Issue 552 No services to non-citizens March 20, 2015

Non-citizens are people.  They in fact perform jobs and work like the rest of us.  The issue though is that some of them are here not to benefit our society, but to leech off of it.  Let me make this clear, those who want to support themselves and not be a leech, will in fact get out of poverty, but there are those non-citizens who steal from our country.  So what are we to do to solve this?

Cut off the Federal and State aid:  The only real solution is to make all welfare of non-citizens a local issue, save deportation if that becomes necessary (if a non-citizen is trapped they should be allowed to go to local authorities and deported in an expedited manner so they can go home).  By cutting all welfare off from these people at the Federal and State levels, who have no intention of becoming citizens, we will see the true worth of these people.  The reason why local government does not cut them off is because they will be the determiners if an individual gets aid or is considered a freeloader and thus deported immediately. Obviously standards will need to be put in place, but this eliminates much of the issue as localities can deport the freeloaders, or illegals in general if they are overwhelmed in their aid for these people. It should even be allowed for illegals to be swapped between localities (if situation permits) so that the other locality can reduce its economic burdens.  In short all welfare is expensive and we have to sort out helping our own citizens and those who want to be citizens first and kick the rest out (as unfortunate as it may or may not be).

Conclusion:  We cannot afford to accept those who are unwilling to care for themselves (not those who can't as they will be the exception).  America is a compassionate nation, but compassion must be balanced with a firm hand and a gentle nudge (or harder nudge when needed).  By denying all other forms of welfare save what localities want to give/willing to give, we can possibly solve our issue with free loaders coming into the country and focus on those who wish to be full citizens.

Issue 551 Viewing thyself and others March 19, 2015

How do you view yourself?  Is it as a buff character with all the world bowing to you?  Do you feel that you are insecure?  Are you sad? But what if I told you that someone might see you in a completely different way?  That is right, we each see and understand each other in such a way that there will always be a difference of opinion on one level or another.  So let us discuss.

I see you and you see me:  So despite the characteristics we see ourselves as, someone will see you differently than how you see yourself.  We have all experienced this before.  I am a college graduate, and obviously an adult, and yet when someone looks at my hobby of model building, they think me immature or unique and cool, depending on who they are.  Likewise I am book smart and thus when I recite facts or figures some will reject it as me being naive, or they will accept it and say I am well read.  So people have actually told me that they are intimidated by me.  I don't come off as a know it all to a majority of people, but there are instances where some people think I am.  But this is surface level.  What about people who can look deeper into your soul.  Again, people may see you as courageous, bull headed, intriguing, etc.  But these opinions are based on careful observation and thus people who get to know each other well enough and thus learn to deal with them.  For instance I have a friend where once they get into a funk, they cannot be broken out of it for any length of time.  The only way to handle that was to just leave them alone.  However, if you asked them what their opinion of themselves was, they would say that they were in excellent shape.  This is all because we cannot view ourselves properly without an external lens.

Reasoning:  We look at each other differently and ourselves differently due to a few things.  The primary reason is experience.  As we collect information and mature in our daily lives we acquire information on how to deal with each other.  This shapes our perspectives which determines how we view one another.  This combined allows us to compare ourselves to others which in turn helps us identify and figure out who and what we are inside.  In other words, we springboard off each other to identify who we are on the inside, but then our interactions with others, with them sharing their thoughts on us, helps us to finally begin to see the actual us on the inside.  

Conclusion:  Humanity cannot exist without it being able to interact with the environment or itself.  If a person lives in seclusion, they will eventually loose sense of self, and thus what it means to be human.  They will mentally break down.  So we must interact with one another to better get to know who and what we are on the inside.

Issue 550 Politics and Words March 18, 2015

 As I am sure you have noticed, politicians use certain lingo to get their point across.  What's more is that lingo is used to manipulate (for good or for bad) into making people think in a certain way.  So let us discuss.

