SINE

CRAP CRAP CRAP!! On Fool.com I checked out how my mock stock picks were stacking up. I find out my SINE pick was the second highest gainer today!!!!! Number two out of over 1,000 stocks!! I would have gained 61 bucks today on that stock!!! Add in my original purchase of Origin Oil and I would have been up 200 bucks!!! Dang it. Ok, next month I’m in. Shoot. For the past month or so, I’ve been doing fantastic on my days picks. Some up, some down, but If I can get 30-100 bucks a day doing it, why not?? The market is in such a volatile state that some stocks are just like the waves of the sea- up and down, then way up…

First U.S. war crimes trial starts at Guantanamo

(I borrow my title from a reuters.com article)

The Supreme Court ruled that Terrorists can take their cases before an American military court and that’s just what they’re doing. This is the first time this has happened since the Nuremberg trials of WWII.

I read this book in December and I highly recommend it. It outlines the dilemma of what to do with international war criminals. I mean think about it, what do you do? During WWII it was even harder because there were a handful of nations who wanted to try the criminals- the US, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union. The solution was fascinating- they

Indymac- Socialist Banking

Holy Cow! Now Indy Mac went under a few days ago. I thought this was ridiculous:

On June 26, 2008, several letters by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, chairman of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee and the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, were released. These opined that “The possible collapse of big mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc. poses significant financial risks to its borrowers and depositors, and regulators may not be ready to intervene to protect them”. The letters set off a bank run. IndyMac depositors, fearing for the worst, sought to withdraw their funds from the ailing bank. Regulators and others in the financial sector quickly criticized Senator Schumer for publicly releasing his letter, which acted to further destabilize the bank.

(Wikipedia: Indymac)

It’s like a scene out of It’s a Wonderful Life! Gigantic banks folding overnight, it’s being taken over by the Feds (Just like democrats want). Everyone runs for their money.. It’s a terrible thing.

My Stock Thoughts

Hmm.. A good idea is to buy stocks cheap. When the economy is hurting (like it clearly is) everything is undervalued– meaning that in 5+ years they’ll be worth much more once the economy turns around. Like it always does. That’s right people, markets cycle like Nephites. Buy low sell high? Right now it’s low. Buy time. I can’t promise it’s bottomed out yet (best time to buy), but it’s pretty cheap.

So what should I buy? Well, look at what is really hurting right now but isn’t out for the count. Bear Stearns. I’m wondering about Banks- like Bank of America. They’re not doing so hot, but are they going to pull a Bear Sterns … I hope. Energy (Alternative Energy) I’ll cover in a minute, but I think that’s a great sector to get in now that will only go up in 10-15 years ($$$$). Umm.. What else. . Oh, my Origin Oil - right now it’s sitting at .46 cents. In a month it went up a hair shy of 300%. Triple your money!! I knew it, I just didn’t have any money!!! Dang it! As soon as I get some play money I’m going to seriously consider plopping it down on this and seeing where it is in a month.

There are different investing philosophies. At this moment I feel like I have two:

1. Find companies that will do great in a decade or two like GE, FPL, or maybe UA (money I won’t touch for a long time)
2. Find stocks that are going to have a great month or quarter. I think I may try being an active trader- trade it in a month or two after I’ve made a decent profit. Ex: If I bought OOIL at 35 cents and sold it once it hit a buck or something, I dunno. That’s what’s scary to me. If I see a volatile stock (which is this category) like OOIL increasing, it’s tempting to cut bait and run with my 300% gain, but then again, what if the stock goes up from 1 dollar to 5 dollars in a year or two? Or what if it becomes a full fledged company and goes up to 11 bucks or 30? Well what I think is I’d get out cheap (a buck or so) and then if I check on it a year or three later and it’s a healthy, viable company trading at 7, 10 bucks or something and I feel it’ll only continue it’s upward trend, I’ll buy back in.

