You know, for weeks now, people (mostly Conan supporters) have claimed that moving The Tonight Show to 12:05 a.m. would have made it The Tomorrow Show.

In that case, why is the second half of The Tonight Show still considered The Tonight Show? After midnight, it’s no longer “tonight”, right?

Night doesn’t end at 11:59 p.m. Night spans from sunset to sunrise. So, 12:05 is still night, right? If you’re out late, do you refer to midnight as morning? It’s still night.

Let’s look at it another way. When is Saturday night? Saturday after sunset, right? Saturday Night Live is on at 11:30 p.m., right? It’s not on at 3:00 a.m. on Saturday, is it? When it turns to 12:00 a.m. and becomes Sunday, do you think of that as Sunday morning? Or, do you still think of it as Saturday night?

Do you think of 12:00 a.m. Saturday to sunrise as Saturday night? And then sunset to 11:59 p.m. on Saturday as the second Saturday night? The other Saturday night? The second-half of Saturday night? Or, do you still think of 12:00 a.m. as part of Friday night? It’s still night, right? And, if it’s not Saturday night, it’s Friday night. Even if you don’t think of it as Friday night, it’s still the same night, right? The sun didn’t pop up at 12:00:00 a.m. and dip back down at 12:00:59 a.m., right? So, it’s all the same night. Even though it may be a different day, it’s still the same night. It’s still tonight.

Otherwise, The Tonight Show would have to be a half-hour show.

The average income in the U.S. is $25,000 per year. Assuming a 40-hour work week, that works out to be $12.02 per hour.

The average lifespan in the U.S. is 78 years. Assuming you start work at 18 and retire at 65, that’s 47 working years. That’s 97,760 working hours using a 40-hour work week.

In 2009, the federal government in the U.S. is estimated to have spent somewhere around $3 trillion (varies, depending on source, but $3 trillion is about the “average” figure I’ve come across). That would be $3,000,000,000,000.

It would take 24,958,403,000 hours to pay that off.

It would take 255,303 people working their entire lives to pay that off.

And that’s just this year’s spending.

To pay it off in one year’s time, it would take 11,999,232 average people giving 100% of their income.

In other words, if you figure money spent in terms of hours worked, federal spending in 2009 is the equivalent of nearly 12 million people working all year and not keeping any of their money.

Pretty much sums up where things are headed…

If you read any sort of commentary these days, whether in newspapers, websites or blogs, or listen to them on the radio or watch and listen on television (I think I’ve covered all the bases…), it seems that politics in the U.S. these days is driven by wingnuts and loose screws.

The question is which is better.

Think about it.

First, let’s consider the wingnut. Wingnuts are nuts with wings. That means you can loosen or tighten them without tools. Granted, sometimes they may get rusty and you might need a tool or oil or something to loosen them up, or sometimes you might want to tighten them a bit more and use a tool to do it.

But, the basic function of a wingnut is to allow assembly (or disassembly) without the use of tools.

And, that can definitely be a good thing. For example, if something is loose, you can fix it right then and there. Just turn the wingnut a little. Tighten it up by hand and—presto!—it’s fixed.

If it were a regular nut, sure, you might be able to turn it a bit with your fingers, but chances are it’s still going to be loose. And, that means going to the garage or basement to grab a wrench. And, that may mean putting it off, until later.

And that means that the nut stays loose, which could pose a safety hazard. Maybe it’s not a big safety hazard—after all, if it were, you would have went and gotten a wrench. But, maybe it’s something minor. You just have to remember not to sit in that chair until you’ve fixed it. Maybe you’re on your way to see a movie and are running late, so you’ll fix it later.

Well, after a movie and dinner and maybe some shopping or something, you’ve forgotten all about the chair. So, you get home and sit down.

Crash!

You find yourself on the floor. Hopefully, you didn’t hurt yourself.

The whole incident could have been prevented, of course, had the chair used wingnuts instead of bolts.

Likewise for a shelf, a TV stand, etc.