Lingo of politics:  First and foremost, the lingo revolves around gaining power.  In this case it is moving the people who listen emotionally and sometimes physically into action.  President Obama is masterful at making people move as he being a former community organizer knows just the right messages and words to make people follow his lead.  So when he had the campaign slogan "hope and change" or when he said during his campaign for Obama care (the affordable care act) that you can keep your doctor and your insurance, it moved people.  People believed it because it was repeated a number of times, and used almost like a chant on occasion.  The news media ate it up which further enhanced the Presidents message.  As to whether what a politician says is one hundred percent truthful or not doesn't really matter, for power is all about making people move willingly or unwillingly. As such when you want to turn people away from something like the estate tax, the tax on inheritance over a certain value, you call it the death tax.  Why this subtle manipulation of words?  Simple, its word play as normally you would not care about a tax that only affects a group of people outside of yourself.  But when you say death tax it invokes a totally different mindset for those who do not know how the tax works.  Key point though is that if the wordplay is bad, then people ignore it.  Hence why inheritance tax is not used over death tax.  

Conclusion:  Words are tools to politicians.   I will say that all politicians use wordplay and thus manipulate their message to accommodate their audience.  So it is up to us to do two things, educate ourselves on what goes on, and to find out if the politician is sincere.  If we can do those two things then we will be safe from politics and politicians efforts to manipulate us.

Issue 549 3D printers and drugs March 17, 2015

Drugs are about to get even cheaper.  And it is all thanks to 3D printers.

How it works:  Just like before, 3D printers will lay materials on top of each other to produce an object.  In this case, the material will be chemicals for medicines.  We already have mass production, but it has to be done at a factory far away and then shipped to the pharmacy/stores.  Thus we have extensive labor, and transportation costs. But 3D printers simply require raw materials.  So labor costs can be completely eliminated.  Transportation costs can be mitigated as now you only have to refine the chemicals (if needed) and then a warehouse holds them until they are transported to their destinations (pharmacies/ and even hospitals).  From there the materials are loaded into hoppers for them to be dispensed by the printers.  What is cool about this is that multiple medications can be put together in the same pill.  So you can take your blood pressure pill, your cholesterol pill, and your heartburn pill all at the same time as a single pill. 

What this also does is make drugs cheaper for insurance to cover.  No longer will insurance companies have to cover expensive pre-manufactured drugs, but simply the chemical components and the cost to buy and put them together at the pharmacy level.  Drug companies essentially lose control on drugs and thus become chemical collectors and distributors.  As such, chemicals themselves will be patented, and of course researched, with the costs of that research factored into the costs.  It will thus mean that chemicals without patents anymore become dirt cheap, but newer chemicals remain somewhat expensive.  But, this also means that some drugs can simply be made at home.  You yourself can cut out even more costs by buying the packets of chemicals and using your home 3D printer to print the drugs. Of course you can bypass drug distributors by actively looking for chemicals yourself and printing them yourself.  So you're being able to self-medicate is also a possibility.  But potentially doctors can also hire pharmacists to work in their offices too, to reap the rewards of a 3D printers cheap manufacturing and having a single pharmacist on staff to maintain it and answer questions (essentially cutting out pharmacies completely).

Conclusion:  3D printers are shaking up the world of medicine.  As time goes on it will supplant traditional methods of drug manufacturing and thus bring forth many of the benefits and abilities I presented here to you all today.  And this may only be the tip of a very large iceberg with respect to the potential of 3D printers on medical manufacturing and drugs.  So, feel free to get excited about what may come.

Issue 548 3D printers and transplants March 16, 2015

3D printers are changing transplant surgery for the better.  Here is how it works.

