Defiantone.com

I’m an enthusiastic fan of the Daily Show and I watch it whenever I have an opportunity. The writing is sharp, the jokes are funny, the satire is thick, and they always hit the nail right on the head. Last year, Americans voted for their most admired journalist - Stewart came in 4th. He does the self proclaimed “fake news” and he was voted #4. I’m surprised he didn’t rank higher. Seemingly absent was Couric - I guess there really is something to say about the Neilsen ratings. The NY Times has an interesting article about how the Daily Show has become a major news source for political news. If you want political news that lampoons both sides without fear you’ve got to stay up late or program your Tivo. It will be worth your time.

I caught an interesting article about vengeance today where they mentioned an interesting experiment called the ultimatum game. Here is what wikipedia had to say about it

The ultimatum game is an experimental economics game in which two players interact to decide how to divide a sum of money that is given to them. The first player proposes how to divide the sum between themselves, and the second player can either accept or reject this proposal. If the second player rejects, neither player receives anything. If the second player accepts, the money is split according to the proposal. The game is played only once, and anonymously, so that reciprocation is not an issue.

I’ve really got to wonder what would happen if I were to play this game with people that I know. Imagine if I came up to you and told you I had $10,000. I offered to give you $50 with you having that knowledge that we’ve got to agree on the amount or we both get nothing. I wonder how many people would turn me down because they felt that the offer was unfair.

Economists found that the outcome of this game changes based upon with the background of those who play it. People from poorer, and less educated, backgrounds would be more likely to reject any offer believing that they deserved more. Feel free to check out the article at the NY Times.

So - let me put it to you - my two readers. If I offered you $50, while I kept $9950, would you take it or would you reject the offer entirely and walk away with nothing?

We’ve seen the debate over evolution rage for years and often brought into the forefront by conservtive and liberal minds alike. We, as a race, are still unsure as to how we really arrived here. Were we created by God? Did the big bang bring us all into existence? Did God cause the big bang and thus all of the subsequent events?

While we may not know how we arrived here we cannot deny that evolution is a force that is still changing the planet around us. Darwin didn’t discovery the theory of evolution - things simply evolve. What I didn’t know was how fast things could actually evolve. I caught an interesting article at the NY Times about evolution that has occured over the last 30 years. Scientific data is amazing because we can figure out quite a bit if we happen to get the correct measurements. Nobody can really tell me how warm it was at 12:13pm on 4 Dec 1401 on the top of Mt. Rainier because there was nobody to take a measurement, but, someone can tell me how the beak of a bird species has changed over the last 30 years due to the data that was collected.

It’s quite an interesting article because I figured it took quite a few generations (decades) before we would see any measurable change - boy was I wrong.

I caught an interesting article about kids that built their own wiffle ball field in the middle of undeveloped city grounds. They cleared the land, put up an American flag, and put up their version of Fenway’s green monster.

Soon after - the lawyers came.

I’ll let you read the rest of the article for all of the gory details but I’ve got to wonder - what the heck is going on in our country? When I was a kid I spent most of my time running through fields or goofing around in the overgrown horse pasture that was next to my house. An odd tidbit - my mom tried to burn down that pasture and the city got to try out its brand new fire truck for the first time. The entire town was my playground and I could normally find something to keep me occupied - my parents might try to refute this statement as I was known to come to them complaining of boredom. Sure, I was destructive as heck while I was out but my creativity and energy level were the only things that could slow me down. Well it was almost the only thing save for my mother yelling for me to come in for dinner which often had a damper on whatever shenanigans I might have been up to at any given moment.

There were no lawyers. Neighbors didn’t complain - well, at least that I knew. I was free to be a kid. I didn’t destroy anyones personal property and neither did these kids - so whats the big deal? I’m not really sure - maybe some of us forgot how great it was to be a kid.

I read an interesting post at Freakonomics where they discussed who was paying a higher percentage of total income in taxes - the super rich or those who aren’t as fortunate. It appears, through a straw poll of sorts, that the top 10% of wage earners who are said to earn 50% of the total income pay less than their receptionists. Warren Buffett has actually posted a challenge with a prize of 1 million bucks (chump change for him I’m sure) to all of the people on the Forbes top 400 list to find someone whose receptionist pays a lower percentage of income in taxes - so far - there have been no challengers.

