Category: News

I just finished reading an article in Wired about how novice and hobby chemists are getting squeezed out of playing and experimenting with different chemicals. This, all in the “fight” against terrorism. This is just sad.

As a bit of disclosure, I’m quite biased in this argument, as I’m a Chemical Engineer.

The argument for clamping down on who can get access to these chemicals is that it will cut down on terrorists and meth labs. If you know who buys the stuff, then it won’t be a problem.

However, this has the chilling effect of making it nearly impossible for the hobbyist to get their hands on the chemicals (and other lab supplies) without going through unwarrented scrutiny. Students in school don’t get any sort of practical experience in a lab environment. And is it any wonder that interest in science is on the decline?
I remember performing experiments in chemistry in high school. We took a (small) piece of potassium (no sodium for us!) and threw it in water to watch it catch fire. You could tell the difference between the honors class and the regular class. The honors class would sit back when we put the potassium in, not wanting to inhale the hydrogen released. The regular class wanted to see the potassium burning up close.

It was experiences like that that captured my interest in science. I had a chemistry set growing up. I don’t remember much about it, but it did make a big mess. But if you take away these tools from kids now, why would they have any interest in chemistry in particular, and science in general?

I think [tag]Hillary Clinton[/tag] needs a spelling lesson.

She apologized to her daughter for saying that young people don’t like to [tag]work[/tag] hard. She said we think “work is a four-letter word.”

Umm… but work is a four letter word. (I know her intent, but it just doesn’t make sense.) Yup, four letters there, w-o-r-k.

On another note, she said that young people have grown up in a world that places “premium on instant gratification.” Young people may have grown up with that, but their parents seem to be pretty guilty of it too. There’s always a quick fix for something, and results need to be instant. It’s not the fault of young people that society has become this way.

Our lovely administration is at it again, collecting millions of phone records in the name of “security.” I am reminded of a quote from Thomas Jefferson I’ve mentioned before, it goes something like this: “Those who would give up a little liberty for security deserve neither.”

What does the NSA think they are going to find in getting phone lists from all these people? The privacy violations that has been committed by this administration are shocking. Who would have ever thought that ordinary people would be monitored in a fashion like this? Just because it is possible to create a database like this shouldn’t mean it should be done. I blame all parties invovled in this one – the NSA, this administration, and the telcos (AT&T, BellSouth, Verizon) for rolling over and giving the government whatever they wanted. At least Qwest had the balls to say no.

There is one other thing that is particularly disturbing. According to a poll, most people think that what the NSA is doing is acceptable. This kind of intrusion needs to be stopped. If it’s not, it becomes just one more piece in 1984 actually happening. (If you haven’t read 1984, read it!)
[tags]NSA, privacy, secret database, phone calls[/tags]

Now you can buy a [tag]perfume[/tag] that smells like [tag]Play-Doh[/tag]. As this press release explains, it’s available “just in time for Mother’s Day.” Why a mother would want to smell like Play-Doh is beyond me. In fact, why any adult would want to smell like Play-Doh is beyond me. Taken a step further, why anyone would want to spend $20 for an ounce of this boggles my mind.

I remember playing with Play-Doh as a kid. That smell just lingered on me after I was done with it. And it smelled bad. If someone really wanted to get that smell on them, just play with some. Maybe a little Play-Doh behind the ears. That would be a whole lot cheaper than the perfume.

There were a two articles listed on CNN’s website last night that caught my attention. Interestingly enough, they were listed one after the other. Together, they don’t exactly paint a rosy picture for my generation.

The first article dealt with the massive student loan debt that we are taking on, and how it affects life decisions. Like buying a house, getting married, or starting a family. It’s absolutely true – my student loan payment is very significant. I have no idea how much longer I’ll be paying it off. It’s been about 6 years now, and it really doesn’t seem like I’ve made that huge a dent in it.

With housing prices rising faster than inflation, and college prices rising faster than inflation, and starting salaries rising slower than either, what’s a new graduate to do? Rent until they are 30 to save up for a down payment on a house? That didn’t work for me – student loan payments made sure of that.

