MI5, 737, MI6, 757, Kh-11, Shayet-13, SADMS, Spetznaz, Recce, 707, CIO, NOCS, Halcon, Duress, RAID, Psyops, grom, D-11, SERT, VIP, ARC, S.E.T. Team, MP5k, DREC, DEVGRP, DF, DSD, FDM, GRU, LRTS, SIGDEV, NACSI, PSAC, PTT, RFI, SIGDASYS, TDM. SUKLO, SUSLO, TELINT, TEXTA. ELF, LF, MF, VHF, UHF, SHF, SASP, WANK, Colonel, domestic disruption, smuggle, 15kg, nitrate, Pretoria, M-14, enigma, Bletchley Park, Clandestine, nkvd, argus, afsatcom, CQB, NVD, Counter Terrorism Security, Rapid Reaction, Corporate Security, Police, sniper, PPS, ASIS, ASLET, TSCM, Security Consulting, High Security, Security Evaluation, Electronic Surveillance, MI-17, Counterterrorism, spies, eavesdropping, debugging, interception, COCOT, rhost, rhosts, SETA, Amherst, Broadside, Capricorn, Gamma, Gorizont, Guppy, Ionosphere, Mole, Keyhole, Kilderkin, Artichoke, Badger, Cornflower, Daisy, Egret, Iris, Hollyhock, Jasmine, Juile, Vinnell, B.D.M.,Sphinx, Stephanie, Reflection, Spoke, Talent, Trump, FX, FXR, IMF, POCSAG, Covert Video, Intiso, r00t, lock picking, Beyond Hope, csystems, passwd, 2600 Magazine, Competitor, EO, Chan, Alouette,executive, Event Security, Mace, Cap-Stun, stakeout, ninja, ASIS, ISA, EOD, Oscor, Merlin, NTT, SL-1, Rolm, TIE, Tie-fighter, PBX, SLI, NTT, MSCJ, MIT, 69, RIT, Time, MSEE, Cable & Wireless, CSE, Embassy, ETA, Porno, Fax, finks, Fax encryption, white noise, pink noise, CRA, M.P.R.I., top secret, Mossberg, 50BMG, Macintosh Security, Macintosh Internet Security, Macintosh Firewalls, Unix Security, VIP Protection, SIG, sweep, Medco, TRD, TDR, sweeping, TELINT, Audiotel, Harvard, 1080H, SWS, Asset, Satellite imagery, force, Cypherpunks, Coderpunks, TRW, remailers, replay, redheads, RX-7, explicit, FLAME, Pornstars, AVN, Playboy, Anonymous, Sex, chaining, codes, Nuclear, 20, subversives, SLIP, toad, fish, data havens, unix, c, a, b, d, the, Elvis, quiche, DES, 1*, NATIA, NATOA, sneakers, counterintelligence, industrial espionage, PI, TSCI, industrial intelligence, H.N.P., Juiliett Class Submarine, Locks, loch, Ingram Mac-10, sigvoice, ssa, E.O.D., SEMTEX, penrep, racal, OTP, OSS, Blowpipe, CCS, GSA, Kilo Class, squib, primacord, RSP, Becker, Nerd, fangs, Austin, Comirex, GPMG, Speakeasy, humint, GEODSS, SORO, M5, ANC, zone, SBI, DSS, S.A.I.C., Minox, Keyhole, SAR, Rand Corporation, Wackenhutt, EO, Wackendude, mol, Hillal, GGL, CTU, botux, Virii, CCC, Blacklisted 411, Internet Underground, XS4ALL, Retinal Fetish, Fetish, Yobie, CTP, CATO, Phon-e, Chicago Posse, l0ck, spook keywords, PLA, TDYC, W3, CUD, CdC, Weekly World News, Zen, World Domination, Dead, GRU, M72750, Salsa, 7, Blowfish, Gorelick, Glock, Ft. 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Happy researching!

The Future of Music

The Digital Jukebox and Pandora

I listen to Pandora on my cordless headphones, which allows me to listen outside and in other rooms, and also to the exclusion of tv noise or whatever.

I wish Pandora would play the entire oeuvre (sp?) of the selected artist, however; I have found the my Dead Milkmen's selection has become repetitive. And it plays nothing from a favorite album, Soul Rotation. Anyway,

My wife said she wishes she could get it on her car radio. Pandora is available to cell phones, but I don't know if you can hook your phone up to your car speakers.

My musical availability ranges from the computer (pandora, radio broadcasts online, even u-tube) to the normal radio/stereo in the house or car, to the satellite radio (which we used to get), to the television, which has (on cable) 46 stations. I know there's other options, but what I have keeps me happy. I used to occasionally listen to kdvs radio online. I like Joe Frank.

In Sacramento, I lived near The Beat, and would buy a cd every so often. Now, I'm still exploring my wife's collection.

Anyway, Sara and I discovered a jukebox at a bar yesterday, and I think it would be cool to have like the entirety of all the world's music available like that, either online/cable tv, or for purchase as a machine in your house, or both, for use by a world thirsty for good noise. That way, you could listen to new music for the rest of your life, without repetition. I like variety.

Also, the jukebox could have all the Pandora functions. And it could be voice-command activated, like on Star Trek.

All for now, Jesse

Robots, Russia, and Rivalry

In the News:

I'm pissed. Did Russia really have to invade Georgia during the Olympics? Olympic spirit is supposed to be friendly competition between national representatives, fair and ... well, now that I think about it, maybe fast/furious, too, in addition to controlled precision. It's a healthy form of combat, is all I was thinking. It's a format for the exhibition of possible perfection.

But, yeah, now that I think about it, I can see how a military invasion would be analog to interstate athletic rivalry. Everybody becoming all fervently nationalistic and such. I think the best athletes, no matter what country, should duke it out as individuals who can choose to represent whatever group, if anything, they choose. That's my ideal. The state system seems kind of passe and yesterday, even obsolete, in our present world.

Anyway, in other news, robots are expected to reach human capability by 2029. Wow, huh? Robot for President!

Pandora Radio

I just discovered pandora.com, which, if you don't know, is free online radio, that works by giving you music according to what song or artist you plug in; i.e. similar-sounding music, to broaden your musical exposure (in addition to playing the title artist). I like it alot. I like the Dead Milkmen, Frank Zappa, indie, Alanis kind of stuff (I also have Beatles, The Grateful Dead, 50 Cent, Beatropolis, and my wife has Counting Crows). You can select a mix, and check off the boxes of which stations you want the computer to select from. You can also just pick genre stations, like rock or jazz or whatever.

I've been at my wife's store in Calistoga, Main Element, helping out, lately. I've neglected this blog, perhaps. Life's a long blog, lol. I started another blog, about preparing for fatherhood, which is my next, hopefully, -and lifelong- endeavor. You can read the 3 posts by going to the About Me link.

So, I've been doing store stuff and pandora. Give you a chance to catch up. We've also been watching all the So You Think You Can Dance's on Fox. Congrats, Joshua.