So that’s what I’ll do. In my Roth IRA with Charles Schwab I’ll invest in steady indexed mutual funds and the like, fund I know I can count on to retire on with relatively low risk. In my Scottrade account I’ll buy and sell more volatile stocks to get my feet wet (my investing learner’s permit as it were) while trying to make a bit of a profit taking it a month at a time (I say a month for two reasons- 1) it’ll cost 14 bucks to buy and sell if I do it all at once (7 bucks per buy/sell), so it’ll have to make a decent return to make it worth the cost. If I only earn 25 bucks that month only to lose most of the ground I gain in sell it?? So it would have to be like a 100 buck gain- a 20% gain a month would be cool. Then I’d sell and be all smiles. 20% a month is causing you savvy investors to laugh. I know it’s not going to happen– it’s a goal is all I’m saying. Dream the dream I say. It’ll be money I don’t NEED and can learn. Even if I lose my initial 500 bucks, I feel I’ll learn a lot. That’s why you start young- you can rebuild.

So I’m still reading the Motley Fool Investment Guide. It’s great. They suggest that when you start investing to start in a few comfortable domains. Start with what you know. If you work in the energy sector, you probably have a decent working knowledge of the industry and the different companies, which ones are going places, which ones are hurting- so start there! For example: My dad works for Baker Hughes Oil . During his career, oil did great as we all know, but is now hurting. There is currently a change in the wind and a lot of people are crying out for a change in our oil addiction. So in the next several years there’s going to be a huge shift toward alternative fuels. Talking to my dad he thinks it would be wise to keep your eye on the energy sector. Check out T. Boone Pickens, oil companies are some of the leaders in developing alternative energy sources because they need to adapt to survive . GE is clearly an energy leader and could be a great investment to make. If I felt like FPL, a leader in wind power, is going to just go gangbusters in a decade when we try and use much more wind power, then I should buy low- buy now. Here in 15 years stocks in alternative energies could be great!

Anyways, everything you read tells you to start young. Time is on your side, they say. The power of compounding interest and dividends. It’s true. If I stick in some money now when I’m 24 and a few thou each year, I’ll be sitting pretty.

FOX v CNN: Night and Day

So I watch CNN religiously for reasons previously mentioned. For a change of pace I am going to switch to FOX for a while to see what’s up. I’ve only been watching it for 2 days or so but my oh my is it a huge difference. Huge difference. CNN focuses on how real and bad global warming is. How it’s the fault of Oil companies. How Government is supposed to be a huge pacifier and cradle our entire nation. How money is unequally distributed. How minorities have it just as badly now as in the 70s. And above all, Obama is a rockstar.

Fox on the other hand almost perfectly counters CNN. Twice when guest commentators came on, the host said, “I’m sorry to hear about your wife” and “My condolences for the passing of your mother”. Now I’ve watched a million hours of CNN and they never are this cordial. I’ve never heard them be as thoughtful. They talked about how 3 prominent anchors are accompanying Obama as he goes over to Iraq while NONE went with McCain- media bias. They talked about how the N word is always inappropriate. They talked about Global warming. It may be ‘real’ but the cause and effect of it are way way way exaggerated. They covered a story about Mr. Captain Planet himself. That’s right, Mr. Al Gore was shown walking off his private JET into a limo (pollution). And after a Green event (where Gore asked people to ride bikes and ride public transportation) he had dinner with his family taking a fleet of 3 cars- 2 Lincoln sedans and an SUV. One driver sat idling for 20 minutes with the A/C on waiting for them. Bad for the environment. At least they had a cool car to climb into. From Glenn Beck’s newsletter:

Al Gore recently gave a speech where the advertisements encouraged people to ride their bikes (in 90 degree heat) or take public transportation to get to the event. Gore, always looking to live out his do as I say not as I do philosophy on life, showed up with a fleet of cars and SUV’s. This video is taken by a group who crashed the event and asked some attendees why they didn’t ride their bikes, and they ask Gore’s driver why he’s leaving the car idling with the air conditioning on. Watch the video.

Oh the pollution!! I love that Gore doesn’t drive a hybrid but a private Jet.

I doubt CNN covered this story. They want you to think he’s a perfect robot when really he’s just a robot. High gas prices are not the fault of oil companies (wake up people! gas is super expensive ALL OVER THE WORLD, not just America!). It’s the government’s job to regulate our activities, not run them. Right now the government took over Bear Stearns and Indy Mac. I can’t imagine if the banking business became federalized along with oil companies!!! Yikes! Can you say socialism?? Is money equally distributed? No, it’s not, but that’s not how America was set up. Can we work to help out the less fortunate? Make things more affordable? Sure. But not like democrats want. So far, the stories I’ve seen on FOX news are about: family values, anti-teen pregnancy, drilling for oil (YES!), how McCain is a decent candidate and Obama is a socialist.

