Guns for everyone

Yesterday, a little 9 year old girl accidentally shot and killed her shooting instructor who was standing next to her as he helped her try to handle a fully load, fully automatic uzi.  That’s right, an uzi.  Not just a standard handgun, not even a more traditional rifle, but a fucking uzi.  From my understanding (mainly from reddit comments and my experience handling one in CS), this short barrel, fully auto, death machine is one of the most difficult machine to handle.  So why did this little girl, or her parents, or the instructor allow her to shoot it, let alone touch the thing is beyond me.  However, that will not stop be from speculating.

Since the incident, there has been a lot of talk from the media and the general public about (again) gun control and kids.  Likewise, a lot of attention have been turn to the instructor, the shooting range, and the parents.  But you know, that not really the important question here.  Yes, obviously, and legally, that should be all that matters.  People feel the need to know and under stand the situation, and accordingly, find someone to blame.  But the fact is, the culprit is all of us.  Well actually, it’s all of you.  My friends, my colleagues, my (albeit Bakersfield) community, and the world at large.  The problem here is not specifically the instructor’s lack of (or zero) judgment, the parents’ cluelessness, the shooting range’s improper (it wasnt) practices, or even any particular laws that would have prevent it from happening.  The problem is our society’s views on guns and how over the pass several decades the imagine of the gun and turn into that for a toy.

I am all for personal rights to do pretty much anything you want, but there is a different between having a right to do it, and promoting it.  Sadly, at least for the case of gun, the latter seems to be what is occurring.  Consider this, every few days or so, I see someone on my news feed post something about the gun they just bought or about the shooting range they just went to.  Add to this the violent movies and video games, and it understandable why guns are no longer feared as they should be, but instead becoming something that is desired and its deathly imagine becomes neutered.  However, this is not to say that the aboves cause gun violence or accidents, but let me truthful it, it cant be helping it either.

Quinn is 2 years old.  She is smart (insanely so), able, and listens to directions (eh).  But at this time, I wouldn’t even consider letting her use a small pairing knife to cut tofu, let alone touch a gun.  In fact, I dont think I’ll even let her use scissors unsupervised until shes like in kindergarten.   But, there are people out there, parents, that would let a 9 year old, a 8 year old, hell a 5 year old hold and operate a gun.  Are you fuckers insane?  Guns are killing tools.  They serve one purpose.  They have little to no utility for everyday life (most people).  And any pleasure you get from it is, well, twisted.

**side note:  on the last point, I’m not saying that the person is twisted, but instead, that the pleasure that you get from it is twisted.  This pleasure is likely a primordial release of joy, stress, fear, life.  It is the same pleasure you get from punching a punching bag, or screaming at the top of your lungs.  It is not wrong to want this release, and there is definitely a time and place for it.  But the pleasure is nevertheless, a exertion of emotional that needs to be understood and should be dine under the right condition.**

Thus, guns cannot and should not be paraded around on your facebook page as if it’s the next coolest toy in your emasculated  closet, and I should not need to hear you touting about it like you just discovery the cure for ebola.  If you like guns, like to shoot guns, like having it in your house, carry it on you for safety, use it for hunting, as a door wedge,  put it on bread and eat it like toast, I don’t care, have at it.  But do not, I repeat, do not, make light of owning one, using one, or wanting one.  If you do, then you continue to perpetuate this flawed and deathly inaccurate perception of guns.  If you don’t then maybe somewhere some place in Arizona a parent wouldn’t think it’s a good idea to her 9 year old girl to a shooting range, or maybe the shooting instructor may have been more caution in letting her pull the trigger, and perhaps just maybe, the little girl wouldn’t have her life ruin before it even began.

nice one…

by Jonathan Jarivis

man…can i be president already?

The money we’re allocation to all these different bailouts should just be given to the people that lost/losing their homes. Some may see this as rewarding the stupid and irresponsible but i bet everyone would agree it is better than giving it to bankers for their bonuses and jets. Also, all future gains that will come from the rebound in the housing market will go directly to the people who didn’t lose their homes.