The next article was about how Social Security might run out of money is about 35 years. People would then only get about 3/4 of what they were getting. Instead of trying to correct for it now, Congress will probably just wait until it’s too late and drastic measures need to be taken. Here’s one thing I don’t understand: only the first $94,200 is taxed for Social Security and Medicare. Why not raise that limit? If you make less than $94,200, you won’t notice anything. If you make a little more than that, you’ll notice a little bit. If you make a lot more, you’re already making a lot, and you are better able to deal with it.

Now I’m not trying to make it sound like we’ve got it so bad. I’m just saying it looks like there is trouble ahead, and no one in charge seems to care.

I ran across an article in the NYT describing excessive Sweet 16 parties. It’s from a few days back, but just reading it annoyed me.

Who in their right mind is going to spend $200k on a Sweet 16 party? As if to further divide the haves and have-nots, MTV is promoting this craziness.

One of the quotes from a father basically says he’s got the money, so why not do it? I’ll tell you why. If you give your daughter a Mercedes convertible and diamond jewelry for her sweet 16, what’s left for graduation? Or marriage? That’s already answered for us. For graduating high school, the older daughter got a Bentley, diamonds, and two homes in India. Was the older daughter surprised? Yeah, she was only expecting a Bentley and one home.

Who are these people? Clearly, they have no sense of the value of a dollar. Who gives a teenager a $165,000 car? Who spends $200,000 on a sweet 16 party? Why not do something sensible, like putting that money towards college?

So how much are you paying for gas now? Here in Greensboro, regular gas is hovering right around $3/gal. How much higher will it go? It’s hard to filter out the analysts that are trying to scare everyone and those that are trying to accurately predict where it’s going. I think we’ll see a lot of places hit $4/gal, especially if this hurricane season is active.

There has also been a lot of attention given to the oil companies making obscene amounts of money, especially ExxonMobil. And while they have earned a ton of money, their operating margin last year was 16%. For comparison, the operating margin for Google was nearly 33%, twice that of Exxon. Microsoft was 36% last year. Now I realize that I’m comapring tech companies to an oil company, but my point is that there are other companies out there with much larger profit margins. But no one fusses when Google reports huge jumps in earnings. All we are drawn to is the sheer amount of money oil companies are making.

Even with all this outrage, what solutions are out there? A “windfall” tax? Give me a break. What will that solve? Will it make gas prices decrease? No. It will just give Washington some extra pork money.

Gas prices are high because we use so much of it. Do you really think that we would be paying this much for gas if our vehicles averaged 40 mi/gal instead of 20 (or so) mi/gal? Of course not.
[tags]Gas Prices, ExxonMobil, profits[/tags]

I’m just about sick of hearing all these people complain that we need immigration reform. The way I see it, Congress will not be able to reach any sort of compromise to do anything about it. And even if they do, it will be meaningless. I’m more interested in why this even became an issue in the first place. Could it be that Bush wanted this to become such a large issue, only to take attention away from himself?

There seem to be two sides of this argument: one that wants to build a huge wall across the southern border and keep everyone out, and those who want to offer some method of making illegal immigrants somehow legal. Both sides have fatal flaws. A huge wall will eventually be defeated, through either tunneling under it, climbing over it, hiding in a truck and being transported through it, or finding some other way around it. Making illegal immigrants legal doesn’t seem to offer any benefits either. What would they have to gain by fessing up that they are here illegally?

The two sides couldn’t be any more transparent either. The “huge wall” supporters are blaming all our problems on them, appealing to our security fears. The other side is clearly pandering to agri-business and the Hispanic population. Either side can bring out examples of people doing exactly what they say. So don’t bother with it. Anecdotal evidence doesn’t imply a trend.

As with all issues, I think a solution lies somewhere in the middle. One of the issues that has been discussed is that some illegal immigrants do not pay any taxes. Well, a way to fix that is to scrap the income tax in favor of a national sales tax or value added tax. Pay taxes on everything you buy. Illegal immigrants need to buy stuff here, right? So pay taxes that way. Just a thought.

So where do you stand on the issue? Round them up and ship them back? Or make them all legal? Of course, I would expect most people to be somewhere in the middle.

[tags]immigration reform, tax reform[/tags]