New Batteries

Hold the Presses. We might have the battery breakthrough long needed to make electric cars a realistic alternative to gas powered. A battery that can be charged to 80% capacity in one minute.

Now first off, there are some problems you will not see mentioned in that article. One is the amount of power that has to be delivered in order to manage this feat on the level of a power system for a car. If current charge techniques are your garden hose... then what is needed to accomplish this feat is a Fire Hydrant, possibly more than one. The current grid is not designed to deliver these loads on the level that would be needed if tomorrow every car needed this kind of delivery method.

However there is not a real technical difficulty in providing it. The flip side of these bad boys taking that much power in that quick is that they can dish it out that fast as well. So put a bank of them at a gas station trickle charging (by comparison) from the grid and zapping cars as they come in. In other words these blur the line between capacitors and batteries... an amazing combination of energy application ability formally only possessed by none other than hydro carbon fuels. Now if they can start making the energy density of these batteries approach that of gas ( still no where NEAR close) then gas cars of today are toast. Frankly I think just this development is enough to drive them to extinction.

If this is real. If they are not overestimating what they can do. AND IF.... IF, they are cost effective by comparison to gas cars. Then this is beyond huge. It WILL change the world in less than a decade. You could put these in an EV-1 (if any were left) and, with adequate power delivery stations available, drive it across country like a regular car with the same (possible more) occasional BRIEF refueling periods. The problem of covering distance due to recharging times is perhaps the single biggest problem facing a purely electrical car. This ladies and gentlemen solves that problem.

If you need it described to you in practical terms try this... With these claims it is now possible to use an electric car like a gas car with a 1/4 - 1/2 sized gas tank.

Schiavo

What is life? Is it a Heartbeat? Is it consciousness? Is it Life Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness? All of the above perhaps? Did her husband abuse her? Did he cause the vegetative state? Why won't he turn her over to her parents? Could she recover?

Part of me is very tired of all the debates and rehashing of this case that is going on. Though on the other hand I have to say it is a better issue to be inundated with than say Kobe's or Michael's sex lives. After all, this issue is one of very serious debate and it is at the heart of two other major debates in the US. Abortion and the Death Penalty. The issue of course is the right of someone to choose death for someone else.

What do I think?

To tell you the truth I am not sure. The case has more twists than a twizler. In the end I think it unfortunate that most of the issues leading up to her state are largely mooted by her state. There is more than enough blame to go on both parties. What is the families motivation in maintaining her in such a state? Is that really what is in her best interests? Is the Husband just interested in being the beneficiary of her life insurance policy? Even considering he has passed up far more money from some people offered if he would simply transfer legal guardianship status to her family?

It seems the more you dig into the details the more questions are raised. The issue of abuse and motivations behind both parties aside I think in some way the case of Terri Schiavo has ceased to be what it should be about. And that is what is best for her. My gut reaction to the whole thing has been it is a war over who gets to decide her fate. If the husband had argued the whole time to keep her alive I think the family would be clamoring for the right to end her suffering. Or perhaps they are both right from their own perspective. A Husband who wants to carry out what he truly believes are his wife's wishes and a Family that honestly believes there is a chance for her recovery. After all if the medical opinions obtained on both sides are all done with integrity (and not purchased opinions saying what they want them to say) then there is legitimate medical dispute regarding her state. As for the husband, he has turned down millions simply to transfer legal guardian status to her parents which kinda shoots a hole in the idea he is just wanting to retain the small (by comparison) life insurance premium.

In the end there is enough to cast the story in pretty much any light you could care to. And the media has done just that. Regardless, it doesn't make the decision of what is right for Terri Schiavo any easier. Who wants to exist in such a state? I for one certainly wouldn't want to have the personality of a carrot for 15 years while my family agonized hoping I would recover. Especially considering medical experience seems to indicate that possibility of recovery is just this side of non-existent. BUT, that is my personal take on it. In the end I think we have a gut wrenching case that has no answer... at least not a universal 'right' answer.

