Haynes.tv

I hope that your 7/7/7 is going well and I just wanted to leave you with a special list related to the number seven:

One of the biggest questions currently facing our administration is the level of health care the United States government should provide its citizens. Some call for complete health care, that no one would pay for their health care. This system is already in place in many countries, including England and Canada. Other’s claim that all health care should be done privately, whether through an employer or from one’s own personal funds. This decision needs to be made, as currently the state of American health is steadily declining. The best way to address this problem is to look at Canada, which is following its North American Neighbors by expanding its waisting, sick time, and medical cash flow.

Currently, Ontario is plagued by chronic diseases. The numbers are startling:

One in three Ontario residents is currently fighting a chronic disease. . . at least 60 per cent of health-care costs are already associated with chronic diseases. . . almost four in five Ontario residents over the age of 65 have at least one chronic disease, and of them, 70 per cent suffer from two or more conditions. . . getting people to eat better, stay active and giving them safe and meaningful work would prevent 80 per cent of the cases of coronary heart diseases, Type 2 diabetes, and over 85 per cent of lung cancer cases. . . 50,000 new cases of Type 2 diabetes diagnosed in Ontario every year. . . Preventing these cases alone would free up about 2,900 hospital beds … per year in Ontario.

This situation is similar to the United States. In both countries asthma, arthritis, diabetes and heart failure are on the rise. Obesity is growing at an unimaginable rate with the deterioration of healthy eating habits. Many of these diseases are preventable. There is one difference between the two situations, the provider of health care. In the United States the patients are left to fend for themselves, leaving a large population of people (mostly elderly) that have a chronic disease and are struggling to get treatment. However, In Canada all of these cases are jamming the system, preventing immediate health care from reaching many. The problem with chronic disease is that it lingers and takes up a lot of the doctor’s time and the patent’s money.
Patients with acute sicknesses cannot find immediate care to cure their ailments. They are forced to suffer because of a large group of citizens are too lazy to keep up their own health. I see the same problem to a much larger extent in America. We are just as lazy, and in fact are most likely spreading our lifestyle to Canada. Therefore I have doubt about the effectiveness of a mass health care system. Such a system may not ensure the greatest health of all patients involved. However, a socialistic medical system would be better if the kinks could be fixed. However it is questionable that these problems will ever be fixed. Currently the government should continue Medicare and Medicaid to an extent to prevent one’s class definition by one’s health. America needs to remain free and equal, therefore the government should continue to research answers to this growing problem.

I believe flip flopping is just a natural result of the passage of time and the maturing of a candidate. Everyone makes mistakes, and as people mature it is reasonable that they may change their mind. For example, all those that voted for the war prior on the basis of WMD’s could claim that by learning the fact that there was no serious fact they may now feel opposed to this war. This is a flip-flop, but not an opportunistic flip-flop. opportunistic flip flops do exist, and they are a problem. However I don’t believe a voter should get too mad over opportunistic flip-floppers. There is no evidence that modern politicians are more prone to make a flip flop than in past years. In fact, since the beginning of politics, politicians have been parts to large organizations, whether religions, industrial, or social, very seldom was a politician truly independent, a large percent of the time his actions are representative the organization the politician stands for. Voters need to accept that politicians will flip flop, however it is no reason to lose faith in a candidate or become a political hermit. It is necessary to look at the backing of the candidate and decide where their interests lie and where your interests lie, by doing this you can choose the right candidate. A voter can look at the unions, businesses, and other major social/cultural institutions that support and more importantly, fund the candidate. The heart lies within the wallet. If your interests overlap with those of several organizations supporting the candidate than that may be a good vote for you. For instance, if you are against the war, a politician funded by businesses that want an end to war, or social organization seeking the end to war, than it is relatively safe to assume the candidate will end the war as soon as logistically possible.

The biggest problem with flip-floppers is the adverse effect they have on the psyche of the modern voters. Voters, especially new voters become overwhelmed by the politicians and their ideologies. They come to distrust the process because they feel betrayed by the actions of politicians. Upon this happening, undeserved pressure is placed on the candidate to remain steady, or else suffer the consequences. A politician at that point is dominated by his contingency in a bad way. The voters should control their candidates, but they should not prevent the politician from following his/her natural course. Because once a politician become an artificial puppet of fear, we can no longer trust his/her future action and when he/she may change. The population could consistently reelect a politician only to learn that he may not side with their majority opinions. It is necessary to learn when a politician has done this so the population can elect a new representative. However the pressure they place on the system to follow certain taboo rules prevents the population from knowing has the politicians views change and develop. For as stated in the beginning, a person matures and his opinions will change. Therefore it is necessary to know those changes and how frequently the politician may change, so we can better make our choices. By putting this pressure to remain behind one position we cannot know the true character of the politician.

This post is about flip-flopping in general and does not specifically relate to any one person or situation. The example about the Iraq war is just an example and does not represent any specific opinion. Leave a comment with your opinion, and I shall present mine to the extent required to answer.

The other day Tim and I were on route 1 north in southern Rhode Island, and witnessed road rage in action. While I was driving these cars all started bunching up and cutting in front of me. Every time a left even a couple of car lengths of distance someone would cut in front of me. Then I mentioned that there was and accident waiting to happen, then it started escalating and Tim starting taking pictures. Apparently, after some number of people had cut in front of me this guy in a white pickup truck got mad probably at the guy in the red pickup for not letting him back in or just wanted to get in front of the traffic, and decided to pass by going off the road. He did make sure to pass on the left, but through maybe that he could make it in front of the other cars before he had gotten out of the left hand turn lane.