So, a wingnut can definitely be useful and save you from getting hurt. It can save you money too, because, otherwise, your chair could be broken and you’d need to go out and buy a new one. Or spend a lot of money fixing it.

All of which could have been prevented by a wingnut.

On the other side, we see loose screws. What use is a loose screw?

A loose screw is always a potential hazard.

The important thing here is to distinguish between a loose screw and a screw. Properly tightened in place, a screw is good. But, then it’s not a loose screw. A spare screw, that is, a screw that is not in use or installed, is not a loose screw. It’s a spare screw. A loose screw is a screw that is in place but not quite right. It’s too loose to effectively hold things together.

So, a loose screw is a potential hazard.

Mind you, if something is held together by many screws, one loose screw may not pose too great a danger. However, as the number of loose screws increase, the hazard increases potentially.

The bottom line is that too many wingnuts is rarely going to be a problem whereas too many loose screws is a dangerous hazard.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, if you were reading this, it would be in a letter or a newspaper. And, probably since I couldn’t afford to send a letter to everyone, especially not on a daily basis, and since newspapers wouldn’t (and couldn’t) publish everything submitted to them, you would not be reading this at all.

Recorded human history goes back about 5,000 years. Humans were around thousands of years before that, but any previous written history is long lost and for a long while there was likely no recorded history at all.

Look back at the past couple hundred years and compare them with the thousands that came before them. For a long time, human development was fairly stagnant. Many, many years would go by before we would see something new.

This is partly due to the fact that, for a long time, ideas had no value. You could buy and sell goods; they had value. But, ideas were free for the taking. If someone made something, others could freely copy them. As a result, what incentive is there in creating new things when you have a family to feed and there is more value in goods than in ideas?

We often credit the ancient Greeks with the beginnings of modern civilization. The Greeks invented coined money, thermometers, tumbler locks, among other things. The Greeks also had a patent system, where the inventor of a new device had exclusive rights to it for a period of one year.

The modern day patent system came out of Venice in the 1400’s. The first patent in what is now the United States was issued by Massachusetts in 1646.

The other factor to consider is that, for the vast majority of human history, people were ruled by systems of government that did not favor the individual. The individual was considered the subject or even the property of the government, often a king.

There was often no upward path either. If you were born a peasant, you stayed a peasant. Odds of you becoming the king of your own land were slim to none. With no hope of advancement, there is little drive to achievement.

But, then we come to the New World. In the American colonies, the colonists had more freedom, being far from the crown. In the 1700’s, Ben Franklin invented the Franklin stove, the lightning rod and the concept of mail order.

When the British government became too oppressive to the colonists, they rebelled. And won. Instead of setting up a monarchy (some troops wanted to make George Washington their new king), the colonists set up a democratic republic. The nation would be self-ruled.

There would be no monarchy to dictate what they could and could not do. And the federal government would have limited powers–powers designed to protect essential freedoms rather than power to rule.

So, for a long time in the United States, people had a wide latitude of freedom. And look where we are now!

Refrigeration was invented in 1805, with improvements in the mid-1800’s and early 1900’s. The early 1800’s also saw the invention of the circular saw, dental floss and the profile lathe. The electric telegraph was invented in 1831. Later came sewing machines, the wrench, and the electric relay. In the mid-1800’s, there was ether anesthesia, the rotary printing press, vulcanized rubber, safety pins, rolled toilet paper, the burglar alarm, the can opener and the web printing press, among many other inventions. Later in the 1800’s, there came the motor cycle, the paper clip, barbed wire, tape measure, vacuum cleaner, paper bags, pipe wrench, clothes hangers, fire hydrants, sandblasting, fire sprinklers, electric dental drill, mimeograph, airbrush, phonograph, carbon microphones, the cash register, metal detector, electric fan, electric iron, fountain pen, photographic film, skyscrapers, dish washer, drinking straw, escalator, radio, zipper, tractor, pneumatic hammer, remote control, the flashlight and more!