It’s true. He is a socialist.

One more note on drilling for oil. At first glance we all frown at the idea of fixing the oil addiction by drilling for more of it. At first glance it seems counter intuitive. However, this is because by and large America is an oil BUYER not SUPPLIER. We are price TAKERS not MAKERS. If we can become more INDEPENDENT about our oil consumption, then we can ease some of the stress while we search for building up alternatives. No one is saying were not addicted and need to get off of it. The reality is that we cannot suddenly jump to Wind Power tomorrow. If we did then great! No more gas. Problem solved. But it’s going to take 10-20 years before alternative energy could become a major source of energy. And in the mean time? Democrats would have us continue to be at the mercy of foreign nations and import our oil. Democrats have been against drilling for oil as a general principle. Republicans are unified in the media in their message: Yes we are too addicted, it hurts the economy, so let’s move toward alternatives, but IN THE MEAN TIME, we need to tap into the energy resources we already have!

Democrats do not understand high school economics.

So watch FOX v CNN and see which one you agree with more. If CNN, you’re a fool and a socialist, plain and simple. If FOX, you’re simply an American.

Obama’s Tax Plan: Rob from the rich to give to the Poor.

Not the American Dream.

“This is not a Drill”

This is why I read Ann Coulter. This is her latest article and it cracks me up

(I don’t block quote it cuz that would be annoying to read):

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or as she is called on the Big Dogs blog, “the worst speaker in the history of Congress,” explained the cause of high oil prices back in 2006: “We have two oilmen in the White House. The logical follow-up from that is $3-a-gallon gasoline. It is no accident. It is a cause and effect. A cause and effect.”

Yes, that would explain why the price of oral sex, cigars and Hustler magazine skyrocketed during the Clinton years. Also, I note that Speaker Pelosi is a hotelier … and the price of a hotel room in New York is $1,000 a night! I think she might be onto something.

Is that why a barrel of oil costs mere pennies in all those other countries in the world that are not run by “oilmen”? Wait — it doesn’t cost pennies to them? That’s weird.

In response to the 2003 blackout throughout the Northeast U.S. and parts of Canada, Pelosi blamed: “President Bush and Rep. Tom DeLay’s oil-company interests.” The blackout was a failure of humans operating electric power; it had nothing to do with oil. And I’m not even “an oilman.”

But yes — good point: What a disaster having people in government who haven’t spent their entire lives in politics! That explains everything. A government official with relevant experience or knowledge about an issue is obviously a crisis of gargantuan proportions.

This must be why the Democrats are nominating B. Hussein Obama, who finished middle school three days ago and has less experience than a person one might choose at random from the audience of “American Idol.”

Announcing the Democrats’ bold new “plan” on energy last week, Pelosi said breaking into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “is one alternative.” That’s not an energy plan. It’s using what we already have — much like “conservation,” which is also part of the Democrats’ plan.

Conservation, efficiency and using oil we hold in reserve for emergencies does not get us more energy. It’s as if we were running out of food and the Democrats were telling us: “Just eat a little less every day.” Great! We’ll die a little more slowly. That’s not what we call a “plan.” We need more energy, not a plan for a slower death.

But there’s more! Pelosi announced that the Democrats also plan to push for “an historic investment in biofuels, efficiency, conservation and the rest.” The “rest” is apparently what she called our “important and essential” investment in alternative energy.

That certainly would be historic: We would make history by throwing our money away on unproven energy boondoggles that have eaten up untold billions since the 1960s without producing a single net kilowatt of power while we all starve to death.

The proposal to use energy sources that don’t yet produce any energy is like the old New Yorker cartoon with Obama in Muslim garb — no wait, that was a different cartoon. The cartoon is: A scientist has written out his extremely complicated theory on a blackboard and is showing it to another scientist. The theory consists of numbers and characters and takes up the entire blackboard. About two-thirds of the way across, reading left to right, appear the words, “then a miracle happens,” followed by more numbers and characters.

That’s the Democrats’ plan to run cars on biofuels, solar and wind power: Then a miracle happens. The current Democratic mantra on energy is: “We can’t drill our way out of this problem.” Apparently their plan is to talk our way out of this problem.