This method will restore the economy and housing market (no new foreclosures), maintain stable banks (that have actual equity and not just fake money), and reward the people that were living responsibly. It also set a a strong precedence for living within your means and not allowing fuzzy math to leak into your financial sector (hopefully).

Some spending, some save the world, some freewrite

1) While driving into work this morning i heard an interesting statistic; the stimulus bill the just passed in congress has been calculated to saving/making 7,000 jobs per every $1B spend.  This number hit me as a bit odd so i pulled out my trusty calculator aka. my phone and did some quick math.  And to my surprise, that is roughly $142,857.14 for every job created/saved.  Now i have not done any real fact checking here (i mean why would NPR lie to me?) but WTF?!  That’s hella making bank.  Yeah it’s no CEO of Merrill Lynch pay but still…95% of ppl in the US will never see that kind of salary. Makes me wonder why bother even putting it towards making bridges and and funding schools…why dont they just give people the money?  Here should be the new bill; 3.5M ppl (fed’s calculation of the number of jobs that will be created) will get $100,000.  They can spend it any way they want, but they have to spend all of it.  There…thats it.  Imagine releasing that kind of liquidity into this economy.  Homes will be save, companies will get customers, and tentions will be ease.

2) So apparently the feds are going to cut my tax…but the state is gonna raise it.  WT?!  whatever…

3) Here is my plan to save the housing market at the same time save the environment.  You know how there are like millions of houses vacant, foreclosed, and in need to repairs?  Now imagine taking all those houses and then add the money from the 1st and 2nd bailout stimulus package and then on top of that, put the whole green tech thing there and what do you get?  Simple…modern, efficient, livable homes.  This in hand with smarter lending practices and some mega subsidies to actual home buyers (and not just flippers and the likes) and you will see the change this country needs.  Green homes will become commonplace thus increasing the sustainable infrastucture our country desperately need, at the same time pulling the mindset of americas to a more progressive future.

$pending pt.2

Yesterday, the senate finally approved the stimulus bill President Obama has been selling to the US public for the pass week or so.  This bill however is drastically different from the original one he purposed and the one the house passed last week.  This version of the bill calls for increase and extended tax cuts, decrease in spending for education, health-care, and to the state, and it also plans to limit construction to schools, infrastructure, green tech, etc.  In conclusion, the bill is roughly $100B cheaper and will be less effective (in stimulating the economy and limiting job lost).

But talking which version of the bill is better than the other is tedious.  The fact is, the democrats and the republicans are arguing about the opposite side of the same coin.  They either preach for more tax cuts or more spending…tax cuts or spending.  But why can we do both, or neither?  There are 535 smart and capable people in congress, not including all their assistants and lobbyist, and still, i have yet to hear a plan that is creative, intelligent, and pragmatic.

Tax cuts are great in principle; people will have more money to spend, businesses can maintain or increase their employment and productivity, and we cultivate a necessity for growth.  But lets be realistic, tax cuts lead to an increase deficit, a weaker education system, fail health-care, and a widening gap between the rich and the poor.  Also, the growth (sustainable) that was promised for tax cuts have yet to be seen (bush).

Spending too has it merits, but is implemented poorly, it simply becomes a burden and a waste.  School, social security, medicare, roads, bridges and highways are all in desperate need of funding, but throwing money at them wont be anymore or less help than the before mentioned tax cuts.

What legislators have to understand is that what grows the economy is innovation, what protects the economy is confidence, and what makes the economy balance and fair to all is strong (but just) regulation and foresight.  To achieve all of this, one must to accepting of change and open to new ideas.

next edition…some actual ideas. *note* there are already actual ideas in my previous posts.

$pending

Here a quick history lesson; on August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered to the allied forces thus ending WWII.  Soon after, an agreement was accepted and Japan peacefully agreed to disband and disarm their military forces.