More on the Dino Blood

Here is another story about the recent find of soft tissue in a T-Rex bone. I also found this when searching for more information. It looks like finding the remains of dino blood had happend before. The T-Rex bone does seem more remarkable in that they are saying they found actual preserved soft tissue and not just a mineralized replacement. To give you and idea of how finding actual soft tissue could affect the general understanding here is a snipit from wikipedia about fomation...

Although the original chemical composition of the organism has entirely vanished, the mineralization process proceeds differently for different kinds of tissues, and microscopic details of internal bone structure may be preserved. (wiki)

This also causes problems with Hurd's discourse on chastising the Young Earth proponents. Now I don't buy the young earth stuff. I think we can safely say the earth is quite a bit older than 5000 some odd years years. For a taste of the other side of the argument check out this article. Both this one and the Hurd take are a tad extreme in their stances but if you keep looking around the net you find these polarized arguments with a rare few that fall anywhere in the middle. And in my experience where there is smoke there is fire. People don't get that polemaic unless they don't have clear proof to fall back on. In the end there is alot of interpretation of many variables that do not always add up to the same answer. Personally in the end I just wish people, scientists in particular, were just a little bit more willing to openly admit there are still many questions unanswered about seemingly established issues. I am interested to see if the try radio carbon dating a sample of the tissue. That would really throw a kink in things if they found some and there was no way to suggest contamination.

Loosing Weight

I just realized that I recently past the one year mark for when I decided it was time for me to loose some weight. When I started sometime in February last year I tipped the scales somewhere north of 275 pounds. As of this morning, I now weigh 221lbs. Down some 54lbs from my first weigh in. I have been somewhere under 230lbs since sept'04 so I have maintained a weight loss of at least 40 pounds for about 5 months now.

One question I get asked by almost everyone is "how did you do it?". Atkins? Exercise? Low Fat? Weight Watchers? Etc etc.... any number of Fad 'diet' options. The answer was none of the above. How did I do it? The easy answer is I just ate less. I suppose there is more to it but in the end it all boiled down to that very simple fact. I ate less. ALOT less than I had been to that point.

Some Things I learned about weight loss along the way.

One, what you eat has nothing to do with whether or not you loose weight. Full stop, end of story. There are no ifs, ands or buts. The issues regarding what you eat have a lot to do with nutrition and health but NOTHING to do with weight loss. This is not to say you should not be concerned with the healthiness of your choice of foods. However if you want to loose weight and keep it off you have to understand this one very simple fact that often gets passed over or lost in the noise of weight loss schemes. Eating to much nutritional food will get you fat just as fast as eating Big Macs. It is just easier with Big Macs cause they pack more calories into less space... and they normally taste better than healthier alternatives.

Two, Weight loss IS starvation, albeit low grade. This is something nutritionists and doctors glaze over because it sounds highly unappealing and it is more important that you loose weight than worry about the fact that you have to starve yourself in order to shed pounds. Why is this the case ? Well in short your body has to metabolize its fat stores in order to shed those excess pounds. Before your body will start metabolizing that fat it must receive less caloric intake than it needs to maintain your body mass. Thus to loose weight you must run a caloric deficit. A typical medical obsfucation for the simple answer. Weight loss is the process of your body eating itself when you don't feed it enough. The less you feed it the more of itself it will consume. This is a very hard fact to overcome for a lot of people. Fast weight loss comes from Large caloric deficits (or a surgeon with a vacuum cleaner). How large ? A rule of thumb is that a pound is about 1000 calories. Thus if you loose 1 pound a day you are running about a 1000 calorie deficit per day. This is pretty much out at the outer edge for what doctors recommend when loosing weight.

Three, exercising in and of itself does not cause you to loose weight. It improves your cardiovascular health, it builds muscle, increases your metabolism, and lastly BURNS CALORIES. Now in conjunction with number two you may see the value of exercise when it comes to weight loss. The more calories you burn the easier it is to eat less than what you burn. Increased metabolism increases your base burn rate or amount of calories you burn at rest... like sitting in a chair all day, on the couch when you get home and while you sleep. But in and of itself it does not loose weight for you. It only works in conjunction with a calorie deficit.

Four, Excecise is not necessary for a successful weight loss process. However it can be beneficial.

So again how did I loose weight ? The same way EVERYONE looses weight. I ran a caloric deficit, or in other words my body burned more energy than I gave it. I did this without really changing what I ate so much as the size of my portions. In the end I made four changes.

One, I ate out less, one to two times a week rather than 5-6.

Two, I started eating meals that had < 500 calories for two meals a day (frozen dinners etc)

Three, I more or less gave up soft drinks

Four, Massively increased the amount of water I drank. Lowers hunger pangs.

3 things I did not do.

One, eat 'diet' foods or drink 'diet' drinks. A typical dinner was tater tots dipped in ranch to go with breaded chicken pattie sandwich with cheeze... about 800-1000 calories but with two sub 500 calorie meals during the day it rarely added up to my base burn rate of 2400. Now some of the frozen dinners I used were diet brands, Smart Ones, Healthy Choice etc but that is because I found some that I liked quite a bit. I also ate Uncle Bens Rice Dishes, Zartarains, Some Stoeffers. Some brands I really don't buy mostly because I am not strong enough to not eat the larger dishes with multiple servings in them. In the end I have come to the conclusion that most of the so called Diet Dishes are in fact not diet at all. They are just smaller portions of the same things. As for drinks. I really don't buy the concept of Diet Cola's. Most of them taste awful to me with few exceptions. When I wanted a soft drink I figured it into my calories for the day.

Two, Excercise. Not one trip to the gym. Not one new thing. Occaisonal round of Golf and a rare trip to walk around in the state park (Golf once a week max, Walks once a month max). I did do some of the parking far form the entrances, stairs and stuff but I have always done a lot of that.

Three, Deny myself my favorite foods, meals at restaurants. When I did eat out I orderd whatever struck my fancy. Occasionally I made deals with myself about going out an extra time if it was to get something more reasonable but never did I drink only water or order just salads. Well except the La Placita Chicken breast Salad but that is one meal of a salad... besides that went with like two baskets of chips, salsa and cheese dip... yummmmm cheese dip. Anything was game during holidays/vacation.

It certainly wasn't easy. I may even have stood in front of the fridge and cried a time or two out of frustration at not allowing myself to assuage the beast in my stomach demanding I feed it. But the pounds came off and they are staying off. You don't need help. You don't need expensive diet plans and special foods. You don't need Gym memberships. In the end what you need is determination and perseverance. Probably not the answer anyone looking for a way to loose weight wants to hear. But if you will take that to heart I am willing to bet you have a better chance of success than the people who go looking for the 'secret'.

How you accomplish your caloric deficit is up to you. What worked for me won't work for everyone. The one thing I think I learned that can help everyone is that the more you try to change to loose weight, the harder it is to keep it up and often any weight loss disappears fast when you revert to previous habits. You have to make a lasting change in how you live. There are lots of way to get there in the end. For some, changing the types of foods they eat or the amount of daily exercise they get is something they can make permanent. But it wasn't what worked for me. So that is my answer about my weight loss. Perhaps it will help someone else in the battle against the bulge.

Dino DNA

Surprise. Scientists have been very wrong about something. The article makes small note of it while focusing on the amazing possibility that someone could pick up some credible amount of Dino DNA. Considering the shape of the Mammoth DNA taken from the Jarkov mammoth of "Raising the Wooly Mammoth" Fame it would be unlikely that they will get more than fragments. But if they get anything it will be an amazing discovery. Sort of lost in the shuffle is how this shakes up that little concept know as the process of fossilization. Be interesting to see how they resolve the age of the bone... soft squeezable flexible biological matter does not jive with the current theory of how fossils form.