Democrats are also alleging that the oil companies are sitting on millions of acres of oil but are refusing to drill — presumably because oil company executives hate the American people and perversely don’t want to make money. Manifestly, those acres are being explored for oil or have already come up dry.

If the Democrats really wanted oil companies to find more oil, they’d allow oil companies to drill offshore and to drill in ANWR, which we happen to know is bursting with oil.

But they don’t. They don’t want drilling. They don’t want more oil. They want humans to ride bicycles and then to die. We deserve it: We were mean to the polar bears.

It’s good to know that in the middle of a crisis, the Democrats are still liars. As long as we’re fantasizing about “alternative” energy sources, what we really need is a car that runs on Democrats’ lies.”

HAHAHA Good job Ann Coulter! For the record, I’m much more optimistic than she is about both democrats and alternative fuels (I hope to invest in them someday), but her satire cracks me up.

Dumb democrats.

BYU Alum ‘o8. That’s me.

I used to feel like there is 1 job out there that I was predestined to find and find now. Currently I feel like it’s more like a game of hot/cold– I feel that I’m supposed to come to a fork in the road, choose one path, only to come to another. Sometimes the choices are indeed right from wrong or better from worse. But other times I feel the choice is between good and good…

I think about my talents (what I consider them to be– a huge flaw I know), what I enjoy doing, what I could see myself doing and being good at it, and amazingly enough there are more than one possibility. I feel I could be a lawyer (still the plan), I still feel I could have a very satisfying life as a therapist (if I decided to get a MSW or LCSW or something), I think it would be a blast to be a writer- a book about who knows what, but something. I even asked my friend the other day if he ever considered being a FBI agent. I’m not much of a physical guy, nor a gun guy, but that job sounds DANG cool. The FBI loves recruiting people with law degrees– so you get your law degree, sign up and get a career where you mix the interesting aspects of criminal legal issues with federal law enforcement. There are some definite downsides to the job– it’s not my number one choice– but it would be fascinating. Just trying to make a point.

Anyways, there you go.

I’ve decided not to double major.

On one hand…

My Bike Ride to Mt. Sinai

I don’t keep a journal, so I’ll just tell you my experience. It sounds kind of corny, I know, but I feel like I just got back from a 3 week vacation. I feel like a new person.

I picked up my bike today (new road tires) and put on a headlamp, odometer, fanny pack thing, and went for a ride. At Macey’s I picked up some batteries for my light around 9 pm, stuck them in, and took off for Wal-Mart. If you’re at all familiar with the Provo/Orem area you know that it’s a decent distance away. I took off up State Street as night fell and was enjoying my outing very much. It’s the first time I’ve exercised in quite a while. It felt good to get my heart pumping a bit, feel the wind on my face, the cool air as I pass streams and rivers. I looked around at all the cars and thought about my mission in Sao Paulo. It’s in the top 3 biggest cities in the world and her streets were continually filled with people and traffic. I thought about how I enjoy big city life. Instead of heading down University Parkway (the main busy road), I pedaled through empty parking lots and back alleys. I was so used to being in Provo, LDS central, that it almost felt like I was out of the bubble and back into the real world. Admittedly a strange emotion, but it struck me that in a year or two I will be leaving Provo to start my life– in a manner of speaking. That I won’t be constantly surrounded by co-eds and fellow Mormons. That I’ll get a real job and have real adult responsibilities. Bills to pay, and a life to lead. I realized that I can do anything I want! I can move to any place in the world I wish and do anything I want. It was about at this point, about halfway through my journey that my thoughts turned toward the Gospel. I starting thinking about how hollow life would be without it. How confusing. How lonely. People set out to make some sort of sense of their lives, but never really understanding it. Never really understanding why they may be happy, yet feel something is still missing. Always something is missing. They don’t understand the deep abiding inner peace that the restored Gospel alone can bring. That’s why missionary work is so vital to His plan. It really is The Plan of Happiness. Unfortunately many people think that money, women, or drugs can fill the void, but it never can. It’s not supposed to. I take that back. I believe that people don’t honestly think that. Deep down they all know it’s an illusion. They may have convinced themselves they are happy but they’re not. It’s impossible. You cannot have peace and real happiness without adhering to gospel principles. It’s like walking around saying 1+1=3 and as much as you believe it, and have been taught it all growing up… it can never be true. Anytime I see someone with no purpose in life, no family, no principles or integrity; someone who flashes all his/her fancy things with a grin– I always think to myself “you poor, poor man. You’re miserable”. There is no substitute for the gospel life, only counterfeits. No substitute for integrity, the priesthood, the atonement, family. It was very refreshing to be out on the back roads with all the distractions of life far in my rear-view. Yes, my bike has a rear-view mirror; I don’t want to be squished. A time or two I was tempted to just stop my bike, sit down on the side of the road, and just look at the sky. Tomorrow night I might just do that very thing. This will be my nightly routine. Have you ever thought you were pretty relaxed only to receive a massage and realize how tense you actually were? You never knew you had all those knots in your back? Then afterwards you feel a thousand times better? Even though you didn’t know something was ‘wrong’ in the first place? I usually feel that way about face massages– I highly recommend them. Well that’s what I felt tonight. When I got back from that bike ride a few minutes ago, I looked around my living room here and felt like a new man. Refocused and with renewed purpose. Often people go to the temple so they can sit quietly alone in holy places and talk to themselves and to God. It’s a place where you can feel Him near and your thoughts are crystal clear. Problems that have been mountains instantly shrink into perspective once your faith tank is topped off. Ancients would go to mountain tops to be alone and in His presence. For me, while I do in fact have mountains a few miles to my east, I don’t feel like climbing them. But I will go for nightly bike rides to remote places (with my safety gear and a cell phone of course) and commune with eternity. A simple bike ride to Wal-Mart turned out to be the best night of my summer.