Now lets fast forward to the present day.  The world has changed, borders have been redrawn, some enemies are now consider friends and some friends are now long and gone.   As for Japan’s military forces, they still do not have an operational army.  The US on the other hand spends hundred of billions of dollars to maintain ours.  Couple this with our vast intelligent services and you can image how much we spend on our defense per year.  Some of this is of course understandable.  There is no denying that there are people out there trying to harm us, and a certain level of flex and foresight must always to shown for a country of our stature.  But when we’re facing the worst financial crisis since the great depression, we should at least reexamine our federal spending.

Another quick history note; September 27, 2000, Pres. Clintion announced that the US had a budget surplus of $230B.  This would be the last time we had one.  Since then, the US has become $730B in debt and our defense spending had more than double to a whooping $700B (coinsidentaly).  Opositely, Japan has a $210B surplus and is enjoying a strong yen in this hazardous economy.  Looking at these simple facts, it’s not hard to imagine that a decrease in defense spending can lead to a stronger and more robust US economy and help us lift ourselves out of this financial mess we’re in.  Obviously however, there are other factors at play, but hey all im asking for is a reexamination.

My plans to save America #1

Lets start with the obvious; cars.

Car companies need to stop manufacturing car.  There are plenty of cars on the road, in warehouses, and sitting on dealerships across the nation. We (as the consumer) probably don’t need anymore new cars.  Now what we need or at least would like to have, are more efficient cars, cars that have cool gadgets in them, cars that can do thing that we wouldn’t expect them to do.  Now im not talking about putting a blender or a refrigerator in it or anything (tho that cooler glove-box thing that VW has is pretty badass), what i am talking about is cars that can run on sunlight, or can self drive, or can transform from minivan to pickup truck to sports car.  Of course these things sound futuristic, but im not expecting them to happen tomorrow, however, i am asking the car companies to please think forward.  think of the next generations and what will be needed, and not about how to put 10 more horsepower into something or how to add one more cupholder. The 50’s weren’t wrong about flying cars, we just need to rediscover how to think like them again.

And so you ask, what happens to all the jobs that will be lost from the manufacturing of cars? Simple…mass transit and advance science tech (computer chips, solor cells, etc.).

Next edition; houses.

YEAH! not really

a few things:

1) Marriage is a religious term and in turn a biblical term.  However, once you put that term on legal documents and make it applied to people who may or may not agree with the “traditional” definition of it, it can and must be redefine.

2) I finished my bike!  Still need to get stuff for it tho (like a new handlebar, bike pump, new front wheel, new saddle, a tough lock, etc.), but it’s ridable.  And that’s all that really matters.

3) Is anyone else tired of hearing Hank Paulson talk?  The guy obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  Either that, or he’s good at playing dumb and making billions (which is also very likely).  Anyways, if you’ve been listening to the news recently you’ve heard that the original plan for the bailout (buy up toxic assets of financial institutions) is now on the back-burners and instead, we’re gonna try to buy up those company and have a stake in them.  Well other than that fact that we were already doing this (hence not new), the underlying problems of this whole mess is still not being dealt with.  That is…people are losing homes, they cant make payments, our manufacturing sectors are a bust, and credit is still tight.  Sure they’ve implemented some plans to help home owners (F&F will be renegotiating some loans), congress is looking to boost the auto industries (GM’s holding out their hands wide open) and they’re cutting interest rates (my savings rate keeps going down and they’re still not lending, those fuckers).  But by all standards, no one thinks any off this is gonna be effective.  Now Hank Paulson is so enthusiastic about mentioning that “conditions are changing and so should our plans”…but what is it that actually changed?  I mean other than the fact that we’ve injected about 300b dollars into this market already and it still seems to be doing the same thing (failing).  I originally mentioned that the bailout plan needed first to target the people and not the financial institutions.  That is still true.  Instead of flooding the markets and banks and auto industry with money that they arent even using to help the economy (i dont count mergers and luxurious getaways as helping), how bout flooding the people.  Not in form of stimulus checks but instead how about free tuitions, or jobs (preferably something green), or health-care, or shit i dont know you come up with something.  If people are confident in themselves, confident in providing for their families, confident in the direction we as a nation are going towards, then they’ll be confident in this economy.  OH OH OH…ANDDDDD…that oversight and transparency and regulation we were all thinking would be a part of this whole bailout thing…yeah not gonna happen.  GOOO GOVERNMENT!