One possible answer is that the bones just are not as old as is thought and whoa nelly would that throw a lot of things for a loop. But it might just throw some light on some of the more questionable areas of Evolution... such as how the hell did anything develop wings gradually ? If Dino Bones are significantly younger than previously thought then the whole time scale of Earth changes and leads to a serious reduction in the massive amount of time needed for Darwin's magic to do its thing. This could lend a lot of credence to the idea of punctuated equilibrium and radically lower estimates of the amount of time it took life to form on earth. DNA is neat. But I think the potential shake up of the age of fossils could be the bigger eventual piece of information that comes out of this.

On the other hand it might just be that someone will find where some poor assumptions where made in the past and given the sanctity of old age ( ie no one every thought to challenge it and the longer it hung around the more weight it carried ). Unlikely that any of the larger bones have ever been intentionally split before now so its possible the evidence needed to understand some up until now guessed at aspect of fossil formation since new evidence has finally come to light courtesy of some happy circumstances. Amazing how much science owes to odd coincidences of events.... even now in this day and age of 'supreme' knowledge.

Death and Taxes

I just finished reading perhaps the scariest book I have ever read. It is by David Cay Johnston and it is titled Perfectly Legal.

While I do not quite go for all of his alarmist rhetoric he none the less exposes some very sordid facts about the current Tax system in the US. However I somewhat disagree with his conclusions that rampant corporate Tax cheating is soley a function of decaying moral fibre on the part of American Businesses. I think he should entertain the possible notion that the US tax system simply is out of whack with reality. I forget the current figure but the US tax code printed out on standard 8.5 by 11 paper stacks up several feet and it would be difficult for a single person to read through the whole thing in their spare time much less understand it. Oh yeah, it also has significant changes on an almost yearly basis. In such an intermixed conflicting and tangled code it has reached the point where seemingly innocuous changes have HUGE consequences in both intentional and un-intentional ways. The book is pretty much a jaunt through the worst cases that have come to light.

overwhelming convoluted systems bewilder the poor and house any number of chicanery techniques for use by the less than scrupulous. Further more, even for those not of a shady bent it simply is smart for them to consider different means of figuring out their tax burden because as Johnston points out many of the systems in use are 'Perfectly Legal'. He uses his title to good effect and points out some extreme cases but the fact remains most of the worst offenders were within the law. Thus eroding morale fibre simply does not enter into the equation in my book. A Shitty Law makes for Shitty compliance or GIGO. In his conclusion he points out some of the Major Tax reform options and briefly tears them apart on the basis of unintended consequences as well before moving into a doom and gloom conclusion. Thus he commits a cardinal sin in my book of pointing out the emperor has no clothes but doesn't offer much with which to cover him properly.

I do agree with one thing. The current system simply cannot stand. The bracket creep of the alternative minimum tax, or so called stealth tax, alone is justification for pretty much an entire code overhaul. The gradual growth of the code into an unintelligible mass of intertwined unclear and outright bought exceptions has gone beyond the pale and to me is more to blame for the bail out of corporate America than anything else. Most people when asked do not think tax (as a concept for funding government) is unfair. Most Businesses when asked also to not think it is unfair. Thus if current system is largely derided as unfair while people think taxes are fair I find it a reasonable assumption that there is a fair system out there waiting to be adopted. One of Johnston's hobby horses seems to be the decline of the Audit and the ensuing rise in avoidance, especially by the rich. I for one do not think upping the power of the IRS is the answer. At least not in terms of going back to the old systems of the common Audit. The process is invasive, often demeaning and once upon a time was a cause of public ridicule. Johnston points to the fact this is no longer the case but seems to pass over the possibility that if Tax Audits once again became more common for all brackets then they may once again regain their stigma. Instead Johnston points out that middle American has the least chance to cheat (and hence the lowest incidence of cheating) because they have little chance to hide income from the powers that be. Instead of ramping up audits and turning the IRS back into a rabid slathering hound of government tax enforcement why not model the reporting systems for ALL income levels more along the lines of that faced by Middle America.

Thus the answer is in a simplified code and in technology. It is high time the IRS stopped working with paper returns. Filing should be electronic by all. One of the common means of escaping detection is in the simple fact the IRS does not capture all data from its returns. Only selected lines of paper returns are entered into computers which generate reports suggesting audits if the people entering did not flag them as 'funnies'. The IRS machines are outdated by any sense of the concept and absolutely absurd in the day of the sub 1000 desktop that can out compute probably the entire IRS tax system with half its RAM tied behind its back. This means up front that filing would be instantaneously inspected and errors brought to the filers attention and indication that if a filer wishes to peruse their filing it is highly likely it will be subjected to an Audit. IE it thinks the return is faulty or suspicious. This would relive the IRS of the mundane and funds draining process of actually hand entering returns. It also would assure at least that all values would be 100% inspected by computer algorithms for common errors and tax evasion schemes. Do the computer checking up front and eliminate easy errors before the return is even filed as checked against the tax agencies systems rather than proxies like turbo Tax and HR Block. Just like paper forms are free make easy internet filing free as well as automatic deposit into accounts. Finally, put in place a withholding system smart enough to not tax until income levels reach taxable levels. Such a system needs to account for multiple revenue streams for an individual such as multiple jobs and or investments.


As for a simplified code. I have to admit that is one hell of a tricky proposition. I have a few suggestion... some of which are not limited to tax reform.

For one I think the Minimum wage should be tied to the base cost of living adjusted yearly for inflation. This eliminates the possibility of someone hitting the EITC nightmare or the need for this program entirely. While there are good arguments for it I think the reality that someone can actually work full time and qualify for it to be atrocious. Some might argue such a hike in minimum wage to be disastrous to the number of jobs offered but I simply don't buy it. This is merit based income distribution of the first order and makes sure that the basic level of pay is a livable wage. Increases to the unemployed numbers due to this raise are not increases in those numbers. They are the true current numbers unmasked. Someone who works a full time job and is not above the poverty line in the most powerful economy in the world should be an unacceptable state of affairs.

CEO and executive re-re-embursment must be tied to compensation for the rank and file employee. That means the CEO can't make more than X amount over what the rank and file makes.

Stock. Paper ownership rights and employee rights need to find harmony. For starters Dividends should be shared equitably with Employees. After all it is by their work that the dividends exist in the first place. In examples of 401k plans requiring stock ownership the rank and file need to enjoy the same privilidge for exercising those options as the executives and share holders of the company.


The stack of papers that makes up the current tax code needs to be burned. What replaces it needs to be short, sweet and consistent. No more business and individual world. No more breaks, exceptions, and incentives. Help people not working. Don't hurt people living paycheck to paycheck out of necessity and demand that the rest pay their fair share as determined by a progressive tax rate. IF businesses pay out to avoid profits the people paid get taxed. If they invest in anything other than their own company it first goes through profits taxation. If it is invested in the form of retirement/compensation packages it must be evenly distributed by compensation among all employees. If you want all the spoils of your business to yourself then don't hire anyone because obviously you can do it all yourself if you get all the rewards.

Realestate valuation and building deprecation needs to be changed to reflect reality. If buildings appreciate in value then they should not be allowed to depreciate for tax reasons simply because that is the way it has been done. When the process no longer matches reality you create a situation rife for manipulation cause you have already shown that the process is arbitrary.