(I rode to Wal-Mart to get the rear-view mirror. Works great.)

Jesse Jackson is a Racemonger, not a hero.

Hahaha. I reiterate what I said before: Jesse Jackson is a through and through racist.

Read this article from the NY Post and try to follow Jackson’s logic.

JESSE JACKSON SAYS HE WANTS TO CUT OBAMA’S ‘NUTS OFF’

By CHARLES HURT, D.C. Bureau Chief

In a vulgar tirade caught on tape by Fox News, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said he wanted to “cut his [Barack Obama's] nuts off” and he accused the fellow Chicagoan of “talking down to black folks” by giving moral lectures to African-Americans, source said…

Jackson’s shocking quotes were picked up by a hot mic before an interview on health care in Fox’s Chicago studio last Sunday…

Jackson said he couldn’t recall everything he’d said in the studio but couched the remarks as part of a discussion about Obama speaking to black churchgoers.

In such settings, Obama has urged greater emphasis on fatherhood, advised parents to choose reading books over playing video games and most recently told young students to stick with school and forget about a career as a rap star or professional basketball player.

Jackson said that in doing so Obama was hurting his relationship with black voters, “that the senator was cutting off his you-know-whats with the black people and black churches.”…

Obama had no comment.

[Bold added by me]

Jackson is just selfish. He wants racial issues to continue so he can keep in the limelight- this comment proves that he’s not interested in bringing this country together and actually solving social problems.

Obama, according to the article, spoke to black people saying “Let’s be good fathers not just sperm donors! Let’s give our children more books and less video games! Let’s tell them they can succeed in areas other than rap music and sports!”

Sounds like a DANG fine game plan for ANY community let alone African-Americans. And what is Jackson’s reaction, “Grrr! Telling black men to be good fathers, read to their children, and inspire them… Obama is getting out of touch with what it means to be black! He’s going to lose votes with all this nonsense about being a strong family and support system!”

Jackson is not interested in solving racial problems (well, only if he can be at the head of the movement and get all the fame). He wants black people to continue to feel angry toward whites, and feel cheated, and have broken homes, so that they will ‘need a leader’ like him. Jesse J, you sir, are a smuck.

My Health and Hobbies

Intellectual Emotional Spiritual Financial Physical

In the autobiography Convictions, John Kroger worked thirteen hour days seven days a week. After three years he decided to take his first vacation. What can I say, his job was his life. So I thought about myself. How well rounded am I? Am I challenging myself in all the right areas? I did a cursory reflection of how I spend my time and energy and this is what I came up with.

What am I doing to take care of my…?

