I'm Not Concerned About the Economic Meltdown

Are you?

Did you know that we (the country) is currently in the midst of a financial crisis? While I hear about it in the news, I've noticed that it really does not effect me much. While yes, I'm sure my mutual funds and IRAs are hurting, but I don't plan to tap into them until I retire, ie. 20-30 years from now. My job (or lack there of) as a teaching assistant is pretty secure and the pay will continue to be to low to live on. I don't own a house or owe have any loans... so no worries there. The money I have in the bank is less than $100,000 and FDIC insured... I think this is the first time I'm happy that government plays a role in our economy. But overall... so the "everything less than 99 cent" store is becomming the "everything less than $1.05" store... I'll survive.

When Bush says that the economy needs government intervention you know that something is wrong... both Republicans who are anti federal involvement in the economy and Democrats that just want to go against Bush should put this down...

Oh look... they did. The federal bailout failed: "Media reports are describing yesterday's 228-205 House vote against the financial bailout plan as a stunning surprise that adds to the uncertainty and sense of gloom surrounding the world's economy." Which led to a 7% fall in the Dow... don't get me started on the inflated stock market! Now if only someone could explain why I should care that Microsoft is getting involved? Of course big companies who rely on inflated stocks (as well as large banks who made stupid decisions) want free money from the government!

The Way I See the Economic Meltdown is similar to this from PHD Comics...
Meanwhile, a recent USA Today/Gallup poll finds more Americans disapproving than approving of how most of the major national political players have handled the recent problems on Wall Street... further demonstrating that the general pubilc does not understand how a) the economy works or b) how little ability these politicos have to effect the economy in any real way.

Send Your Name Around the Earth!

You can send your name around Earth on NASA's Glory satellite, the first mission dedicated to understanding the effects of particles in the atmosphere and the sun's variability on our climate. The "Send Your Name Around the Earth" Web site enables everyone to take part in the science mission and place their names in orbit for years to come. The Web site, where participants can submit their information, is located at: http://polls.nasa.gov/utilities/sendtospace/jsp/sendName.jsp

The Glory satellite will allow scientists to measure airborne particles more accurately from space than ever before. The particles, known as "aerosols," are tiny bits of material found in Earth's atmosphere, like dust and smog. Participants will receive a printable certificate from NASA and have their name recorded on a microchip that will become part of the spacecraft. The deadline for submitting names is Nov. 1, 2008.

"Undoubtedly, greenhouse gases cause the biggest climatic effect," said Michael Mishchenko, the Glory project scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. "But the uncertainty in the aerosol effect is the biggest uncertainty in climate at the present." Glory will carry two scientific instruments, the Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor, or APS, and the Total Irradiance Monitor, or TIM, and two cameras for cloud identification. The APS instrument will help quantify the role of aerosols as natural and human-produced agents of climate change more accurately than existing measurement tools. The TIM instrument will continue 30 years of measuring total solar irradiance, the amount of energy radiating from the sun to Earth, with improved accuracy and stability. Understanding the sun's energy is an important key to understanding climate change on Earth.

Glory is scheduled for launch in June 2009 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Glory will orbit as part of the Afternoon Constellation, or "A-Train," a series of Earth-observing satellites. The A-Train spacecraft follow each other in close formation, crossing the equator a few minutes apart shortly after 1:30 p.m. local time each day. The A-Train orbits Earth once every 100 minutes. You can visit Glory's blog or get more info at http://glory.gsfc.nasa.gov

Even Hurricanes Can't Keep Me Away!

After quite the hiatus, I am back! However, I'm going to need some help to keep this blog alive. I was thinking about just letting it die, but it seems that despite the fact that I have not posted in a month, the number of hits per day has not significantly decreased. So here I am... back to entertain you, my adoring fans.

Since I last posted I have started school... that's right, I'm currently working on my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Houston. However, within a week of starting school, the Texas coast (well mostly Louisiana) was threatened by Hurricane Gustav, and I was activated and deployed as a member of the Texas State Guard. My roll was mostly related to tracking evacuees as they left Beaumont and then subsequent repatriation to the area when the storm ended up not being much of anything.

After spending a week in San Antonio and Beaumont, I came home for a weekend and was promptly deployed again to deal with Hurricane Ike. This bad boy was quite a differnt story. As my deployment started again in San Antonio to deal with evacuee tracking, the role of my unit was converted to shelter management and we spend the majority of the two weeks working various shelters in Lufkin, TX. Despite being hundreds of miles from the coast, the shelter we were initially stationed at still managed to loose power for four days, blow down trees and I was lucky enough to get stung in the neck by a wasp the day after the storm. You would not believe how many people in the shelters were looking for handouts. Some peopel truly had their houses destroyed and had no where else to go. Others just treated it like a mini vacation... questing when they would be getting their FEMA gas cards or if we could find a hotel to put them up in because they didn't like having to stay with 200 - 300 other people in the same shelter.

I came back monday, my birthday, to find my place smelling like a litter box and emiting toxic fumes that lead to me having to find a place to stay for a few days. In the meantime multiple industrial fans and a dehumidifier are doing their thing in my living room as I scramble to catch up on weeks worth of missed classes. I should be reading, or sleeping... but I knew that if I didn't post this now, I might never get back to blogging. For a good acount of what happened for the last few weeks just checking out my twitter feed.

Give me another week or two and I might be able to make a worth while post... in the meantime, I hope that some one decides to contribute to this effort because I have way to much going on to do this solo!