Read on!

I read a great article at the NY Times that details the last five years in Iraq. The journalist, who spent the last five years in that country, offers an interesting take on what is transpiring in the country. We claim what victories we can and some victories are not all they are cracked up to be - take the last vote for example.

With 12 million people casting ballots, a turnout of about 75 per cent, it was natural enough for President Bush to say Iraqis had embraced the American vision. In truth, what the majority produced was less a vote for democracy than a vote for a once-and-for-all, permanent transfer of power, from the Sunni minority that ruled in Iraq for centuries, to an impatient, and deeply wounded, if not outright vengeful, Shiite majority.

Read the article at the New York Times.

George Bush is the worst orator I have seen since I have been alive. Reagan could turn a phrase and Clinton was great with the people but Bush stumbles over everything. Gail Collins explains further at the NY Times.

It turns out that there was quite a bit of response, from Russia no less, about the NY Times article. Some of it was very much in line with that of the author, some was written from the viewpoint that he should keep his nose out of their business, and the rest suggested that he had intercourse with himself. Check out the comments here

For quite a few years I have been looking for a particular arbitrary number as I move through each day. I’m not sure why I chose this particular number but I do know that when you look for a particular number its bound to pop out. I chose 108. If I happen to look at a clock I’m bound to look only when the time is 1:08. If I am going to recieve change, odds are it will be $1.08 or $11.08. If I look at a sequence of numbers I’m bound to see the number 108 buried in the middle of it. Wikipedia has an interesting article of where this number is also prevelant.

I found a few that caught my eye

The sum of “The Numbers” in the American TV show Lost

The number of stitches on a baseball

The Chinese school of martial arts agrees with the South Indian school of martial arts on the principle of 108 pressure points

Sacred in Hinduism, Buddhism and other Dharmic religions

So, if you want to try it out pick out an arbitrary number and watch for it. You’d be surprised on exactly how many times you run across it on any given day.

As I am sure you are all well aware, The Baker Commission finally released its report on the state of Iraq and potential strategies for resolving the conflict we find ourselves embroiled in. Two of the main ideas from the plan include using diplomacy to request help from Iran and Syria and to start pulling our troops out within the next fifteen months.

The president, who is only one man, decided to ignore what a panel of highly educated individuals had to say. I watched part of the CSPAN news feed and he said (roughly quoted) “These are some very good ideas”. He might as well have reached down beneath his chair and grabbed some feces to throw at those who came up with the recommendations. His sarcasm was all too apparent throughout the press conference. It seems to me that when GW hears something that he wishes not to, he ignores it outright.

I’m relatively uneducated in foreign affairs and all of the ins and outs with some of the nations that we refuse to deal with. What if we reversed direction and began to deal with these nations. How quickly would that begin to improve the international opinion of our country if we conceded to being stalwarts against them and tried to unify our efforts with theirs. Lets face it, everybody wants something different but I think that we all want peace so we can stop the bloodshed. If we came out and said lets stop the fighting and I will except your organization we might come out of this fine in the end. If we continue to be defiant to the wishes of the community in the mid-east and the international community as a whole we are bound to further isolate ourselves as a nation and as a people.

Yesterday it was released that America is now one of the more undesirable places to visit because of our tough visa and travel restrictions. We should be doing all that we can to streamline the process to let people visit our great nation. We should be doing everything we can to ensure that we have a positive image in the international community.

Before you think that I’m a bleeding heart liberal that thinks that everything can be resolved by giving each other hugs you would be incorrect. This situation requires a lot of caution, analysis, and forethought before we do anything. We must do something and it must be a change from the current course to effect any positive outcome.

Read more on the situation at the NY Times

From the NY Times I found something that made me smile… you guessed it, I’m hanging out in left field. Lets see if they can make good on their goals

In the Capitol, Ms. Pelosi vowed to use the first 100 hours of the new Congress to push through what Democrats dubbed their “Six for ’06” agenda.

That program includes calls to raise the minimum wage, repeal subsidies for oil companies and incentives for companies to send jobs overseas, cut interest rates on student loans, give the government the authority to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription drug prices, and expand opportunities for embryonic stem cell research. On one of those issues, the minimum wage, Mr. Bush signaled there was room for a deal, as he also did on immigration.”