Intellectual Health- School, Books

Emotional Health- Relationships, Blogging, Piano

Spiritual Health- Church

Financial Health- Investing

Physical Health- Biking

Am I missing any area? Let’s break it down…

Intellectual Health- I think this is the most important muscle you posses. Your brain. Obviously the main dumbbell I use to work this muscle is school. The second is my books. Today I think I read over 100 pages.

But all work and no play can be taxing. Have you ever heard the story of the two lumberjacks?

One man took his axe and just hacked and hacked and hacked away at a tree, nonstop all day only to get 75% of the way through it. The man beside him would chop away for a few hours at a time, then left to take breaks, and would come back to resume his work. This second man felled his tree by nightfall. The exhausted first man was astonished. “How did you do that?? Our trees are the same size, and I was swinging nonstop! You took breaks and still accomplished more than me? How?” The second man simply replied, “During my breaks I sharpened my axe.”

Wealth Management

Between homework and class, here’s what I’ve been thinking about today…

I found out a few days ago that I will become financially on my own in January. No more ‘Parent Life Scholarship’ to pay for everything. Although I will receive a few subsidies, for the most part I will be on my own. Therefore I need to start now!

I finished that book Convictions and moved on to a great book called The Millionaire Next Door by these two Ph.D. characters. In theory this book is going to motivate me to save, live below my means, and put my money somewhere smart (not rotting under my mattress). So far I’ve read The Richest Man in Babylon, and Rich Dad, Poor Dad which are in the same genre (motivation).

In The Millionaire Next Door (do you really italicize books, or do you “ ” them? Ugh.) the authors delineate 7 common denominators they observe in the wealthy. Maybe I should define ‘wealthy’ first- It’s not the “abundance of material possessions” so much as having assets (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, businesses) available. IMHO, LDS teachings encourage this definition of wealth (safety).

Here they are

1. They live well below their means.
2. They allocate their time, energy, and money efficiently, in ways conducive to building wealth.
3. They believe financial independence is more important than displaying high social status.
4. Their parents did not provide economic outpatient care.
5. Their adult children are economically self-sufficient.
6. They are proficient in targeting market opportunities

Let’s look at a few of these.

I now read 500+ wpm

So I have always been a slow reader. I read a lot, but slowly. So I wanted to learn more about speed reading. It’s actually good stuff and works! Stuff like subvocalization (bad) and chunking (good). So I am now able to read at 500 wpm comfortably– on my computer screen which should be more impressive since people actually read much slower on a screen than a hard copy of a document.

To test it out I opened this page– it’s an article we have to read for Psychology 353 on Homosexuality and it’s about the longest Word document on my computer- transcript_printable.htm

It’s the best article on homosexuality I’ve ever read (a lecture by an LDS psychologist).

Results

15 pages

9,191 words

in 17min 18 seconds (stopwatch)

for an average of

530 wpm.

Good for me. Next is to get a book on PDF and try it out. I also highly recommend RapidReader for reading documents on your computer. I use it, it’s swell, fast, and easy.

Should I Double Major??

What do you think?

Background

So I will take the LSAT (again) and apply to law schools in October then be ready to graduate in December. However, there’s a chance that I will only be accepted to my ’safety net’/plan B law schools… when I get to that bridge– March or so– maybe I’ll be ok with that and decide to go to a smaller law school in Texas. Until last night that was about my plan- I’m going to law school no matter what. But what if I can do better than that? Or at least what if I could already be working on Plan B while waiting to see how Plan A pans out? I spent an hour last night talking to my parents about my options. Here’s the scenario we came up with:

What if I stay in school and double major?

War on Drug Cartels: We’re Losing.

“Cocaine is God’s way of saying you’re making too much money” - Robin Williams

…a typical scam[:] A cartel member… volunteered to become a DEA informant for pay. A few weeks later the “informant” reached out to his DEA handlers and told them that a major drug shipment, a million dollars of marijuana, hidden inside a battered blue truck, would be coming across the border at a specific time and place. When H-hour arrived, the blue truck showed up at the border just as the informant said it would, and dozens of agents converged on it. They began to dismantle the truck, and to their glee, they quickly found the stash, hidden in a false fuel tank… To all appearances, it looked like a government victory.

In truth, however, the whole event had been staged. The marijuana truck was driven by a stooge, a yokel the cartel had set up to be caught. The marijuana itself was real, but to the cartel, its loss represented a cost-effective trade: one million dollars in lost pot in exchange for a major border distraction. A few minutes after the blue marijuana truck entered the border crossing station, the cartel’s real truck, a sleek commercial eighteen-wheeler packed with more than one hundred million dollars of cocaine, entered the same facility five or six lanes away. Normally the truck would have received close scrutiny, but that was now impossible, for virtually all the inspectors on duty were busy dismantling the decoy marijuana truck and arresting its startled drive, who had probably been told the inspectors would be bribed. The small amount of inspectors who remained at their regular posts were totally distracted, watching to see if the lucky agents crawling all over the blue truck would get a bust. When the cartel’s truck pulled up in the inspection lane, the inspector took a cursory look. All he saw were boxes of Mexican vegetables, bound for US tables, loaded professionally in a truck that appeared to belong to a respected American carrier. The inspector asked a few routine questions and then waved the truck through.

Today I will finish Convictions by John Kroger and I just read a very interesting section on public policy related to the mafia and the drug war. It’s John Kroger’s explanation for why the government was able to stamp out wide-spread mafia power yet cannot make any headway when it comes to the war on drugs. I’ve had several conversations with friends about possible solutions- if we just legalize it will the problem go down or up? Will law enforcement costs go up or down? Will public use go up or down? (In the short run I bet it will go up, but after a few years will people grow tired of it or will America be so addicted that drug use will increase?). This post will address the war on drugs; the mafia post will come later. Remember that Mr. Kroger is a successful Federal Narcotics Prosecutor in NYC. Anyways, here’s what Mr. Kroger talks about:

How to Win a War on Drugs?

Considered individually, my cases were successful. They certainly garnered me professional praise. But their aggregate contribution to our goal of a drug-free New York was close to nil. I was working thirteen hours a day, seven days a week. But when I got home at night, I knew in my heart that my work was almost meaningless, for the strategy behind the war on drugs was deeply flawed…

I’m not Suicidal: of Girlfriends and LSATs :(

What a horrible past few days. Especially the past 24 hours. Just awful. Terrible, horrible, no good very bad day. I can’t remember a worse 24 hours in a long long time. Everything was going my way just 2 days ago and now I’m left with a hope and a prayer. Luckily, as my mom can attest, I have a wonderfully handy emotional-defense mechanism that comes in handy- at the point where I should freak out and feel deep dark, bitter emotions of sadness etc. I form a wall to block out the pain and anguish.. Why me, why me. Here’s what happened these past few days.

Glenn Beck: Patriot

Last night I went to a patriotic meeting to kick off the city’s Freedom Days leading up to the 4th of July. This meeting was great . I happened upon a family that I am friends with and sat with them and chatted about the speaker- Glenn Beck . I remember hearing him on the radio when I was younger. I remember that he converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints after his divorce which was a great triumph for our team. He is a conservative political commentator/entertainer/radio host with his own cable news show on CNN; he has a significant following and secular power. More than most LDS members. He rants and raves about how Washington is full of crooks and slackers and says we can’t rely on them for change, “we the people” are the ones to bring about change and pioneer the future. When the MC announced Glenn Beck as the speaker, the entire stadium lit up. Cheers, clapping, and standing ovation. His face was put on the mega-screen and you could see him crying as he waved which only made people clap louder. Utah has to be the most conservative Glenn Beck loving state in the union. Maybe Idaho can compete, but Utah is conservative country for sure. The ceremony was the most patriotic/religious event I’d ever seen since NASCAR yesterday. Flag ceremony, National Anthem, a Rabbi said the prayer.. Good times.

One of my fav parts was when the band played a medley of each Armed Forces branch fight songs. As each song was played we all clapped to the beat and members of that branch were asked to stand to be recognized. As I saw these old men from the Navy, Marines, Air Force, and a large number from the Army stand, I had to hold back the tears. No one in my family served in the military besides my Jewish grandfather who fought in WWII. Even then he never talked about it, so the military and war were both concepts far away from my own life. I almost cracked when the Army men/women were standing and I saw half a family stand- grandpa, dad, and two sons, all stand up. I looked around and saw a few very old men clapping along as they stood with tears running down their cheeks.