Social security is fucked up. The rate was hiked to fund the coming baby boomer bulge and then the money collected was spent with only IOU's from government agencies with no money in accounts to pay it back. This means taxes will almost certainly be raised in order to cover the IOU's. It is either that or an increasing amount of the budget will go to debt payback meaning a scaling back of services provided. Either way the cost is going to be high. To start with the cap should be removed. Second, I think we should take a hard look at actually making social security a progressive tax which increases with income. Lastly, I have to say the time is long since passed when money collected to pay SS benefits needs to be earmarked ONLY for activities which will pay SS benefits.

The Bush private accounts plan is simply 401k plans writ large for the US. I would rather see the abolishment of SS altogether than see the Bush personal accounts enacted. There are no guarantees with stockmarket invested money and retiring during a particularly nasty down swing in the market could prove disastrous through no fault of the people ruined. Trying to retire on an investment process you are not fully in control of and which is not insulated as much as possible from market swing is insane. If we want to have a social program for ensuring we never return to the days of indigent elderly again then we need a solid and SECURE system heavily insulated from the fickle nature of the stock market. SS was instituted to avoid the possibility of indigent old age and to insulate people from the effects of another Stock Market crash like the one which led to the Depression. Thus making a move to tie the fortunes of SS to the stock market is a complete about face from the purpose of its founding and one which I think we should be extremely leary of.

Want to live forever ?

Step right up step right up and claim the prize.... one million dollars to the person who can cure aging. Well not quite but that is the basic long term goal of the M-Prize. The goal? Increasing Human Life spans and increasing the vigor of old age. Or put another way, seeking to keep people physically young/healthy as they live longer.

Would a population that lives 150 years on average be a good thing? How about longer? What if as Debrey posits it is possible to render aging moot? What if you no longer had to grow feeble as you aged and could remain youthful and vigorous indefinitely? Not immortality mind you but the end of dying simply because your body wears out.

Can't say I am holding my breath. While average life expectancy has almost doubled in the last century, there has not been a similar increase in the maximum age people have lived. In fact one of the amazing facts of the 20 century in America has been the narrowing of the gap in life expectancy of those who are well off and those who are less fortunate. At the turn of the century the average life expectancy was in the mid 40's while it was well into the 60's for those of means. Today average life expectancy across the board is well into the 70's. Yet even those with the best of care rarely cross the century mark and those that live even longer seem to be largely due to genetic heritage (as opposed to medical care) and a great deal of luck. In case you are wondering the oldest documented life is 122 and the oldest rumored is 250.

Steroids in Baseball

There are of course numerous stories available about the subject of performance enhancing drugs in Baseball. However, this one caught my attention more than most.

I can't say I disagree with the basic assumption that Big Mac pretty much convicted himself of using rhoids by not answering any questions regarding his personal history and steroid use. BUT I honestly think it is wrong to crucify the guy the way he has been since Thursdays senate hearing. In '98 the Media was looking for a feel good story and along came the great race between Mac and Sosa. Before you knew it the two of them were demigods. One a wholesome all American monster with the perfect swing and the other a philanthropist extrodinare in his economically depressed homeland. Both made out to be shining beacons of hope in a troubled sport and held up for the adulation of the masses.

Mac is now being derided as a pariah who provides a horrible example to all the youths who idolize him and is now at least partially held to blame for the growing use of dangerous performance enhancing drugs in youth sports. The press now seems to be saying he might as well have been going out and injecting HS kids in his spare time as it couldn't have been any worse than having used them himself during his career. Some senators went so far as to compare him to Ken Lay of Enron. Someone partly to blame for the loss of retirement income for thousands of Enron employees. Guy perhaps made a personal decision to use drugs, Guy is convicted of gypping thousands out of their nest eggs. Call me crazy but I am going to go out on a limb here and say that was uncalled for. (to the authors credit he says the same in his article)

To me there is a constant here. Media portrayal of a man. In this case the same man. In one time he was the hero and now he is the villain. Of course they are just reporting the news right? To me the question occurs why did the media not question the sudden power surge that led to the homerun race in the first place ? I am not saying there were not rumors around the time but very few were interested in questioning Big Mac's prowess that year. Most were interested in the gripping story of two players going down to the wire to break a long standing single season homerun record. No matter the fact one was the perennial strikeout king of the league and the other an oft injured talent of the highest order and that both showed a marked increase in musculature in the year or two preceding their historic chase of the single season Homerun Record.

Is Big Mac as bad as he is being made out to be? I don't think so. Was he as good as he was made out to be in '98? Again I don't think so. In the end Mac was a baseball player in a business with big money and huge amounts of pressure to perform. Is it surprising that he and others through the years may have sought an edge? Yet again I don't think so. Will this continue to happen ? Most definitely. It is a certainty right up there with Death and Taxes. All in all there is nothing new about professional athletes seeking an edge in their profession.

As for Mac's Records I don't think there should be any *'s associated with them. For one he was never convicted of using Illegal enhancing drugs and like it or not we live in an innocent until proven guilty society. For another, having played baseball, I just do not believe steroids can greatly affect someone's ability to play the game. At best they do the same thing they do in the weight room. They allow your body to perform at a higher level for longer sustained periods of time. Thus IF Mac used them he was just capable of performing his best more of the time. Not perform better. Make no mistake about it. Mark McGwire was an outstanding baseball player and one of the most talented hitters to ever play the game. This does not a Saint or Devil make. He is someone who perhaps made unwise decisions in his life. How does this make him any better or worse than all the rest of us? I can say one thing about him right now and that is he did not lie under oath, which is less than can be said of some Presidents of the United States of America and quite possibly of others in that same room. So lighten up sports fans and view this whole mess with some perspective. It is a great game. But it is only a game. I for one think our Elected officials could certainly have found a more productive use of their time for Saint Patrick's day 2005. Instead they chose to spend it dragging baseball's dirty laundry out in a highly publicized political stunt.

Tsunami Uncovers Ancient City

Here is a neat story. The Tsunami that killed so many thousands of people also led to a new archeological discovery.

The city that has been found is largely underwater and there were legends of an ancient port city in the area that until now were thought only to be a local version of the story of Troy or Atlantis. What I also find of note is the rise in Sea Level since the 8th-7th century necessary to submerge this city. How many other older coastal cities are there off the coasts around the world waiting to be discovered ? How much have sea levels risen since this time and why? Despite global warming, sea levels in recent (industrial) history have been very constant. Since I am also a fan (not necessarily a believer) of the works of Immanuel Velikovsky I find the dating of the ruins to the 7th-8th century (assuming they are talking BC ) to be very interesting as the last of his supposed cataclysms were supposed to have happened in that time frame.

Liftoff

A new Blog.... just what the NET needed. RIIIIGHT. Ah well everyone needs a place to call their own and I think this may be mine.

For the few who might not know
TANSTAFFL

or

There
Aint
No
Such
Thing
As
A
Free
Lunch

I don't know if he is the one who coined the term or not but my introduction to this term came through the works of Robert A. Hienlien. It is a pretty self explanatory phrase.

I am not sure what in particular this Blog will cover. Books I am reading or have read, tech news, politics, Space news are all likely candidates however my intrests are varied and my attention span non-existent. So who knows. This might be the only entry I ever make. Only Time will tell.

Who am I and what do I do ? Well Tmortn is who I am, those who know understand and those who don't... well it is a long story and you had to be there. Needless to say it is a moniker I am stuck with so I suppose it is a good thing I like it. I hold a Poly Sci BS with a Minor in Comp Sci. I played competitive baseball from the time I was knee high to a gopher until graduating College and learned to play Trumpet and Guitar along the way. So I am a muscially inclined jock trained in political science in addition to being a full blown GEEK. As for what I do with this oddball collection of talents and knowledge? I am a flight controler for ISS ( International Space Station ) payload ops at MSFC ( Marshal Space Flight Center ). Enough with the introduction. I already know it and I doubt anyone reading this cares if they don't already know me.