3D printed bones, and organs:  You have probably heard from me before about how 3D printers can print organs from your own cells. They do so by laying cell after cell onto each other as they bond.  The result is a new organ.  But before they were imperfect and still required rejection medications.  Some required other foreign materials like meshes and screws.  But science is changing that.  Meshes can now be made from your own cells to allow your body to repair itself naturally.  Less and less chemicals are needed during and after transplants for your body is less likely to reject them.  But here is something even more creative.  Bone transplants and surgeries typically required screws to hold them in place.  Artificial bones could not grow with the individual and thus multiple surgeries were required.  Heck, just to take screws out required surgeries as the screws would rust and cause blood poisoning.  But with 3D printers, they can print new bones and even biodegradable organic screws.  Recently they made screws out of cartilage which would degrade over time by the body’s natural fluids as the hole in the bone would be slowly filled with natural calcium, thus eliminating the need for follow up surgeries.  This also proves the potential for not just whole organs to be made, but parts of organs to be made and spliced on.  The potential for medicine is endless.

Conclusion:  The progress and potential of this technology is progressing in such a way that costs for transplant surgeries will go down exponentially.  There will no longer be a need for waiting lists for organs, no follow up surgeries, no need for rejection drugs (to a degree).  Cheap reliable medicine for all.

Issue 547 Disposable versus Reusable March 13, 2015

Here we contrast disposable versus reusable objects.  Here we go.

Disposable:  Anything disposable is generally cheap initially, but costs build up over time.  For instance, paper plates are great as they save water, are more hygienic than potentially eating off an improperly cleaned plate, but can build up in the garbage fast.  Paper towels are another example.  They are hygienic as you do not have to rub your face on a dirty towel, but over time they build up in cost and fill the garbage can.  So you can see that cleanliness is key to the advantage here and that that cleaning a traditional towel uses a lot of water.  

Reusable:  Here we have cheap goods that are durable.  You buy them once and use them for years until they are no longer useful.  Plates just need to be washed in water with a little soap.  Towels are thrown into the laundry after about two uses.  So rather than the cost to buy a new plate or towel, you have the cost of cleaning them.  This cost is mitigated by cleaning in bulk so as to save money and thus can cost less than disposable brands.  But these also take up space.  You are not going to keep plates for a dinner party of 12 or more if you don't have that many people coming over every so often.  So this is economical if you know how to clean them, and use them, but as stated, they take up space and if improperly maintained, are not hygienic as you will end up eating off the dirt and grime you left there from not maintaining your wares.

Conclusion:  Balance to me seems to be the answer.  Use cheap reusable towels for your body twice so that you minimize dirt and grime while maintaining costs.  Use reusable plates and bowls for yourself and family.  Use disposable items like paper towels for messes that are germ filled like spills, and cleaning, while using paper plates for those occasional dinner parties.  Basically, use each object to its strengths to maintain a sustainable and healthy household. 

Issue 546 Our Gladiators March 12, 2015

Entertainment is a source of getting away from it all.  To stop thinking about the everyday.  Thus we have gladiators.  Who are they you ask?  Well, allow me to tell you.

Modern Gladiators:  So the modern gladiators are very obvious.  They are:

1) Sports figures:  these people who play football, soccer, and the like are gladiators in their own sense.  They play a sport for glory and prestige, the same way gladiators of old did.  In short, they want to be champions in their team sports.

2) Boxers and martial artists:  This group comes closest to looking like the original gladiators.  The only real difference is that the brutality is put in check by rules, and there in no death.

3) Video game characters:  We play first person shooters, multiplayer online quests, amongst others.  This allows us to become our characters and gladiators so that we ourselves can be the heroes.  

Why have them:  It is all based on entertainment.  And the reason we don't kill them off is because our watching them makes them rich (or the franchises owners rich).  You may even argue that capitalism saved the gladiator from destruction, and our desire to see our favorite teams, players and video game characters duke it out over and over again keep these teams and such playing.  We desire entertainment, and that unto itself is all based on distracting us from the everyday problems we face.

Conclusion:  Gladiators of the modern day fight for prestige.  We watch for entertainment.  And in the end money is made to continue this cycle.  Let us face it, our everyday life is full of pressures, and these fictional and nonfictional people help us get through the every day.