The News is very Biased

Tell me, what do you think about the news? How much do you trust the newscaster? I’d bet you trust him/her a lot. I mean, they’re not going to lie to you; “Baby trapped in building!” when it never happened. But what if it’s not a matter of out and out lying as it is about deception, misrepresentation, and spin.

Gasp! I know. For any of you who know me personally this sounds shocking because I love the news. I watch the news every day- CNN. Minimum I’ll watch Wolf Blitzer’s Situation room and my favorite, Anderson Cooper 360. I don’t watch CNN because I agree with their views, it’s in fact because I disagree with them. I’ll explain that later.

It would be a nice thought (also read naive) to assume that each news station only wanted to give us the cold hard facts and let us, the viewer, decide how we feel about the story. Back in the olden days when things were simpler, I bet news anchors did just that- they reported the news. However, even then I’m sure the cultural morality and populist views colored the stories. After all, how hard it is to explain the day to day events of the presidential election without showing some bias. Fast forward to the present and any façade of ‘fair and balanced’ (the motto of Fox News) is long gone.

Religion: 1 Utilitarianism: 0

One subject that I enjoy is philosophy. I enjoy it because it’s the secular/rational version of religion. I think the same thing about psychology. It’s the secular form of religion. Anyways, so I’m reading Convictions by John Kroger and in the opening chapter he talks about his days as a philosophy major at Yale. He says

“I never adopted one single philosophical view. On the contrary, I borrowed bits and pieces of wisdom from a broad variety of thinkers: from Aristotle, the importance of forming good habits, of keeping one’s life in balance, of friendship and the life of the mind; from Nietzsche, the importance of rigorous, independent critical thinking; from Aquinas, the value of analytic clarity. I revered these thinkers, but on e influence stood out above them all: the great nineteenth-century British utilitarian philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.”

He begins talking about Utilitarianism. I think it’s interesting, so I look it up. Kroger continues,

“What makes an action “good”? [Utilitarianists] answered that a person’s actions should be judged by their social consequences. Am action is good if it tends to maximize overall human happiness and bad if it leads to increased suffering. To give a simple example, donating two hundred dollars to a fund for hungry children is more virtuous than spending money on a fancy pair of shoes, for the first choice will do more to alleviate human pain… In the end… I concluded that in a democracy the most direct way to improve human conditions is to get involved in politics.”

Yeah for being an attorney! Anyway, I love looking at philosophy from a view of the LDS doctrine. I submit that it’s more powerful than reason because as any philosophy amateur can tell you, reason can be fooled. I’ll use our current discussion to prove my point. Wikipedia the Infallible says:

Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility, that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all persons. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome—the ends justify the means.

Now reason would say that you look at the situation at determine if the ends justify the means: what is the summed contribution to overall happiness or pleasure? What is the flaw you ask? The flaw is that we are trying to gauge the overall utility of an action by looking through our mortal, short-sighted vision. Looking through a glass darkly if you will. The flaw is that utilitarianism does not account for long-term consequences (an afterlife) that cannot be properly accessed with reason. ‘U’ only works if you discount any afterlife and assume that here in the world what you see is what you get and your actions will have no consequences upon death– you disappear, vanish, and or cease to exist. If that were true, then I think U would be a great idea and might make more sense. As it so happens, there is an afterlife and therefore using U to gauge questions larger than “what kind of car should I buy?” would be like measuring the ocean with a ten gallon bucket (or 1,000 gallon bucket and for the record, the car question? Kroger said he used his utilitarianism to buy a Honda civic based on the high mileage, cheap price, and low emissions).

Religion, however, teaches you how to judge if the ends justify the ends taking into account the size of the ocean. Only then can you really know if the end result will be maximum happiness or pleasure.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

My first book review is posted on my “Books” page (the green tab at the top of the blog). Enjoy!

Swastika Tattoos

So a perk of WordPress (and one of the reasons I moved over here) is that I can see how people arrive at my humble little blog; whether it be by link of a friends blog, a search engine or whatever. Well, I’m looking at the search engine terms that are bringing people here and one that comes up often enough to make me wonder is “swastika tattoo(s)”. What the…. did I blog somewhere about either of these? When people Google or Yahoo or whatever “swastikas and tattoos” why does it bring them to my site?? Don’t they know that by heritage I’m half-Jewish?! Weird. I need to go to bed. I have a Women Studies final in the morning before a full day of work (3-9).