This is yet more proof of how messed up our road system is in the US; this particular road has many turnarounds on the left hand side so the left stays clogged with either people that will need to turn or people turning around and attempting to merge into 60 mph traffic (speed limit is 50, but traffic often moves much faster) with no almost no merge lane. This alone makes for deadly scenario and is the reason why they closed a number of them off up farther North on the road. However, this represents a small portion of a larger problem with are driving system we have too many left hand exits in this country so people must be in the left lane, often, which slows down traffic. In many parts of Europe they mange traffic more efficiently and require people to keep right and do not even have speed limits. I do not understand why we have speed limits and then allow everyone to exceed the speed limit, unless they are exceeding the speed limit by too much, and then they are in trouble. If not one is able to travel the speed limit including the police why do we not change speed limits to something that is more reasonable so that way when someone actually wants to follow the law they are able to without getting run off the road. I guess the speed limits can show us our imperfection, in that no one can follow the speed limit all the time, so we if we are incapable of even following the speed limit then we are very incapable of achieving perfecting in other areas of our life.

My friend was checking his e-mail on yahoo and he got slammed in the face by this. Apparently she was a line judge at a Brazilian track and field competition, oh yeah, and she doesn’t know how to get out of the way of a javelin.

I guess I was not alone in hating the Head On commercial. Head On has finally realized just how hated their commercial is and is now targeting those such as myself with their new version of the commercial. Head on now has a variety of new commercials which are all very similar, each commercial starts like the old one where for about a second, but before the first Head On repetition a man or woman pops on the screen and starts to mock the old Head On commercial, then proceeds to tell us how they hate Head On’s commercial, but love their product. I would like to say thank you to Head On for finally catching on that we hate your commercial, but your still have not redeemed yourself enough that I am going to buy your product, sorry head on the torture has been too much. It is just too little too late.

Steve Irwin (1962)-(2006)

Labor day was somewhat of a somber day as the beloved Steve Irwin ( the Crocodile Hunter) died. He was killed by the piercing of a stingrays stinger into his heart. He was filming a special for his daughters 9th birthday off the the great barrier reef in Australia. Friends and co-workers watched as the Australian Icon was pierced by the stingray and the emergency immediately called. He was later pronounced dead although he possibly died right as he was stung.

Steve Irwin is a sad pass for many. He was an Australian TV star and a conversationalist. He had a long running series on the discovery and animal planet channels called “crocodile hunter”. In 2002 he then released his own crocodile hunter. Memorabilia would also be made about Steve Irwin. He was also a zoologist and an overall beloved character. We will miss him surely.

R.I.P Steve Irwin

Zach Seites-Rundlett
– haynes.tv

The Dog days of summer are once again upon us, and we all know that very little work gets done during these dog days. Have you ever wondered why these hot sultry days are described as “dog days”.

The term “dog days” actually refers to the stars; well one stars in particular, the dog star, Sirius (as in Sirius satellite radio). Sirius is the brightest star of the night sky, however during these summer months Sirius is setting and rising with the sun so we can not see it now. Therefore the ancients, particularly the Europeans and possibly the Egyptians, believed that the star would add to the heat of the sun during this time and for 20 days before and after the conjunction of the dog star with the sun. Of course we now know that the star adds very little if any heat during this period, and that the main reason for summer heat is the 23.5 degree tilt of the earth.

I was listening to the radio today and the DJ happened to mention these super mosquitoes in Greece, which are faster (about 30%) and bigger (about 15%) than normal mosquitoes and are also immune to insect repellents, and if all this is not enough they can also smell human blood from almost twice as far away. These things sound like a nightmare, and according to the report it is because of air pollution, yet another good reason for us to work even harder break our oil addiction.

Here is the scope according to IOL:

Athens – Cramped housing conditions and air pollution in Athens have given rise to a “super breed” of mosquito that is larger, faster and more adept at locating human prey, a Greek daily reported on Tuesday.
Athens-based mosquitoes can detect humans at a distance of 25m – 30m and also distinguish colours, unlike their colour-blind counterparts elsewhere in the country that only smell blood at 15m – 20m, Ta Nea daily reported.

The “super mosquitoes” of the Greek capital also beat their wings up to 500 times a second – compared to 350 beats for other variations – and are larger by 0,3 micrograms on average, the paper said, citing a study conducted by Aristotelio University in the northern city of Salonika.

According to the study, the mosquitoes of Athens have adapted to deal with air pollution and insect repellents, and overpopulation in the Greek capital of over four million has provided them with a healthy food supply.

The Redbox is the greatest thing since sliced bread; a DVD vending machine company, Redbox Automated Retail LLC, is owned by Mcdonalds. Netflix has finally met its match! Now granted this thing is not free like library rentals, but this machine has one thing that libraries do not; this machine is stock with all the new releases, which can be rented for only $1 a night. Not only that, but if you have a promo code, you can rent it free for one night. I was surprised that there are actually a lot of promo codes out there, which is good because they can only be used once per credit card. You must have a credit or debit card to use the machine, because they will charge you $1 each night the DVD is out, up to 25 nights at which point you own the DVD for the bargain price of $25, not really much of a bargain, but if you get it back the next night and use promo codes you can be watching quite a few DVDs for free. Movies are due back by 7 p.m. the following day and best of all can be dropped off at any Redbox location. The particular Redboxs that I know of around Rhode Island are inside of stop and shops, and since stop and shop is open 24/7 except on Sundays you can get there right at midnight and get the latest new release out of the machine, before stores open.

Some of the promos codes that I know work are:

Some that I believe work, but I have not yet tried are: