Alternative Means of Transportation

It's not a secret that I ride a scooter in an effort to save money...and to look cool. A dentist's office in Arlington, Washington has taken fuel efficiency to a new level.

In an effort to encourage his patients to use different ways to get around, Dr. Keith Leonard and nine other members of his staff got permits to ride their horses as a group to work. There were also two people who rode their bikes.

The real question is: What costs more to maintain? A horse or a car?

A little chihuahua has caught on to this trend and has found its own means of transportation. See the video here.

The Right to Bear Arms

Two law students, John Pierce and Mike Stollenwerk, started an organization in 2004 that promotes a US citizen's right to bear arms (the Second Amendment of the Constitution) with their "Open Carry Movement". Their motto is: "A Right Unexercised Is A Right Lost."

Everyone has an opinion about having a gun on them and/or in their home and others' rights to owning firearms. I personally don't really understand guns and know I do not want one in my home at this time. This is simply because I have no training in the use of a firearm, but know of the possible negative consequences in owning one. Then again, I have never had the experience of being attacked in my own home, have never had to live in fear for my life, and have never feared being attacked in the streets (because of my height of 6-feet and the safety precautions I take when I am out).

Anyhow, what I do know that almost every home in Switzerland has a firearm of some sort. The gun crime rate is very, very low. So low, in fact, that statistics are not kept on this type of crime.

Why are guns so accepted in some parts of the world, but not others? "Guns kill," is something one might say. But I have to agree with those who say people kill, not guns. Since the beginning of time, humans have been creative in the instruments they choose to used to harm others: stones, sticks, sharp objects, karate chops, poisons, etc.

Whether you agree one should always have a gun or not--or even sometimes, OpenCarry.org shows maps of the US that indicate how different states interpret the Second Amendment: from open carry laws in each state to travel rules of each state to how old one has to be to recieve a gun permit (as young as 14!) to guns on college campus, in restaurants and hospitals, etc. How does your state compare to others?

John McCain Hearts ABBA

John McCain recently posted on his blog at the beginning of this month that he loves ABBA. We'll I guess we have something kind of in common because I like the ABBA Teens (a.k.a.: A-Teens).

Here is the video on McCain's blog:



Here is the same song recorded by the A-Teens:

Don't YOU Know How to Speak Klingon?

(Picture caption translation: "The empire is watching.")

Believe it or not, Klingon is a real language. Yes, it was developed for Hollywood purposes, but it is more than a bunch of gibberish all thrown together that people who are not actors have learned to speak. The great thing is that people who have learned to speak Klingon also like to sometimes dress like Klingons, the characters from the show "Star Trek". That would kind of like a couple of people dressing up in traditional Japanese clothing when they would meet and practice the language.

The Klingon language is the fastest-growing artificial language today. With no irregular verbs, words that are spelled phonetically (which means they are spelled how they sound) and are similar to other existing words, and only 16 rules of grammar, learning Klingon is a popular hobby amongst those who have nothing better to do. A Klingon to English dictionary was made in 1985, but kind of as a joke at first. No one knew the publication would be so popular until a discovery was made that there are a lot of nerds with money to spare. About 250,000 copies of this dictionary have been sold under the Paramount Pictures copyright.

As with many things, the Klingon "language" was taken too far and to a whole new level. It has been reported that a man, Dr. Speers, spoke only Klingon to his son, Alec. It got to the point that government officials had to intervene because the kid at age 2 only knew how to speak Klingon and nothing else and would be stuck at school if he did not have a interpretor. However, it is said that Alec speaks English today and barely remembers his Klingon days.

Multnomah County in Oregon also has a Klingon interpreter on staff for their mental health facilities. Fox News in 2003 reported that county officials had to take the language as seriously as they would for someone who spoke Spanish, Russian, Dari, Tongan, or any other official language of the world. Who knew Oregon was so multi-cultural?

It has also been reported that more 11th grade boys in Toronto, Canada know how to speak Klingon better than they do French...and French is an official language along with English in Toronto. I am not sure that I can really believe that more 11th grade boys can speak Klingon better than French...my guess is that the kids saw "Klingon" on the language survey and thought it would be funny to check it off. But who knows? Maybe they are crazy about Klingons up there.

How did Klingon become the global standard it is today? Good marketing and The Klingon Language Institute in Philadelphia. The KLI is a non-profit organization that "exists to facilitate the Klingon language and culture." But the last time I checked, the Klingon culture is not real...it was made up by Paramount Pictures. Remember? The official site of the KLI shows one how to write phrases, how the language sounds, allows one to send e-cards, buy merchandise, etc.

Regardless of the cool-ness or nerd-i-ness of the Klingon language, the legacy of the "Star Trek" will live as long as people can speak it.

Alien Lovers, Rejoice!

Here is a video of Nancy Leider, a person (I think) who has met aliens from other planets. She has even met a 6-foot tall roach! Nancy is the emissary to the Zetas. I don't really understand a lot of what their site is talking about, but check out the video.

If Nancy has gone to so many planets and knows so many aliens, why is she here on earth? I guess I wouldn't want to party with huge roaches either.

On the flip side, here is some advice on how to avoid an alien abduction. The site I found it on is pretty great and funny. I guess this would be some good advice if I was ever worried about being abducted.:

A physical measure to help prevent an abduction from occurring is to make sure at dusk that all of your doors, sliding glass doors, and windows are locked and that all the glass openings to the outside are covered with a thick shade/curtain. If you leave any window uncovered, you will leave yourself vulnerable to having the paralysis beams enter your home. Zetans can pick locks as easily as any locksmith but they will not enter a vehicle or a home unless they know that their intended is either paralyzed and/or unconscious. They are fully aware that people will attempt to defend themselves, possibly by shooting at them.

Secondly, if you see a UFO or alien, DO NOT stare or attempt to get a better look. IMMEDIATELY go indoors and avoid all windows. If you can see them, then you can already be targeted for a paralysis beam to initiate a kidnapping.

Most alien abductions occur under the cloak of darkness (at night). However, there are reports of them also happening in broad daylight on deserted highways and in sparsely populated areas.

...There is a discarnate facet to abductions that also needs to be addressed. What I mean by this is that there collectives of pro-Zetan spirits (not all alien spirits are evil) that help cultivate the environment for an abduction to occur by physical aliens. If you can be aware of that sinister influence and deal with it accordingly, it takes some or all of the emotional wind out of the physical kidnappers and may prevent them from attempting a physical abduction.

Good spirits work through and around good people. Spiritually indifferent/evil spirits work through and around spiritually indifferent/evil people.

A spiritual measure to help prevent an abduction from occurring is to sincerely pray everyday for Protection, Healing and Guidance/Accuracy. "Prayer is talking to God and Meditation is listening to God." One needs to allocate time each day for being open to guidance in meditation. In turn, you may eventually get a warning about an impending alien abduction in the works or some other important advice.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

If you are intuitively tipped off ahead of time of the possibility, you can more successfully sidestep a dangerous situation and elude capture.

Ooooh...now we have been forewarned.

What If?: The Presidential Election

What if Presidential candidates were never seen? What if you could not even hear their voices? You would not even know their names until the person was elected. How would it change things if a candidates identity was completely secret until they won the election?

Think about it: how different would the US be today if all we knew about a candidate was what they stood for in writing? Imagine a circular or newspaper article that has Candidate 1's views, Candidate 2's view, etc. The only thing we would know to judge the person on would be on their views about the world and their country and where they stood on issues. If there was a live debate, the persons' voices would be disguised.

Doing this, though not very realistic for today's society, would take away any biases a person would have about race, religion, color, age, appearance, mobility, etc. I imagine this is kind of how it was during the first elections when all there really was to get the word out were newspapers and word of mouth. People who were hundreds of miles away from a candidate and never got to see a candidate campaign had to rely solely on what they knew about the candidate's stances on the issues that were important to the voters.

Would it be better if the "Race for the White House" was more like "The Dating Game"?:
Moderator: Candidate 1--What do you see as this country's greatest need?
Candidate 1 (in a robotic voice): Yes. Great question, Brian (Williams). I think this country
needs to get rid of the evils of "Barney, The Dinosaur" and all of its associates.
Moderator: Very interesting, Candidate 1. (Chuckles in disbelief.) Candidate 2, same
question.
Candidate 2 (in a different robotic voice): I think we need to provide free airfare to Cuba.
(audience gasps)
Moderator: Tell us more about that.
Candidate 2: Yes, Brian. Providing free airfare to Cuba to those who need major medical treatments, such as surgery or chemotherapy, would be more cost effective than providing universal health care to all of the citizens of the US. In my plan, all the undocumented people in the country illegally would provide health care locally in your hometowns. Therefore, the costs of health care would go down so much that health insurance would not even be necessary. So many of the fine immigrant in this country were once doctors and health care workers in their own country; so we would barely even need to provide them with any additional training. Plus, all of the illegal drug makers in jail would be commissioned, as part of their plea bargain before going to court, to be the manufactures of many of the popular prescription used today. Most of these guys were probably geniuses in their high school chemistry classes, right? We wouldn't have to really pay these guys to make medications, so those would be dirt cheap, too. (Crowd goes wild!)

My imagination does take me places. But maybe doing things this way (keeping a person's identity a secret) would make the election a more fair process.

What do you think?

Move Over, Chuch Norris!

I've never been a huge Chuck Norris fan. In my opinion, Richard Dean Anderson (the guy from "MacGyver" is the BOMB as he is my favorite childhood television action star. Well, he is also the only one I can remember aside from "Magnum P.I.".

Well, needless to say, I was shocked to see ANOTHER Stargate movie is coming out this July: Stargate: Continuum. Yes, yes...the Sci-Fi people did just come out with a movie in November 2007, but that wasn't enough. It didn't have Jack O'Neill in it (what's up with that?).

What's even greater is that you can pre-order the new Stargate: Continuum movie. Click here!

For those of you who are not as big of nerds as me, "Stargate SG-1" is a show that ran for 10 years about a group of people in the US military that found a way to travel to different planets. Strangely, the inhabitants of all the other planets all speak English and almost every planet looks like Vancouver B.C. , Canada (I still have a big problem with this, especially with a show that was supposed to take place in Honduras had pine trees).