The early 1900’s saw assembly line production, the mercury vapor lamp, the hearing aid, air conditioning, offset printing press, airplane, electric washing machine, paper shredder, headset, auto pilot, electric blanket, gas mask, the supermarket, silica gel, polygraph, adhesive bandage, radial arm saw, bulldozer, masking tape, cotton swabs, garbage disposal, freon, electric razor, sunglasses, particle accelerator, and many more!

Americans were inventive during the Great Depression as well, giving us the thermistor, strobe light, staple removed, tape dispenser, frequency modulation, black light, pH meter, programming languages, chair lifts, radio telescope, shopping cart, xerography, fiberglass, nylon, teflon and more.

The mid-1900’s brought the blood bank, acrylic fiber, deodorant, microwave oven, chemotherapy, the transistor, defibrillator, mobile phone, instant camera, cat litter, video games, cable tv, barcode, artificial heart, heart-lung machine, automatic sliding doors, radar gun, polio vaccine, hard disk drive, industrial robot, bone marrow transplant, video tape, laser, carbon fiber, integrated circuit, spandex, LED, glucose meter, computer mouse, plasma display, heart transplants, artificial turf, kevlar, hypertext, cordless telephone, compact disc, DRAM, food bank, handheld calculator, crash test dummy, laser printer, smoke detector and more!

The late 1900’s gave us optical fiber, personal computers, eMail, operating systems, digital camera, ethernet, compact fluorescent light bulbs, the space shuttle, the graphical user interface, the Internet, voice mail, GPS, sulfur lamps and more.

All-in-all, there are over 7,000,000 patents in the United States. This is not to say that other countries have been idle, but it is important to bear in mind that, in comparison with centuries past, people in many countries have more freedoms and rights than in centuries past.

All these inventions move the world forward. Without freedom and property rights, people would have little incentive to create new things. Too many people think that inventions come about because of an altruistic desire for people to help others. While that may be the case for some people, most people just want to make a buck. Many immigrants came to this country, not looking for a handout, but looking to strike it rich. In their native lands, their “upward mobility” was restricted. In the U.S., they could develop new ideas and profit by them and achieve things they could only dream of in their homeland. And, for those already here, it didn’t matter whether they were born in poverty, they had equal opportunity to make it. There was no class system to hold them back.

It wasn’t some big government program that gave them any guarantees or incentives to succeed. It wasn’t people voting for the government to give them money or benefits that moved us forward. It wasn’t the government guaranteeing a minimum income, a livelihood or a bailout that allowed us to flourish.

It was freedom. It was liberty. It was the right of the people to own their own property and ideas. It was their own self-determination, self-motivation and drive to succeed and, yes, even a quest for profits, that brought us farther along in the past couple hundred years than in the prior few millennia.

Perhaps the greatest recognition of this is the Statue of Liberty, whose formal title is Liberty Enlightening the World. But, long before Lady Liberty greeted immigrants from Europe in New York Harbor, the promise of liberty was the great hope of all mankind.

Remember that, Liberty Enlightening the World. Look at how Liberty has enlightened the world in these past couple centuries!

Freedom works. Liberty is what gives us all hope. And that’s not something we should take away or change.

Anyone remember Logan’s Run? In the fictional world, people reported for execution, euphemistically reported to a “sleepshop”, when they reached a certain age. In the novel, the age was 21; in the movie, the age was 30.

In the slippery slope of a national health care plan which emphasizes reducing medical costs, how long before such an extreme situation could become reality? And, even if not to the extreme of being made law, how long before the aged would simply be viewed as burdens that should “hurry up and die” in order to free up resources for the younger set?

In a paper co-authored by Obama’s advisor, “Dr.” Ezekiel Emanuel, the point was made that health spending on the elderly should be reduced and the focus should be on those between the ages of 15 and 40. Apparently, even young children are considered low value.

In Oregon, which Obama praises as a good example, medical rationing for the elderly already occurs. A woman redeveloped lung cancer and her Oregon Health Plan denied treatment, instead offering to pay for assisted suicide.

It’s important to keep in mind that the national health care plan is not about expanding health care coverage for all Americans, as it is supposed, but reducing health care costs. Since the sick and elderly incur the most costs in health care, how else will health care costs be reduced but by reducing care?

No doubt there are bureaucrats that see no value in extending life by a mere few months or short number of years if the patient is not a “productive” member of society. But, for friends and family members, every additional minute of life and time spent with that loved one is precious. There is much to be said for companionship, passing along experience, and so many intangible things that may not be considered valuable to some bureaucrat but are to families and friends.

Think of young children. They often don’t remember much from their younger years, so for their parents that want them to enjoy the experience and to share in the lives of grandparents or great-grandparents, every additional moment that can be spent increases the likelihood of the children carrying some precious memory with them for the rest of their lives so that they too can share something of distant relatives with their own children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren some day.

You cannot put a price tag on life. And that’s what you get when government bureaucrats are deciding who gets care and who is thrown to the wolves.

Our current health system, while flawed, has done much to find ways to cure and treat diseases and other medical problems, adding months and years to people’s lives. Many things which were death sentences for people in the past are no longer so. Life is precious and we have, and we should, do everything we can to secure and extend life.

When a baby is dirty, you bath him or her and you dump out the dirty bath water. What Obama and his cronies are trying to do with health care is dump the baby and keep the dirty bath water. Such a strategy will dramatically reduce costs, but you won’t have the baby anymore.

Press the shiny red button. Go ahead. Press it.

Did you press it? Go ahead. Just press it.

How many times did you press it? Write that number down. Or, at least keep it in your head.

Now, suppose that I told you that every time you pressed the button, $100 would appear in your bank account. Pretend that’s the case. You can press the button as often as you like. Go ahead. Press the shiny red button.

How many times did you press the button this time? Add that to the first count. Multiply that amount by 100. That’s how much money is in your bank account right now. Press the button some more, if you like. Each time you press the button, another $100 goes into your pretend bank account.

How much money is in your pretend bank account right now? Write that amount down.

Are you having fun pressing the button? It’s so easy, isn’t it? Just press the button for $100 in pretend money. That’s all. If this was for real, would you keep pressing the button? How often would you press that button? Pretend it’s real, and press it as many times as you like.

How much pretend money are you up to now? Make note of it, or at least keep it in mind.

Now, suppose that every time you pressed the button, a young child was killed and his or her parts were sold. The organs were sold off on the black market for transplant operations, the skin was made into leather, bones were ground into supposed medicinal powders, and the remaining meat and unusable parts were processed into animal feed. For each child, you earned a commission of $100.

How would you feel right now if that were true? While it’s true that you were deceived, you’d probably still feel guilty about it, right? After all, your actions were partly responsible for the deaths of how many children? No matter how you try to justify it–that you didn’t know–you’d still feel remorse, no?

And, that’s why you need to be careful of the promises of easy money. Sometimes, people, especially when the economy is tough, are lured by the promises of easy money. Just press a button. What could be easier? But, if you don’t maintain a healthy skepticism and aren’t careful, you may not know (until it’s too late) how many people you may be harming in your efforts to gain some easy money.

Be careful out there!

I haven’t done a chart or graph in a while, so here’s a new one.

The big pale blue circle represents the Earth’s atmosphere.

The yellow circle represents the level at which CO2 levels (as a percentage of the overall atmosphere) are considered toxic.

The pale green circle represents the average levels of CO2 in the atmosphere during the Jurassic period.

The blue circle represents the average level of CO2 in the atmosphere in 2009.

The red circle represents the amount of CO2 produced by man since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

You know what I haven’t done in a while? (On this blog anyway.)

Math!

Math is fun! So, let’s do some math.

First, let’s check a few things out…

I did some digging and, as near as I can find, the price of a loaf of bread 100 years ago (that would be 1909 for the chronologically math challenged) was between five and twenty cents per loaf. I guess it depends on whether you got the good stuff. So, let’s figure the good stuff at twenty cents a loaf.

This year, the average price of bread nationwide in the United States is $1.40 per loaf.

Good so far?

Let’s say you have $18.96 in your pocket. How many loaves of bread could you buy? Today, you could buy 13.5 loaves of bread. Well, probably just 13 because I’m sure the store won’t let you buy half a loaf. That’s a nice baker’s dozen, no? Not a bad deal?

Okay, let’s whisk you back to 1909. Again, you have $18.96 in your pocket. (In 1909 dollars, of course, otherwise they wouldn’t accept your funny looking money.) So, how many loaves of bread could you buy then? The answer is 94.8 loaves of bread. Again, I’m sure you’re not going to be able to buy 8/10ths of a loaf of bread, so you’ll go home with 94 loaves of bread. That’s an even better deal than you could get today! And we have all sorts of cheaper ways to mass produce bread these days than 100 years ago, right?

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Inflation. Yeah, can’t beat that, right? Well, let’s look at this another way.

First I’m going to send you back to 1909. With the $18.96 in your pocket, you can buy one ounce of gold. Gold was worth (yearly average) $18.96 per ounce in 1909. So, your $18.96 could buy you 94.8 loaves of bread or one ounce of gold.

Now, let’s bring you back to 2009. How many loaves of bread could you buy with an ounce of gold today? Remember, it would buy 94.8 loaves of bread in 1909. Well, today, with one ounce of gold, you could buy 644 loaves of bread.

Today, it would cost you $901.65 to buy 644 loaves of bread. (The yearly average for gold this year is $901.65 per ounce.) It would cost you $132.72 to buy 94.8 loaves of bread, but your $132.72 couldn’t even buy you 3/20ths of an ounce of gold.

Isn’t math fun?

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
~Edmund Burke

Earlier in the day, I thought of doing this post, then I decided I wanted to stay away from political posts. This evening, I came up with an entirely different idea for a post. Then, I heard the above quote used on tonight’s rerun of NCIS, and I thought, well, maybe this is important enough that I should write about it.

And, so here we are.

So, as reported in the media, last week there was a military coup in Honduras. The president was swept away in the middle of the night and shipped off to Costa Rica with a warning not to come back.

Since then, people like Chavez, Nortega, Castro, Obama and Hillary Clinton have decried the military coup and demanded the ousted president be returned to office.

Of course, we should know better than to listen to the likes of Chavez, Nortega and Castro. What an extraordinary group Obama and Hillary have chosen to align themselves with!

But, was there really a military coup? Well, there’s a whole other side to the story. Apparently, it goes something like this…

First, now-former President Zelaya of Honduras wanted to hold a referendum to amend the country’s constitution so that he could extend his term of office. The Honduran Supreme Court ruled such a referendum to be illegal and unconstitutional. Zelaya’s party, the attorney general and the Honduran Congress all agreed.

Nevertheless, Zelaya ordered the commander of the Honduras armed forces to distribute the ballots for the referendum. The General, knowing it was an illegal act, refused to comply. Zelaya fired him. The armed forces still refused to comply with his illegal order. The Supreme Court demanded the General be reinstated; Zelaya refused.

Zelaya continued efforts to hold his illegal referendum. Given that he was continuing to violate the law, the military stepped up and removed him from power. They let him pack his things and sent him on his way.

Then, a member of Zelaya’s own political party, Roberto Micheletti, stepped up as President, the illegally fired General was re-instated, and the country went about its business.

Meanwhile, of course, the deposed wannabe dictator cried about a “coup.” And the main stream media fell for it. And Obama and Hillary Clinton fell for it.

And, despite the fact that he willfully ignored Honduran law and apparently abused his powers, the international community is trying to pressure Honduras into taking him back. And, our own President is among them. Wow.

Think of it this way, if we had impeached our President (whether it be Bush or Clinton or whoever), convicted him and forced him from office, would we appreciate the international community putting pressure on us to reinstate him?

For more, you can check out “Today, We Are All Hondurans” and “Honduras Hopes Obama Butts Out” both of which had excellent summations from which I was able to form the chain of events.

“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”
~Edmund Burke