4) Ryan Kim you’re an ass.  You and David Yu.

rise

There were definite moments of happiness yesterday: first when we took Pennsylvania, then and most important, Ohio, and with the final prediction of the entire west coast not to mentioned Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, Virginia, and even you Florida, it was done.  Barack Omaba will be the next president of these united states.  So here we are, after 20 or so odd months of campaigning, a much heated primary and general election, debates upon scandals upon cynicism, we finally have a man of color, a man of modest if not damn near impoverish upbringing, a man who speaks to this and every other generation in the white house.  It was a good day.

And with that out of the way, i want write about why im actually blogging today.  I…am…sick.  sick and tire of all these religious nutjobs.  Specifically (and atleast for today) the christian right and their hypocrisy.  These are the people who claim to be accepting and tolerant but with it comes down to the most basic of emotions, the feeling of love, they jump into everyones’ business and force their beliefs on other people.  And then they have the audacity to claim that what their doing is protecting their own rights.  They hold signs that says “Prop 8 = Free speech” and “Prob 8 = Religion free” without realizing that what they’re doing is the complete opposite.  It’s unlawful and unethical.  I dont care if these people hate gays, but once you cross the line of simply hating them to force them to obied by your religious standards, that is wrong.  wtf is wrong with you people.  do you not see that gay ppl arent hurting anyone.  In fact, they’re helping people; the wedding industry will get a boom, familyless kids can be adopted, and best of all we get to see hot lesbians making out in public!  ok that last one is a big crossing fingers.  but seriously, you just made it a fucken law that people who love each other, care for each other, who want nothing more than to simply be “married” one another, you have made it a FUCKEN LAW restricting them to do so.  are you out of your goddamn minds?  dont you think theres more important thing to worry about than the “definition of marriage”?  i dont want to hear your arguements about your kids having to learn about gay marriages (why? because its not a big deal.  people love each other and they get marry, there, done.  well unless u do have something against gay people and not just the definition of marriage), or about how gay people raising gay kids (fuck you for being stupid).  The simply fact is that you’re prejudice and biggited.  And sadly to say, seeing as how the black votes were probly the reason prop 8 pasted, it’s just a shame.  After their own history and this historic election, i would hope that they too could have seen the change to accept in themselves.

“my friends”

There’s not many things i look forward to on my daily hour+ commute home other than my baby, my baby’s food, and listening to NPR.  Today it was especially nice because the 2nd presidential debate was being broadcast and i’ve been waiting to hear Obama ripe one into McCain. Sadly that did not happened and the debated ended as it started, nothing new nothing changed.

However, i think i did discover the reason why McCain so animatedly wanted to have Obama do town hall meetings with him. Contrary to what others think, i dont believe Obama is a great speaker.  He’s not bad, but he tends to stutter and go around in circles like most polictians do.  McCain isn’t so great either, he speaks in tonal interludes and act as tho his reading a bedtime story.  But what McCain does do that Obama doesnt is that he says…”my friends”…constantly. “My friends i will solve this mess” “Come with me my friends to the promise land” “Obama is inexperience and will destroy our country my friends” “my firends” “my friends” “my friends”.  Now some like me might hear this and want to punch the tv or hit the radio everytime he utters those words, but im sure most others will go “geez McCain is just like me and is my friend.”

McCain believes that this will lure voters to him and away from the mostly elitist speaking style of obama.  lets hope thats not the case